Months before the event May Day committees in Kurri Kurri, Paxton and Cessnock were hard at work overseeing details for the up-coming celebrations.

A sign of how locally significant the day was can be gauged by the fact that the NSW Government gazetted May Day as a public holiday for the Municipality of Cessnock and the Kearsley Shire.

The history of May Day in Australia spans over a century and its celebration in the Hunter Valley is almost as long.

It is an international day of commemoration which honours those who struggled and succeeded in changing labour laws and conditions to ensure fairer working conditions for everyone.

Despite its political origins our May Day parades were usually more festive than radical.

Eighty years ago, in 1939, whole communities took part in May Day parades with disparate groups marching together: trade unionists walked with business owners, political campaigners with school children, Council workers with sporting and cultural groups.

In Kurri Kurri that year the extensive parade stretched down Lang Street and contained a notable sporting presence including a large number of cyclists, believed the be the greatest ever seen in the district. At Paxton their May Day march finished with an enthusiastic sports carnival at the local football ground.

At Cessnock the May Day parade saw a huge contingent take part including: representatives of the miners' lodges, who for the first time abandoned their union banners and entered decorated floats instead; an impressive show from the Cessnock Co-operative Store; the Miners' Federation and its Women's Auxiliary; local branches of the Communist Party and even Council staff.

In 1939, for the first time, a May Day Cup was awarded to the best display in the parade and this inaugural cup was won by the Elrington Miners' Lodge.

Meanwhile in the classroom students were competing in an essay-writing competition, with parents urged to tell their children about the importance of May Day in order to 'stimulate their thoughts on this very important question'.

After the parade the Cessnock Showground came alive with a sports carnival, rides and races, novelty events and the distribution of lollies, fruit and milk to children, who were advised to 'bring their own cup or mug'.