Maltman's Green School, Gerrards Cross

The Amazing Anuscheh Missaghian and her Life Like Full Size Ventriloquist Doll, King Happy Hal.  Why is he so happy?  Well you should see where her hand goes! "A smile. a song and a schism".  Available for cabaret, masonics and religious persecution.

I hope you like this picture - it was from Ingatestone Hall the other week when I met up with my old school friend Anuscheh - as you can see she has weathered far better than I have over the years - but then she did have a head start.

Now even I looked worse than I do in this picture on Tuesday morning as I had to be up by 4am for a drive up to Gerrard's Cross and a re-arranged show at Maltman's Green School.  I had often been told by Ian Weston from Portals to the Past about what a fine school this was, and he wasn't wrong.  I arrived early, and after the late night of the previous evening and the Rotary show, that by the time I got to the school I was exhausted.  So I parked up, set my alarm on my phone and had 40 winks, which was desperately needed and very welcome.  The weather was appalling so after I had been greeted by Steve Thomas, the teacher who had booked me, I was soon slipping and slithering through the rain loading my props into the hall.

It was a large group for a private school - over 60 children, and all girls - well it would be, Maltman's in an all girls school (well done, Sherlock, that was brilliant!).  Whatever you say about single sex schools I can tell you this - by God they were a loud group today!  They had virtually all dressed up in brilliant costumes - one little girl was even sporting a fake ginger beard and had a pillow stuffed up her costume to turn her into a mini Henry VIII!  Fantastic.  The morning, as with most private schools, is a lot longer than it is at a state school, but we had loads of laughs and I even managed to get the start of the stocks section done before we broke for a well earned lunch.  This turned out to be a delicious chicken korma, which was most welcome.  The final jousting tournament in the afternoon was indescribably loud in the echoey hall that we were in, but everyone seemed to have a good time.  There was even time for the King to have a go at the jousting taking part in a final race against a team that Mr Thomas had picked.  Normally I am away from schools by about 3.30pm at the latest, but in the end it was much nearer 4pm before I managed to slip away.  This put a bit of a spanner in the works for my evening plans.  I had been asked by some friends I am in a pub quiz team with to join them at the King Arthur Pub at Burrowbrigde in Somerset that evening.  If I had got away at a normal time I might just have made it, but the 4pm start was going to make it tricky - the appalling traffic round Stonehenge finished any chance I had of making it in time.  I had to text them my apologies - the text I got back made me realise they weren't very happy.  Oops.

No jousting score today as I can't really include a result from an all girls school, now can I?  I am now in Essex having just driven up for a show tomorrow at Lee Chapel School in sunny Basildon.  Sounds like it is going to be a good fun day tomorrow.  I can't wait.

Martham Primary, an Essex visit, extreme heat and World Cup Finals.

Anne of Cleeves and Good King Hal being attacked by a triffid, mere nanoseconds before both spontaneously combusting due to the hot sun - but then they shouldn't have touched it.

Martham Primary School has changed it's name at some point in it's recent history. Now when I first started doing my Henry shows there, they were still called West Flegg Middle School. My how things change! The first big change I noticed was the weather when I drove up to Essex from Somerset on the Thursday. What had been warm, but still reasonable weather in Somerset had morphed somewhere along the A303 into a full blow heatwave when I got to Basildon. On turning off the air conditioning in my car and opening the door, the sudden onrush of heat was the equivalent of being slapped in the face with a hot towel. Anyway, it was great to see Amanda and James again. My son is just gorgeous (I know I am biased) and was in a very cuddly mood for most of the weekend, which was perfectly alright with me. We had some fun time together, going to Hylands Park in Chelmsford on the Sunday for instance. There they had a small food market on with one stall specialising in home made sausages. James took great delight in grabbing a tooth pick from the seller and having a try of virtually every sausage they had on display. He was just going back for a second bombing run when I hauled him away! It was also fun watching "Shaun the Sheep" episodes with him on the BBCi player - we were nearly crying with laughter at a couple of the episodes.

Anyway, back to Martham! I got up at about 5am on the Friday morning and was on my way by 5.45am. The drive up was relatively easy and most pleasant in the early morning coolness. However by the time I got to the school the heat had set in properly. It was lovely to be back at Martham which is a delightful school. The teachers are lovely and welcoming, the children fun and polite, and all in all it is always a wonderful place to visit and do a presentation. We had a fun morning, particularly with one lad who was dressed up in a home made Henry VIII outfit who I took great delight in calling "Mini-Me" all day! After a lovely lunch of fish and chips, we were back for a fun afternoon, and it was a loud one as well. The stocks were uproarious fun and we finished with another belting Jousting tournament. Yet again, the gents stormed to a great victory. Can they snatch victory from the jaws of defeat? This now makes the scores very interesting:

GENTLEMEN 24 - 27 LADIES

Hmmmmm! Interesting, very interesting... I got everything loaded back into the car, turned on the engine to get the air con going, and was alarmed to see that the outside thermometer reckoned the current temperature to be 35 degrees! Now that is HOT!!! I was so glad of the air con. I got back to Essex relatively easily. We had a lovely weekend together, even spoiling James by taking him for an exciting breakfast at Burger King on the Saturday.

I watched the World Cup Final on the Sunday night as Holland kicked lumps out of the Spanish, and the Spanish then took to leaping around, rolling on the floor, clutching "hurty limbs" and writhing about as if in the middle of electro-convulsive therapy. It made a mockery of good football and just about summed up this crappy World Cup to a tee. Oh, and Nelson Mandela turned up. (Not in Essex you understand). I wonder if F W de Klerk go an invite?

I saw Amanda and James off to work and school this morning, did some tidying up for Amanda, and the washing up (what a nice chap) and then headed for Somerset. The traffic was awful. There had been an incident on the M3 this morning and the motorway had been shut for quite some time. Even though now re-opened there was still a knock-on with cars queuing back onto the M25. I finally got past that, then got held up with loads of tourist traffic at Stonehenge AGAIN (I blame the Pandorica) and then even more tourists driving incredibly slowly in the fast lane and not really overtaking anyone. In the end it took me over 4 hours to get home. And now, despite some early rain and coolness, we now have the heat back. On with the fan...

Thundersley Junior, Essex

Good King Hal's saucy advert left in prominent telephone boxes in London. It didn't work.

After all that 50th wedding anniversary celebrating etc., it was nice to get back to being a Tudor despot again. I was back in Thundersley, sandwiched as it is between Southend and Basildon in south Essex, at Thundersley Junior School for a 4th annual visit. I drove to Essex on the Thursday and firstly joined Amanda and James at SNAP in Brentwood. SNAP stands for Special Needs and Parents and is a charity based in Brentwood. It is a voluntary organisation supporting parents and carers of children with any special need or disability. James attends as he has recently been diagnosed with autism, and he absolutely loves going there! It is a wonderful place and they do all sorts of fun and educational things with the children. James spends an hour there playing with his friends he has made and gets so much out of it. The parents and carers can sit and chat with each other over welcoming mugs of tea or coffee. I really can't praise this place enough and the wonderful work they do!

On the Friday I was down at Thundersley for the Henry day. This is a fantastic school, great kids, very friendly teachers and always a good laugh. It was a full and exciting day that we had and about 99.9% of the children had dressed up in terrific costumes, as had all the teachers. The morning went swimmingly and we were soon back in the hall for the afternoon session. We had an absolutely deafening jousting tournament which culminated in yet another victory for the ladies. They just keep on winning! This now makes our year long score:

GENTLEMEN 21 - 27 LADIES

Closer than I would have expected, but I don't think the ladies can be caught now. I got the children to roar their support for England for the match against Algeria in the World Cup that night. After the show, Amanda, James and I drove down to Kent to see my sister Cathy to watch the England match on her big TV. To be honest I wish we hadn't. England were appalling and could not have hit the backside of a cow with a banjo from now till Doomsday. Professor Stephen Hawking on a space hopper would have had more control of a football than these overpaid embarrassments.

We had a nice Father's Day weekend including lunch at Pizza Express on the Sunday for which Amanda had found an on-line voucher that allowed Dad's to eat their pizza for free! Sounded good to me! Eventually I set off for Somerset on the Sunday evening, but with it being the late last knockings of the 20th June it was obvious that Stonehenge would be a no-go area (I think Doctor Who might agree with that having seen what happened to him there on Saturday night's episode!) so I did a dipping detour, down the A343 into Salisbury and then back out again onto the A303 much further down. It worked a treat and I was soon home.

I have a meeting with Matthew Applegate over at Barrington Court this morning, then on Wednesday I am down to Southampton for a Skandia Life lunch with Sue Marsh and Ruth Le Mesurier, then back to Southampton again on Friday to pick up my parents from their Queen Mary excursion to the Norwegian fjords!

Kingsclere in Berkshire...or is it Hampshire?

Who's a silly King, then? Me! There I was, all primed for a whole weekend in the south east, from Thundersley on Wednesday, Kingsclere in Berks today and then Broadstairs in Kent on Monday. WRONG! Kingsclere is one of those places to throw a spanner in the works for you! I just assumed, as it had a Reading post code, that it would be near Reading! Nonsense! It's almost in Basingstoke and next to the A303 and virtually halfway home to Somerset from Essex where I have been staying. So instead of being in Essex for another night I have come home to sunny Somerset (it's raining actually, but you can't see that where you're sitting, can you?), will have an early night and then ski-daddle off back to Essex tomorrow morning. What a jet set lifestyle!

The school today at Kingsclere was lovely. Really lovely, easy to find, wonderful kids and fun teachers! I even had a lunch brought in for me it seemed! A ham and cheese roll, some savoury bites and even some strawberries were laid on for me. I really can't complain. The morning was great fun and the afternoon, though a tad warm in the costume was still terrific and we had a really good jousting competition which the gents won for the first time in a while.

When I was driving out of the school some of the boys from the day ran alongside my car for the first few yards waving and shouting "Thank you!" - lovely stuff. The drive home of course brought me to Stonehenge and it's the midsummer solstice! So loads of traffic, loads of Police vehicles and lots of hippies in clapped out buses. My, how we laughed.

But I am home now and will be getting my din-dins soon. See you in Broadstairs on Monday morning - bright and early!