Plough Monday in Cambridgeshire

Molly Dancers on Plough Monday. A Fenlander custom. Alison Leigh reports for Anglia Television.

For Fenland land workers, Plough Monday marks the beginning of the agricultural year and the resuming of work following the Christmas period. Locals in Cambridgeshire honour the traditions and execute a traditional Plough dance with great vigour. Anglia TV news reporter Alison Leigh interrupts the ‘Molly dancers’ to interview a participant. ‘Why have they revised this jolly old custom?’, and ‘Why the funny costumes … and the blacking up?’