It’s May Day 1963 and the Padstow’obby’oss circles, wheels and jigs to the drums, working its way through the crowds towards the maypole on Broad Street. Devon art student David ‘Doc’ Rowe was in the crowd; little did he know this day would change the course of his entire life.
“I couldn’t believe it was so emotional, so personal, local people celebrating – singing and music,” he recalls. “I went back in 1964 because I couldn’t believe what I had seen.”
Padstow May Day became an annual pilgrimage for Doc, meeting the locals, embedding himself. “I’d made friends with people, but I didn’t think anything of it,” he says. “I didn’t think about taking pictures until the second or third year. There’s probably about eight snaps from 1964, and then thousands from last year.”
Inadvertantly, Doc had taken the first steps on a 60-year journey that would culminate in a priceless record of some of our most spectacular folk traditions.
THE WHITBY ARCHIVE
After several wrong turns, I arrive at St Hilda’s Business Centre on the outskirts of Whitby, an unassuming Victorian block – not the sort of place you’d expect to find a folk heritage archive
