Mummers, Maypoles & Milkmaids

Last Sunday the LGMG went to the Horniman Museum to see the Body Adorned exhibition, ostensibly about styles of dress and adornment in the capital. That was fun, although there was little attempt to marry up the range of ethnographic paraphernalia the Museum had brought out of its stores with the more modern videos, photographs and outfits which were indeed interesting and sometimes thought-provoking. However round the corner (and up the stairs) was 'Mummers, Maypoles and Milkmaids', a photographic display examining English calendar customs and rituals and devised by photographer Sara Hannant. I thought that was so enjoyable I bought the accompanying book:

The photos are lovely, colourful, full of interest and very human. You might think all these calendar customs date back centuries to the times when either bored or desperate peasants cooked up all sorts of excuses to dress up in ridiculous garb, bang sticks together and get slarmied on mead. Well, some are - the Abbots Bromley Horn Dance dates at least to the 13th century, as do some of the horns still used in it - but others are more modern, such as the London Apple Fair, or the Pagan March which takes place in Bloomsbury. Ms Soomarah looked at the photograph of the latter and asked 'Does that woman have her corset on upside down?'