May Morning Madrigals

Up at dawn for May Morning in Oxford where the Magdalen College choir sing madrigals from the top of Magdalen Tower. As the clock strikes six the crowd gathered around the tower and on Magdalen Bridge falls silent and the choir starts to sing. Plenty of students still in ball gowns from the previous night's May Balls, swigging champagne but also lots of local characters in hats bedecked with spring flowers.

As the singing finishes at 6.15, the rising sun lit up the east side of the tower.

The bridge connecting east Oxford with the city is open again this year - with a heavy police presence to stop students throwing themselves into the river below. The terrible injuries from previous years of bridge jumping had meant for several years the bridge had been closed every May morning.

Then hundreds of people thronged up the High Street and down Cowley Road to begin their May Morning breakfasts.