WHAT sort of idiot gets up at four in the morning, drives 35 miles to Oxford just to hear a choir sing for a quarter of an hour from a tower – only to get crushed by a load of inebriated students?

The question, put in this soulless fashion by a village chum, was easy to answer: I’m that idiot and an unrepentant one at that. I wouldn’t miss May Morning for the world.

For three or four hours, part of the city is gripped with an air of happiness that can’t be matched. It’s not all alcohol-fuelled, although to be fair many of the survivors of late-night/early morning celebrations are fortified by the the odd glass of whatever.

Imagine what I would have missed.

I wouldn’t have seen the sun magically turning Magdalen Tower to gold, seconds before the choir began to sing.

I wouldn’t have heard a group of Brookes’ students in DJs and black ties – albeit the latter unfastened – spontaneously singing a spirited version of Jerusalem below the tower minutes after the ‘official business’ was completed.

I wouldn’t have seen the bearded young dad, festooned in flowers, ivy and other greenery, proudly carrying his similarly decorated three-month-old daughter in a front sling, introducing her to the world of May Morning.

Radcliffe Square with its brass band, noisy morris men and women, straight-backed (and straight-faced) Scottish dancers and the army of musicians on the steps of the Clarendon Building would have been heard and cheered by one less admirer.

It’s unthinkable.

AND I met a new friend, Freddie. It was his first May Morning. Smiling broadly, he was delighted with what he saw and heard.

Noise and crowds didn’t bother him – which says a lot for a nine-month-old lad out with his mum.

MY only disappointment was that I couldn’t head for Botley Road and enjoy a full English breakfast at Mick’s Café near the station. This May Morning ‘must’ disappeared when it closed a few weeks ago.

But as the saying goes, when one door closes...

Standing at the Turl end of Brazenose Lane, a young woman was offering free sausage sandwiches, tea and coffee at the Wesley Memorial Church hall in New Inn Hall Street.

She is a member of the John Wesley Society for students and graduates which meets at that church.

Many food outlets were making the best of the May Day windfall.

Yet, true to her word, she and students from various colleges were there to welcome and feed us without charge. It was the society’s contribution to May Day, she said.

Thank you – from the 80 of us who took advantage of the offer.