"Colin Rosenstiel" wrote in message
...
In article ,
(Paul Terry) wrote:

In message , Tim Roll-Pickering
writes

Jonathan Morton wrote:

The one about the May Day demonstration is permissible. After
all, so-called "May Day" isn't usually on the first of the month -
and at the Universities May Week is in June.

Is it? I've never noticed a "May Week" at any of the universities
I've been at.

AFAIR, only Cambridge has a "May Week" - originally in May, before
the exams, but now in June after exams. Even there, some colleges
prefer "June event" to the more traditional "May ball". The Oxford
equivalent is the Commem. ball.

May week can sometimes start in May, if Easter is early enough. It can
also get perilously close to June.

Could you give us an example of a year when May Week begins in May, please,
Colin? In the table at http://www.admin.cam.ac.uk/univ/so/so_ch02.pdf, the
earliest date for the Friday at the end of Full Term (the Friday of the May
Races) is June 10th.

You talk of Easter being "early enough". The earliest date on which Easter
can fall is March 22nd, but that doesn't occur within the period of my
current list (between 1875 and 2124). A March 23rd Easter will occur in
2008, and Full Term that year will end on Friday 13th June.

Looking back I see that the Wednesday at the start of the May Races in 1958,
1969, 1975, and in 1980 was 4th June. If we go back to 1953, the Wednesday
was 3rd June (the day after the Coronation), and the 1952 May Races are also
recorded as starting on 3rd June (which would have been the Tuesday). 1951
was another relatively early Easter (March 25th) and the Mays started on
June 7th.

To add additional confusion, May Week lasts a fortnight, with the first week
being the week including the May Races (and the end of Full Term), and the
following week with the May Balls.
--
David Biddulph