My First Date with Jack
SERENA FERRARI
Ever since my partner and I moved to St. Leonards back in March, we’ve heard a growing buzz about Jack in the Green. From whispering rumours to outright professions of love for the May Day tradition. “You don’t know about Jack in the Green!? Guys, it’s her first Jack!” The way everyone talked about it, with a kind of cherished love and pride as if Jack was a beloved member of their own family, stoked my curiosity and at the same time emphasised my outsider status. Everybody seemed to know about Jack.
But when I asked specifically what Jack in the Green was, no one could really define it. People tried, of course, throwing words around like ‘Pagan’ and ‘Spring’. But when they tried to describe the actual procession— a giant moving bush parading around the town— it was inconceivable to me, a foreigner who was born and raised in upstate New York where May Day was a call for alarm rather than celebration. It was confusing to hear people talk affectionately about Bogeys and Milkmaids, to see pictures of dancing giants and green masks that reminded me of male medusas.
Coming to Lady’s Parlour just before dawn, I was taken aback by the sheer size of the crowd which had amassed at such an ungodly hour. Rosy-cheeked children bundled in prams, doggies on taut leads, people of all ages chatting jovially despite the not-yet risen sun. I watched as some attendees surreptitiously sipped on flasks while others not so surreptitiously poured whisky into their morning brew. Everyone greeted each other with a sense of homecoming even though, surely, they must have seen each other not long ago. One woman with green-streaked hair and large shapely rings blew kisses at every Morris dancer who walked past.
Scowling silhouette
But the magic for me arrived in the shape of a female giant, scowling intensely with a broom in her hand. When I saw her silhouette against the lightening sky, it took a few conscious efforts to register that she wasn’t actually real. It’s hard to recall the feeling now, but at the sight of the giant dancing at dawn, I became disinterested in any sense of rational reality. I could feel my imagination loosening from its cognitive tethers. I wanted to play and dress up and lose myself in the festive persona which Jack in the Green guaranteed me. Dramatized by the castle ruins nearby and the almost imperceptible crawl of the day, I had the feeling that I was in a liminal time zone both present and past, real and surreal.
That surreality only grew as we walked along the promenade towards the Fisherman’s Museum, marvelling at the number of motorcycles revving past. We hadn’t realised that a motorcycle convention coincides every year with Jack in the Green – a contrast of green gowns against the full-body leather suits, the gun-shot pop-pop-pop of engines counterpointing the melodic peal of Morris bells.
As we waited, the collective anticipation was palpable, a clear fidgetiness amongst the onlookers who hoped to get a good view of the Jack as he made his way through the Old Town. Children on fathers’ shoulders, grandmothers pushed to the forefront of the crowd. But in the end it didn’t really matter. It was impossible to miss the nine-foot rotating rhododendron bush with a crown on his head and streamers swimming in the air like tentacles. Miraculously, the Jack appeared light on his feet, as light as if he was levitating, and he danced and spun with ease around the Bogeys, green-painted warriors who beat drums loudly and sipped from horn cups. He was followed by a long procession of men and women painted in alien green with colorful garlands wound around their bodies. Morris Dancers and teams of drummers alternated with puppets like the Sock-Mess Monster and a waddling man made of sticks. Every sight was new and a little intimidating, hard to take in, a playful construction of magic to kick up the dust on one’s imagination.
All ages
At the tail-end of the procession, I joined the group, asking local veterans about what the May Day tradition meant to them. One woman, named Fishy, claimed that, aside from its pagan qualities, the festival represented for her a celebration of people of all ages. “When you get to a certain age in Hastings, you don’t have to start slowing down and being quiet. We celebrate everybody here and so you can be any age and join in and be part of the community and so you feel really viable.” Another local, a woman who was raised in Hastings and returns most years for Jack in the Green admitted that she nearly cried upon his release. “It’s really emotional,” she said. “It’s community.”
On my first date it hasn’t been easy to put into words the mischievous spirit and inner playfulnesses which Jack in the Green unleashes in all of us. Yes, it’s a marking for the change in season where the dispiriting winter shifts towards a more hopeful spring, but it’s also a marking for people who, during these particularly gruelling and unprecedented times, can find some refuge in tradition and community: a day in which one can forget troubles and find hope as a stray rhododendron leaf flutters into a tiny palm. Or in my case, a day in which I was welcomed warmly into the embrace of what Keith Leech called “a sense of pride in one’s culture”, even if it is not necessarily my own.
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