The Front Cover for this issue features children in Victorian costume dancing around the May Pole watched by a large crowd. April Martin thought up the theme for the cover and Alan Morris arranged the graphics.

May Day (May 1st) has long been associated with spring festivals and coincides with the ancient Celtic celebration of Beltane. It has, however, in recent years developed a second association as a day of celebration for the Labour Movement.

Beltane is one of the ancient pre-Christian fire festivals, it was actually a three-day festival which ended on May 1st with general festivities and merrymaking. The focus of the rites was to ensure fertility for the coming year - the maypole is a rather obvious fertility symbol - and young couples would sleep outdoors to celebrate the "Great Rite" a practice which, not surprisingly, was finally made illegal in 1644 by the Puritan government. The Puritan writer, Phillip Stubbes in his "Anatomie of Abuses" (1583) described the May ceremonies: "I have heard it credibly reported that of forty, sixty or a hundred maids going to the wood overnight, there have scarcely the third part of them returned home again undefiled."
Click for more from Phillip Stubbes

The ribbon-plaiting dance we know today only began in the 19th century. Before that they used to dance in a ring around a large pole. It is very difficult to produce a perfect plait and the intricate moves must be fully rehearsed and timed precisely by counting each set of steps in time to a drum beat.

For the sources of information and lots more detail see the following links:

http://geocities.com/Athens/Delphi/2453/may_day.html
http://www.gnome007.fsnet.co.uk/mayday.html
http://www.salmonriver.com/words/nancy/maia.html
http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/5202/mayday.htm 

The above links to other sites are offered as examples of further interesting information.