Southchurch Hall Tudor Day 2009

Henry VIIIth, accidentally sitting down too fast and nearly dissolving his Monasteries.

Last year I had the pleasure of appearing at the Southchurch Hall Tudor Day, and it was such good fun that I was delighted to receive a follow up invitation for this year's event. The weather was a lot better than last year and I was pleased to find a parking spot right by the main entrance to the park. As I said before, Southchurch Hall is this delightful old Tudor building nestling amongst some fairly anonymous 1920's and 30's developments. Like last year they had set up a mini-Tudor village with an apothecarist, various other vendors, a wise woman and a working medieval/Tudor wood lathe. I was very happy to see the same Jester that had appeared last year. I asked him where he was based and he said "Hadleigh, for this time of year..." it turned out that he lives the rest of the time in Western Australia! He was as good as ever, as was the wonderful Tudor musician with all his collection of fantastic instruments. There was however, a complete lack of any sweating screaming lunatic telling stories of the Marie Rose sinking in Portsmouth Harbour - thank God.

I did my first talk in the main hall during the morning session, and it was packed out. There were some good laughs to be had and a nice receptive crowd. I wandered the grounds and kissed young ladies hands, shook hands with gents, and had my photo taken with many bemused but friendly children. The warmer weather this year seemed, to my eyes at least, to have brought out more crowds than last years. Many people came up to see me who had been at the show last year, and I had many photos again taken by the lovely people who publish them on www.flickr.com which is where I got the wonderful picture above, taken this very day!

We had the parade of children in fancy dress and chose the best costumes for boy and girl, and then it was my second talk of the day. This take place outside under one of the trees and I had another big and lovely crowd watching. Laughs a plenty and then it was over. I had been so busy I had managed to miss lunch so I was delighted to find a wonderful hot meal waiting for me on my return to Amanda's house in Basildon. And yes, it WAS sunny Basildon.

Off to Rochester in Kent for a photo shoot at the castle. See you there!