Whitstable Jack the Green is a revival of the old May custom. It’s one of the longest established revivals of this type, dating back the the mid 1970s when Lion Dixie Lee founded the event. In 1976, Dixie was running a Folk Club at the Duke of Cumberland pub in Whistable, when she and a group of friends decided to start a Festival. And so the now annual Whitstable Jack in the Green festival was revived.
Jack is a greenery-covered man like a giant May Garland symbolising the Spirit of Spring and is accompanied by plenty of morris dancers and musicians, that form a colourful procession through the town. In Whitstable, the procession down the High Street culminates in dancing at the Castle and the singing of the May Song. The rest of the day is filled with music, morris, dancing, mummers, circus performers, local business stalls, tombolas and a beautiful day out for the whole family.