A quiet day in Hastings

May Day in Hastings is never the quietest of days. There are two separate events happening simultaneously, The May Day Bike Run, and the Jack-in-the-Green festival. And just to add to the chaos, a old London Routemaster Bus was cruising around the town as well, searching for places to park so that the theatre group I'm part of could publicise its upcoming production of Summer Holiday. Here's the bus, about to arrive at Harold Place in the centre of the 'new town'.

It's estimated that 15,000 bikes descend on Hastings during the May Bank Holiday. Bear in mind that's a Police estimate, so if it works the same way that demo marches do, we can safely double that figure. An endless stream of bikes of all kinds, from candy coloured crotch rockets to lovingly cared for vintage Triumphs, from Honda spaceships on two wheels to outlandish custom trikes, from enormous Harleys to tiny Vespas, comes down the A21 and ends up trying to park along a couple of miles of seafront. Here's what it looked like in the morning, before all the sea mist had had a chance to burn off. As you can see, even then, the only place left to park was down the middle of the road.

By midday the pavements were starting to fill up as well.

And then the fishing beach started to fill up.

It was time to move up to the top of the hill in search of some peace. No such luck. This is where the Jack-in-the-Green festival is taking place. Here's a small section of the crowd on top of the West Hill. The Old town nestles in the valley and more people can be seen on top of the East Hill, as can the forlorn sign 'No Link Road', vainly hoping that by pretending it doesn't exist it can prevent the progress of the the pointless bypass currently being built between Bexhill and Hastings.

Here's Jack in the Green and his court. He's not the big green bloke to the right, he's actually the Christmas tree wearing a crown to the left. He's soon to be escorted to the main stage by the Bogies surrounding him, where he will be ritually slain and the spirit of Summer will be released for another year. Or something like that.

 And that's what this cartoon from last year was all about.