MORRIS dancers greeted the dawn at the traditional start of their dancing season high on Otley Chevin.

Otley's two sides, the Buttercross Belles and Otley Wayzgoose were joined by Leeds Briggate to dance in the dawn on May Day.

Celebrations started at just after 4.15am on Thursday last week at Surprise View and continued throughout the day with children's dancing outside the Woolpack and more outside The Summercross.

Louise Wilson, of the Belles, said it was a lovely morning with more people than in previous years turning out to see the dancing.

"We got there about 4.15am, Briggate were already there and Wayzgoose turned up about half an hour later. Altogether there were about 40 people up there with the dancers.

"It wasn't a bad dawn, better than last year. We did see the sun for a few minutes. We think we're insane for doing it, but once we get up there it's great."

Otley Morris dancers are looking forward to a particularly special year now that funding is in place for the new Otley Maypole.

Planning permission has already been given to transform Manchester Square, where a maypole has traditionally stood for centuries, and make it a place where dancing and other community activities can be held.

The £41,000 maypole project has been supported by £25,000 from the Local Heritage Initiative. It will feature a 25ft maypole, made out of a tree donated by the Farnley Estate, and topped with a design drawn by Otley schoolboy James Pickles and made by Otley metal workers MG Metals.

It is hoped that work on the square, which will see the area paved and planted, will start sometime in the summer.

Mrs Wilson said it was planned that the first day of work would be marked with a ceremony. In the past, new maypoles have been paraded through the town and watched by hundreds of people.

Ghostly figures dance near the top of Otley Chevin at 4.15am on May Day.

l Our bleary-eyed photographer Adrian Murray has captured this evocative

picture with the Chevin Cross and the lights of Otley in the background (WO19P1A)