5th December. I had just done a half day as Henry at Holway Park Junior School in Taunton with some challenging kids and was due to be heading off ASAP to Kent to stay at my sister’s house before beginning my stint as Santa at Leeds Castle the following day. I had so much still to do that there was little chance of me shooting straight off, so I headed home and got things ready at a much statelier pace. I waited until Amanda and James were home before hitting the road. I got to Cathy’s near Sittingbourne and settled in for the night on my luxury sofa!
6th December. My first day as Santa. The grotto at the Castle is wonderful. It is housed in the old Tennis Pavilion with a skating rink under canvas alongside it and a refreshments tent. You enter through a big old gnarled wooden door to a waiting area with toys scattered about for the children to play with and with a DVD playing in the corner with a Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer film showing. You begin the walk through to Santa by sauntering past the old animatronics reindeer from last year. Through the arch leads you to a “Winter Garden” with a bridge over a “light waterfall” and a figure of a small girl skating (she packed up working after only a few days and was never properly fixed!). You then go past the best part of the tour – a full size “Toy Machine” with a conveyor belt churning out presents ready to be wrapped up. You then walk down a small tunnel lit with blue lights, turn right and there you are in Santa’s study with me sitting on a throne, with a fire place and some chairs for the children to sit on. They can chat to Santa before getting their presents. This year I am handing out Penguins. The opening couple of days are something of a “phoney war” period with long parts of the day with very few punters coming through.
7th December. After finishing at the Castle today I am off to the Hazlitt Theatre in Maidstone to appear at a party for the children of employees of a local company and to hand out presents in my capacity as Santa. I am driven to the event by a taxi driver who tells me the company in question is a debt collection agency. I do worry somewhat that this invitation to appear as Santa is just a cunning ambush ploy by disgruntled creditors of mine. At the event at the Corn Exchange part of the building, the children come up to a raised stage area to meet me and I hand out specially wrapped presents handed to me by a couple of elves. The children then pose for photos with me, taken by a photographer who prints them immediately. The actors appearing at the Panto at the Hazlitt come over to meet the children as well. Some of them pose for photos with me, including a couple of very leggy fairy ladies not wearing very much. This is the highlight of the evening by a long way! For the next few nights and to give my sister and her husband a break, I am staying at the castle. My room is called the “Creve Coeur Room” and is right up in the battlements of the main part of the castle. It is freezing cold outside and equally freezing inside when I get back from Maidstone. I phone down to “Housekeeping” to see if someone can sort out the lack of heating in my room. The phone rings a couple of times and is answered by a lady with the words “pantry – what?” in a very angry sounding voice. Now I could have been anyone – President of Peru, Princess Alexandra, or even a proper paying guest, not the free-loader I actually was, nevertheless she should have been careful. I explain where I am and my lack of heating. She interrupts me.
“You HAVE heating in that room.” I can see my breath as steam as I speak.
“No I don’t…” I start to say. She won’t have it and once more re-asserts that I do have heating in my room. I invite her up to my room to prove otherwise. She grudgingly offers to go off and talk to the butler and then promptly hangs up. Now I am no expert on customer relations, but I have a feeling that her performance was not straight out the manual. About 20 minutes later my radiator starts clanking and gurgling and finally some heat starts to seep out. By bed time the ice has melted and even the Polar Bears are complaining about the heat.
8th December. The first Saturday gives me an impression of what to expect as it gets closer to Christmas. This is like Zulu only with small children and their parents replacing the South African warriors. We are practically forming the wagons into a circle and hurling the penguins at the customers to hold them off. I end up with only about 10 minutes lunch break. Amanda and James come up to see me, as do my parents, Amanda’s parents, Amanda’s sister Maria and two of her children. I see them so fleetingly and it is only later that it dawns on me that the next time I shall see them is Christmas Eve.
The following two weeks chug slowly by. Weekdays are mostly quiet, weekends almost unbearably busy. I spend most of my evenings staying at Cathy and Julian’s, but I am due back to stay at the Castle again for the 20th to the 23rd inclusive.
On the evening of the 13th I have been invited to appear at another banquet at the Castle as Henry. I had been contacted by Hospitality a few weeks previously and Kerry there had mentioned something about the evening ending with me reading a ghost story to the punters after their meal. I had heard nothing since that phone call. Once at the castle I had made several attempts to hear from Hospitality about what the evening was going to comprise of, but again I had heard nothing. I wandered up to the Castle about 6.30pm and was shown to a side office which I could use as a changing room. After a quick cup of tea and a change I was out and about as Henry. I spoke to the temporary head butler and she informed me that they wanted me to meet and greet in the main library as guests entered. This was good fun and everything was going fine, when suddenly there is a commotion in the main hall and Davey the Jester enters. I have worked with this man before and he is a very fine Jester indeed, but by God is he loud. He hollers and shouts at a few of the punters and then wanders off towards the banquet hall. I continue being kingly and meeting and greeting when suddenly the lady butler asks me to announce dinner and progress everyone down to the Banquet Hall. I do my big booming announcement and lead them off playing my little Dordrecht recorder at their head. As I approach the Banquet Hall I can see Davey with his hands on his hips staring at me. I just walk past with the rest of the guests, lead them into the Hall and invite the honoured guests to be seated. As I walk outside Davey grabs me.
“What’s your game?” he shouts. “I progress them down from the library!”
“I was asked to by the staff…” I begin to explain, but Teddy has well and truly left the Pram by now.
“I always lead them down to the Banquet Hall. You’ll have to wait till the end and progress them back, pal.” Let me explain a little about Davey – he is from North of Watford and has that really grating Lancastrian drawl for a voice. Now I would be quite happy to apologise for progressing the guests down without realising it was his special-wecial jobby-wobby, but one thing guaranteed to put my back up is for some Lancastrian half wit to start referring to me in a derogatory way as “Pal” and telling me I had done wrong when I had done nothing of the sort. A magician had been booked as well apparently. He has only been booked for an hour, so after an hour and after not finishing going round the table completely he just clears off – much to the chagrin of some of the customers as they haven’t seen him in action. Davey is still in full war cry making frequent references to me as “pal” again and going on about people taking other people’s work. Subtle is not his nickname. It also turns out Hospitality have booked a harpist for the night but she has just not turned up full stop. The guests in the Banquet Hall are freezing cold. There is a big fire ablaze but it is not up to heating the full room and by now the ladies in their nice little frocks and dresses are fully wrapped up in coats and hats as they eat their meals. Arguments continue among the waiting staff as to whether they can risk extra heating in the ancient wood panelled Banquet Hall. And of course, can you get hold of anyone from Hospitality about this total cock up of an evening? No of course you can’t – all have long since left their offices and their mobiles are turned off. Davey finally shoves off with a few more unsubtly barbed remarks in my direction. I progress the now almost cryogenically frozen guests back to the Yellow Drawing Room, with promises of nice after dinner drinks and a roaring fire. The drinks are there, but the fire may have roared earlier, but it is barely whimpering now and has all but gone out. Pretty much like my enthusiasm for Hospitality and their banquets. Feeling pretty hacked off with life in general I wander back to the side office that I am using as a changing room and, admittedly rather childishly, kick the door open with a mixture of frustration and anger for the way the evening has gone. The door shoots open a short way before hitting something solid which makes a sort of “oomph!” noise. It turns out to be the Jester in mid-clothing change. I got him! So every cloud does have a silver lining! I get back to my sister’s house at around 11pm. It has been a long, long day. Hospitality had all but burnt their bridges with me by letting their only good contact there go (the divine Nikki Dorkings), but this evening has been the final straw, and I let Kerry know all about my feelings the next day. She makes a few noises but none of them conciliatory so forget it. And lest you think I am being a little uncharitable in my views of Davey, this man is a Vicar by day. You gotta love that Christian attitude of his.
The rest of the Santa weeks go by slowly but surely. I haven’t been away from my wife and son as long as this before and I cannot wait to see them. All the staff and helpers with the sainted Darlene Cavill and the Special Events team are fantastic and I would like to make it clear here and now that Darlene, the lovely Helen Budd, the wonderful Jean Beaton, Coralie, Carole, Helen, Helen, John, Dallas, Ian, Richard, Barry and everyone else who contributed to helping me be a successful Santa, it was a pleasure to work with you all. You are stars. And to Howard and Sue for the food, drinks and mulled wine – thank you as well!
I stayed at my sisters until the final few days when I slept in the Culpepper Rooms near the Fairfax Hall Dining Room. These rooms were very cosy and warm but unfortunately were too close to the Fairfax Hall when the evening bands were playing. All I can say is that most of them started at about 10pm and had amazingly loud bass amps. Thankfully I was so tired that I slept through most of it.
I finally finished at around 2.30pm on Christmas Eve and headed straight for home. I got to Clapton at about 5pm and was never more pleased to see my lovely wife and son. A fine Christmas Day was spent with Amanda and James, and Amanda’s parents.
I would just like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has helped and assisted Good King Hal in the previous year and hope that your support will continue for many years to come.
5th December. I had just done a half day as Henry at Holway Park Junior School in Taunton with some challenging kids and was due to be heading off ASAP to Kent to stay at my sister’s house before beginning my stint as Santa at Leeds Castle the following day. I had so much still to do that there was little chance of me shooting straight off, so I headed home and got things ready at a much statelier pace. I waited until Amanda and James were home before hitting the road. I got to Cathy’s near Sittingbourne and settled in for the night on my luxury sofa!
Dunster! Ah, fair Dunster! This is one of my all time favourite schools and it was so nice to be back there for the fourth year running. However, today was to be a little bit different.
Another new school for me to do today. Yeo Moor Junior is in Clevedon, just to the north of Weston-super-Mare, and Clevedon is one of those towns in north Somerset that I have never visited in my entire life. So this was a new one on me completely.
After the strange weather of yesterday I really wasn't quite sure what to expect at Barrington Court today. Again the forecast was not good, something along the lines of typhoons, hurricanes, gales, thunderstorms and the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse getting "medieval" in the White Garden. However, it was a pleasingly bright and mild day today, a very brisk wind, but the ever threatening presence of the occasional black cloud to make you think twice about venturing out.
A first of two days staggering around the gardens and buildings of Barrington Court near Ilminster in Somerset. The day had been forecast to be cloudy, windy and rainy, but instead I was presented with a piercingly clear day, cold and with a brisk wind, but dry.
My long week away continued on the Tuesday morning by a very early start to drive to St Cecillia's Roman Catholic School in Sutton. This was my fourth year at this particular school so I knew what to expect from the journey. All went swimmingly until I got within about five miles of the place and then I just got swamped in wall to wall traffic. The final three miles must have taken me about 30 minutes. But it was worth it as it was a great day! Some fantastic children as usual, lovely friendly teachers and a good fun day all round. After finishing I drove down to my sister's house near Sittingbourne in Kent as the next day I was to be on parade in Gravesend. Cath and I sat and strummed guitars for the evening and had a good time.
My very busy week began in the wee small hours of Monday morning when I woke up at about 5.15am and got ready for the morning drive to Swindon. I had not visited Grange Junior before, but I was more than happy to go to Swindon, what with it being the spirtual home ground of not only the sainted Billie Piper, lately of Doctor Who, but also of the deeply wonderful XTC, the greatest band in the history of absolutely everything. Not that I am biased of course...
A third year return for me on Friday to the lovely Maynard School for Girls in Exeter. The last time I had visited, Keagh Fry, the form teacher I work with, was very heavily pregnant - it was nice to see her back to her sylph-like best today!
A brand new school for me today! I drove up to Shepton Mallet this morning for a visit to St Paul's C of E Junior School, less than a week after my last visit to the town to have surgery! This was a far less stressful visit than last time - in fact it was a total delight from start to finish. The school itself is a remarkable old building and winds it's way around like a sort of demented rabbit warren. I arrived just about 8am and went to front door reception and rang the bell. No reply. I tried again. Still no reply. I gave up and went back to the car. Five minutes later I tried again. Still no reply! I finally tried the door, just in case it was open anyway, but it wasn't. I was about to give up again when the door suddenly opened and I was greeted by a man with a slightly surprised expression on his face.
It was a delightful return to Milverton Junior School near Wellington in Somerset today. It is something like 3 years since my previous visit. I kept occasionally bumping into pupils and teachers from this school during my appearances at Somerset County Museum in Taunton over the years, but here I was again!
My first visit to a school in East Sussex got off to a less than auspicious start. I had been hoping to stay in Sussex with my friends Viv and John, but had failed to get any response from them - until late on the Sunday night announcing they had just arrived back from a weekend in Suffolk. So it was me up at the crack of dawn to drive the 130+ miles to Hove and back in the day!
Back to one of my favourite schools this morning - Knightwood Primary School, in Chandler's Ford on the edge of Southampton. Driving down towards Southampton brought back many memories of working at Skandia Life in the City there. Thankfully most of the memories are good ones. I can't believe I used to make that journey every day though - 70+ miles in each direction, five days a week, though sometimes more if I was working weekends. I am so glad that I don't work there now.
This was a first for me! My first school in Wales! I had made appearances in the Principality before, but at WI groups and the like, never before with a school.
My long week away on the road finally came to an end. My penultimate date was at Robert Kett Junior in Wymondham near Norwich. This was my fourth year back at the same school and I was really looking forward to seeing everyone. I was not to be disappointed! As usual they had me doing a slightly alternative version of my day, but with a crowd of nearly 160 children it was probably wise!
Another exhausting week of Henry Tudor lunacy. It kicked off on Sunday when I had to drive to Essex for my base at my parent's house in Mountnessing. I will have to make the most of this as they are threatening to move down to Wales. Who will I stay with then in Essex???
It was a first day at a new school for me today. I was up to Compton Dundon near Somerton for an early start at the cute little school up there. If you remember I had appeared at Compton Dundon Village Hall as part of the Royal Progress Tour back in August.
It was back to the wonderful Parkfield Junior School in Taunton today - home of the indomitable Mr Sides, the Head Teacher. This was my third visit to the school in three years, and it is always just such a pleasure to go there. As usual I was Royally treated, lots of friendly banter with some terrific teachers, and had some great fun with the children who had dressed up in some quite wonderful Tudor costumes for the day.
I had been invited back to Leeds Castle for another series of Henry VIIIth talks as I had last done back in February 2006. The whole half term would see me in The Maiden's Tower at the Castle doing four shows a day. Adverts had been put out on Invicta Radio in Kent and in all the local papers, so hopefully we would have a good turn out. Boy, did we have a good turn out. The wonderful Darlene Cavill and the lovely Helen Budd were again my main hosts from Special Events at the Castle. They were budgeting for approximately 1,000 visitors per day to the Castle during my residency - what we were getting was more like 3,500 per day! The room I was stationed in for my talks would hold approximately 200 people for each show and was absolutely packed to the rafters everytime. We had some great groups in, lots of laughs. Occasionally people would come in and bring in children that were too young to appreciate the show, but the majority of the time the audiences were very good indeed. During one of the early talks, I was explaining about my Kornholt musical instrument, about how it sounded and it's history, when a little boy aged about 6 in the front row shouted out "JUST PLAY IT!"
One of my dear little puss cats - Spike (pictured here in a very typical pose) was very sadly run over and killed this evening right outside our house. The "person" or "people" who did this, didn't even bother to stop. Luckily for us a very nice couple who were following on DID stop and picked him up. It would appear he died instantly.
I was invited back on to the BBC Somerset Sound morning show news panel this morning. I was sharing the panel with Jamie, a nice young chap and fund raiser for the Secret World animal sanctuary, and a lady called Val from the Exmoor Pony Rescue centre - both very nice people.
This week was a bit more local than the previous few weeks, but only just. Monday morning saw me up at the crack of dawn and heading up the dear old A37 to the town of Yate in South Gloucestershire, just to the north of Bristol.
This school day, in Basildon, had been promised for some time. My lovely sister-in-law Maria works at this school as a TA and her youngest daughter, Lucy is a pupil in year 5 - the group I was visiting today! Maria has been pushing for me to visit this school for sometime, and on Friday 5th October it happened!
A return visit today. I was back at the lovely Friends Junior School in Saffron Walden for my third visit in only two years! It was so nice to see everyone again. I stayed at my parent's house in Mountnessing again the night before and drove up to the school via the A414, Harlow and the M11.
Another fun Friday evening! I had been asked by Matthew Applegate to once again host the annual South Somerset National Trust Pub Quiz evening, with all the competitors coming from the local NT Properties nearby. There must have been about 50 people taking part this year, and Matthew had asked me to set all the quiz questions.
It was back on the road again this week. I got up in the wee small hours of Wednesday morning and drove through the clearing gloom to High Wycombe and a third return visit to Godstowe Prep School. It was a nice, relatively easy run up in the early hours. I arrived fairly early and nipped off to get a copy of "Private Eye" and a can of Diet Coke to pass the time until the school opened, luckily only about half an hour.
I had last visited Holly Trees Primary School in leafy Brentwood in Essex way back in November 2004. Not only had I been invited back for a return visit all this time later, but they had also asked me to do TWO days, so who was I to argue?
A visit to a new school seems quite rare these days, but that is what was in store for me at West Leigh School in Leigh on Sea, Essex. I drove to Essex on Thursday, 13th September and was lucky enough to be taken out to dinner in the evening by my lovely Mother! We went for a really nice Chinese meal in Ingatestone. 
The 2007/08 Educational Year started on Friday 7th September, as far as I was concerned! For the fourth year running I was back at Manor Court Junior School in Chard. For the first time though I was not being looked after by Lizzie Reynolds though - she is now the Deputy Head of the School. Instead I was with a Miss Devereux for one class, and another charming lady for the other class (sorry, I can't remember your name!). We had about 66 children in for the day and it was a good one to start the season off. I always love coming to Manor Court School, not just because of it's close proximity to my home, but because the teachers are always really good fun and the children are really nice. A good combination.
James started school today. Four years, eight months and sixteen days after he was born. I was a very nervous Dad today, but also proud. Thank God, he actually seemed to like it and is quite keen on going again tomorrow. To all other parents who went through it today - well done. 
Well, the new educational year is about to start, something bound to get Terry Deary frothing at the mouth and nailing pins into effigies of hard working teachers.
I had to drive into Yeovil this morning to appear on BBC Radio Wales. How can this be possible, I hear you cry, well it goes something like this. After being phoned the other day by a nice chap called Gareth, and asked to appear on the Roy Noble morning show on BBC Radio Wales, I had visions of me having to drive all the way over to Cardiff, but these wonderful BBC bods booked me into BBC Somerset Sound's Yeovil studio for a "live" link-up. I got to the studio smack on 9.30am, the time I was expected.
The final day of the Royal Progress got off to a less than auspicious start. I went over to Norton-sub-Hamdon early and dished out some posters at the Lord Nelson Pub, the little local shop and popped a couple up next to the main bus stop in the village. I then drove round to pick up Jim Flanagan, my roadie, only to discover he had forgotten about today and had gone to London! Ho-hum!
Left: Monday in East Coker.
Day two dawned at Barrington Court with a far better looking morning. OK, it was still blowing a hoolie, but the skies were mostly clear and the sun was threatening to shine. It was dry, the billowing rain and wind from the previous day had gone.
For this Tudor Day at Barrington Court, a sou'wester or even an aqua-lung would have been more appropriate than the Tudor robes I was wearing! This was possibly the worst weather I have ever encountered when doing an outdoor "Henry", and that includes the dreadful downpours that afflicted this year at Sudeley Castle (see this blog passim). The rain came hammering in horizontally, you could see it billowing through the howling winds.
Now this is about as local a gig as you can get! Clapton and Wayford Village Hall is about 300 yards from my front door - fantastic. The Royal Progress Show today was attended by 9 hardy souls, but give them their due they listened very well, laughed in all the right places and even asked for an encore at the end, so I had to come on and do a few more gags after I had finished.
Another day and another not exactly brilliant turn out. Stoke-sub-Hamdon is probably the largest town I will be visiting on the tour and I had high hopes of a good turn out. But sadly only 5 people decided to venture out. We had some fun with them, but it would have been so nice to see more people there. It was equally galling that there was a big church youth/social/outreach event going on right next door and I went and told them about the day and invited them to come over and see the show as the price for anyone under 14 was only 50p. But this didn't sway them. Anyway, the lady I booked the hall through, the very nice landlady of the Half Moon Inn on Ham Hill Road, was very compassionate and waived the fee, which I appreciated enormously.
And so the second day of the Royal Progress tour dawned - all wet and windy! After being roused by my son James at 5.30am (that's him out of the will), my wife and I dropped him over at his nursery and then headed to Taunton for my appearance on BBC Somerset's morning discussion panel. We arrived at the studio slightly late, but had to choose a news story from a pile of papers. I plumped for a story from The Times about Great Western Railways attempts to appease disgruntled passengers complaining about their appalling punctuality by employing a pink haired poet to travel the network reading poems to the annoyed customers. Yes, that's what I thought as well... The other panel members were Ian, a Tae Kwon Do instructor from Bridgwater, and Jill, an Alexander technique practitioner from Wiveliscombe. It went very well and Jess, the presenter I spoke to the other night on the Drive programme, was very pleased with our contributions. I was told afterwards that if ever I wanted to be back on the show, just ask! Very nice...
And so the Royal Progress begins... I drove over to Jo and Pete's place at Haselbury Plucknet to pick up Jim, my little roadie (as opposed to my little pony) for the week. We got over to Seavington St Michael (where the hall is) but first had to go to Seavington St Mary (where the key was) - are you all taking notes about this? I met the nice lady with the key and her lovely cocker spaniel, Scooby, before heading back to the hall. Jim and I put out the seats, with enough for about 50-60 people. We then had the hanging around and waiting until anything happened.
