“NAY SHED A CLOUT BEFORE MAY IS OUT
”
This is an old and familiar weather rhyme. There are two interpretations of this. The question is, does "before May is out," mean we can shed our extra warm clothes (clouts) when the May flowers bloom, or when the month of May ends? I still don't know for sure, having often taken it to be the May coming into bloom and getting caught out by a really chilly day in late April or early May.
Smell and scents can be powerful triggers for memories. For my mother, the scent of paraffin would bring back the memory of her mother lighting the oil lamps in the home near the cross roads in Borough Green in Kent. My mother was born in 1903, and her mother passed away in 1906, so this was a very early memory in deed.
For me, it is the scent of may flowers that are so evocative, bringing back memories of the banks of may that were ranged across the grassy green slopes above the little town center of Abbey Wood, in South East London, at the edges of Kent.
We moved from there when I was ten in 1954, and before moving day, I stood amongst the great, white mounds of may blossom, breathing in the wonderful, intoxicating scent, and promising myself I would remember this for ever - and I have.
I also remember being on a spring holiday with my mother, beneath the South Downs in Sussex, when I was a lot younger. I dashed into the house where we were staying with a bunch of may blossom and got the sharp response from the lady of the house,
"Not in here! That will mean someone is going to die!"
How sad that anyone should think of these beautiful flowers, with their wonderful scent, as bringing a curse! I prefer to think of them as part of the Lord's gracious and loving creation, and to thank God for them.
Edith Holden in “The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady”, when writing about May, quotes Chaucer:
“Among the many buds proclaiming May
Decking the fields in holiday array,
Striving who shall surpass in braverie,
Marke the faire flowering of the hawthorne tree.”
