May Day May Clip

May

May Day May
A.B.V. 4.5%

In 1923, Frederick Mockford, senior radio officer at Croydon Airport was asked to find a more suitable distress call than S-O-S because the letter 's' was difficult to hear over a radio or telephone.

As most of the traffic coming into Croydon was from Le Bourget, Paris he anglicised the French phrase m'aider, "help me" into mayday which is now the NATO international distress call. .

Tony Hancock injected humour into it in his programme 'The Radio Ham' with "Mayday Mayday Mayday" - "What's he talking about, that was three weeks ago, it's nearly June".


Hops used are Flyer & Jaryllo.