Shepton Beauchamp School

I was a very lucky King today as I was to visit one of my favourite villages and schools in the whole UK. Admittedly, I am a little biased as I used to live there, but I am always afforded such a warm friendly welcome that I will continue to sing their praises for evermore! I am talking about Shepton Beauchamp of course, a charming little village sort of midway between South Petherton and Ilminster. My wife and I lived in Shepton between 1998 and 2004 and only the desire for a bigger house for our new enlarged family forced us to look elsewhere. I had first appeared at the school as Henry back in 2005 and had also popped back when I was asked to appear at a school for an ITV News item for the local network and Shepton kindly offered to be the school for that item.

I arrived today quite late, about 9.15am which is normally the time I begin with a group, but I knew the chidlren wouldn't be there as they were over at the village church first thing. I set up my stuff in the front class room and got changed. The children were waiting when I came out. None of them knew I was going to be there! Wonderful. We had a great morning with the opening talk going very well and a lot of the children displaying wonderful knowledge of the Tudor era. We then went straight into the coat of arms design bit which again showed some real talent from some of the children. After lunch we moved to a larger classroom where the stocks proved as popular as ever and the rip roaring jousting tournament was won by the gentlemen - by a whisker! Normally if we have some spare time I'll let the teachers have a race, but there was only Mrs Fraser in with me today, so for the teachers race and for the first time ever, I took part with a team I selected. Not wishing to show off, but I won! I suppose they felt they had to let me win as I was the King. It would have been rude not to.

I now have a nice weekend at ease followed by a trip to Kent on Monday for my appearance at Riverview School in Gravesend. The BBC will be there to film this for a BBC3 documentary about red-headed people. I wonder who they mean?