Skip to main content
Gifts from The Morning Star
Midsummer magic
EXHUBERANCE AND DARING: Bonfire at the Saint John festivities in Madrid’s neighbourhood of Fuenlabrada [Pic: Ayuntamiento de Fuenlabrada/flickr/CC]

STANDING around at Stonehenge. Smoking too much weed. Bonkers dancing. That’s one way of celebrating the solstice. Linking hands in a ring on a medieval mound in a municipal park and singing circle songs as the cloudy grey dawn lightens is another. All good.

I’ve learnt better ways to do it, though — for myself.

It’s three weeks now since Midsummer, but I’m still enjoying the memories of one of the best and longest I’ve celebrated… so no apologies for this piece, despite its late timing.

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
More from this author
A reedbed at Chippenham Fen (Pic: Hugh Venables/Creative Com
Notes From A Free Walker / 10 August 2024
10 August 2024
From John Clare country to ancient fenland, Ed Miliband’s solar farm approvals risk industrialising precious rural spaces — we must find greener solutions that don’t sacrifice our countryside’s beauty, writes DAVE BANGS
Houses on St Anne's council estate in Bristol, dating from t
Notes From A Free Walker / 8 June 2024
8 June 2024
Decades of right to buy have eroded the social balance of our countryside — and now holiday lets and second home owners from the cities are compounding the crisis, writes DAVE BANGS
A cuckoo
Notes From A Free Walker / 11 May 2024
11 May 2024
Spring has sprung in all its glory — but DAVE BANGS is disturbed by the absence of a crucial sound
Notes From A Free Walker / 16 March 2024
16 March 2024
These twin Sussex co-ops selling their produce directly to locals offers a glimpse of a future of sustainable, democratised food production – all in harmony with nature, says DAVE BANGS
Similar stories
INSPIRING EXAMPLE: Celebrating the women's strike in Reykjav
Books / 3 April 2025
3 April 2025
SYLVIA HIKINS applauds a polemic against “cleanfluencers” and considers radical alternatives to current inequalities of housework
Dusan Lajovic returns a shot to Daniil Medvedev during the f
Men’s Tennis / 28 August 2024
28 August 2024
Attila the Stockbroker Diary / 23 August 2024
23 August 2024
After a marathon potlach of punk rebellion in Blackpool and Bannerman’s, the Bard faces the eternal question: was the the lamb or the prawns?
Hibernian's Dylan Vente (centre) celebrates scoring during a
Men's Football / 14 August 2024
14 August 2024