Another Year Older...

Good King Hal, blowing a raspberry on Sarah Morris' face in front of the Houses of Parliament while sipping proseco. A novel way of protesting.

February 26th - my birthday.  My 47th birthday this time around.  47?  There must be some mistake!  I can't be that old...  When my dear late lamented grandfather, the near legendary Charles Mee, was 93 years old, I was having lunch with him one day, and I asked him a question I was dying to know.  As we sat in Tomassi's, the Italian restaurant in Southend in Essex, I asked him how old he felt inside - without thinking, how old did you actually feel.  He thought for briefest of moments and then said "about 45".  However, he did say he felt that young until he was walking down the street, and paused to look in the shop window, and wondered who the doddery old fool was staring at him, until he realised it was his own reflection.  I know exactly where you're coming from Grandad.  I am very handsome until I look in a mirror.  Mind you, at the age of 93 I soon realised why my Grandfather had cantered down to this Italian restaurant so quickly - it was all the tall leggy brunette waitresses.  I did tease him about this, and my Grandfather, being one of the last great Edwardian gentlemen (i.e. sex or anything regarding women was not spoken about in public) blushed a little and then said: "Well, the day you stop looking you might as well give up."  Wise words indeed.

For my 47th Birthday I took a near last minute decision to head to Southampton and meet up with two old friends from my years working at Skandia Life, now some 11 years in my past.  Therefore I was at the Tavernetta restaurant and meeting up with Ruth Le Mesurier and Sue Marsh, and we had a lovely time.  The years just rolled away and it as almost like we had never been apart from each other.  The meal was lovely, as was the large glass of Merlot.  All too soon it was time to part, and before I headed back to the NCP to take out a mortgage and pay for my parking, I popped into Skandia House and saw the lovely Sue Plumb on reception, and saw old chums from security Ian Fitzpatrick and Trevor Allery.  Very little had changed, Trevor had slightly fewer teeth and marbles, but not much else.  I also saw a young lady called Fern (your surname - I regret Madam, I have forgotten, forgive an old fart) who's telephone I used to repair on a regular basis on my days at Skandia.  This happy stroll down amnesia lane over, I was soon in the car and on my way home.

Thursday 27th February, it's time to go back to being Henry.  I drove up to the village of Cheddar and a first visit to Fairlands School.  It was a big group, of about 180 year six children, but such a lovely group, it was a delight to work with them.  This was one of the finest schools I have visited for a long time.  I had got the job through a contact at the school who knew people at Hugh Sexey School at Wedmore.  We had a truly memorable day, great fun all the way through, and culminated in one of the most memorable jousts in a long time.  The final was incredibly close, it was down to the last rider on both teams, the boys seemed to just about hold the whip hand, when the last lady knocked the final quintaine she was at very badly - her final quoit catapulted up into the air and all looked lost.  But this girl was good and coolly skewered the quoit in mid air with her lance and galloped home for a remarkable victory.  Astounding.

GENTLEMEN 12.5 - 21.5 LADIES

That could be it already lads.  Surely no way back from there.  The drive back home took me south past Glastonbury and Somerton, and on one last high patch of ground I looked west across the levels of Somerset and saw.... a sea.  It was like looking out across some vast inland sea.  The floods were still out in force, that was for sure.

I went to see my mate Pete Flanagan in Tatworth on the Friday.  He asked me a small favour... could I drive off and collect some more music memorabilia for him.  No problem Pete, where do you want me to go?  Oh... Southampton, again.  So two days after driving down to Southampton to see everyone at Skandia, I was in Pete's BMW driving back to Southampton to meet his mate and collect some signed Jimmy Page posters.  Boy, I lead an exciting life sometimes.

Friday night was a special night as it was Matthew Applegate's official farewell bash at Barrington Court.  It started at 6.30pm and I arrived about five minutes late to find the whole place heaving with people.  This just went to see how popular Matthew was, and also at how deep the anger is felt by all the people at Barrington for the way the complete tossers in the National Trust management have treated him.  First Matthew made a fine, sweet, amusing speech.  It was touching, not maudlin and was just right.  Then Matt's lovely wife Sue stood up to make a speech.  Barely holding back her tears and anger she delivered a stunner.  One of the most moving speeches I have ever heard.  There was barely a dry eye in the house.  I was delighted to be recounted a story by one of the volunteers who told me the previous week they had been summoned to the Court House for the pre-season briefing.  The man mainly responsible for Matthew's demise, a loathsome creature by the moniker Turner, delivered his attempt at a rousing gee up speech for the masses - and sat down to a deafening silence.  One of the other managers was making their address when they happened to mention Matthew's name - this caused a spontaneous and sustained round of applause to burst out among the people in the room.  Wonderful.

We had a lovely time, laughing and joking with Matthew and all his wonderful staff.  It was great to see Rachel Brewer again for the first time since her baby Oscar was born.  Old deputy Visitor Services Managers to Matthew, Tamsin and Toria turned up - one from Cornwall and one all the way from York, just to see Matthew.  That is the respect in which this man is held.  NT management will find out one day.

I've had a lovely relaxing weekend watching Manchester City win the League Cup for the first time since 1976, which was great fun.  And now it's back to the daily grind.  And all I've got to look forward to now is my 48th birthday.  Oh, and ogling women of course.  As my Grandfather said - once you stop looking, you might as well give up.  Good work, that fellow!

Blog Author Stuck For Title

The King, treating the latest incumbent in his pillory to the dignity and respect they had come to expect.

Look out the window, go on.  Do it.  Look out of the window.  That's March that is.  T'rffic, eh?  Nothing like it for lifting the spirits after what feels like three months of darkness, snow, ice, howling winds, war, death, pestilence and George Osborne.  To be honest it looks exactly the same as February did, only apparently Carole Kirkwood on Breakfast TV insists it is two degrees warmer this week than it was last week.  Now Carole has a very warm occluded front and I for one would love to get my hands on her isobars, so I take her word as the truth.  If this continues over the next few weeks we should be able to boil kettles on our car bonnets by mid May.

When I published the last instalment of this travesty of the English language as she is wrote (sic), I was still going all girly and wobbly kneed over a night out at a Justin Currie gig in Bridport.  Well, to be honest I still am, but only slightly less so you will be thrilled to learn.  The week after the Currie night (geddit?) saw me back in the car and heading back to Essex - it was a dreadful journey.  Through the roadworks near Clacket Lane on the M25, some Latvian dickweed had decided to smash his lorry through the side barriers and then leaving it smeared halfway across the already narrowed carriageway.  I was stuck here for just over two hours trying to get past, and all this with a bladder the size of Austria and nowhere for relief.  I finally arrived at Amanda's house in Basildon and promptly re-filled Hanningfield reservoir single handed.  It was that good I had to have a cigarette afterwards.  It was lovely to see Amanda and my lovely son James.  He is now wearing glasses and he looks great in them.  A sort of subtle mash up of John Lennon and Harry Potter.

Tuesday 26th February - my 46th birthday.  46?  Jesus.  I am no longer even a record speed.  I've done 16, 33 1/3 and 45, so it's just 78 to go and that's it.  I was to appear at St Mary's School at South Woodham near Chelmsford. I had last appeared at this school back in 2006, but most of them there reckoned they remembered me.  It was a group of about 60 kids today and mixed across years 3, 4 and 5.  They were an absolutely fabulous group of kids, very funny and attentive and we had a fine day.  During the lunch break the teachers from the group suddenly came into the staff room where I was sitting with a birthday cake, complete with candles!  I was very moved. Back in the hall getting ready for the afternoon I was delighted to see that one of the dinner ladies looked like River Song from Doctor Who.  "Hello Sweetie!" I shouted to her.  She looked at me as if I was wearing a jacket doing up at the back and frothing at the mouth.  Mind you, so would you if someone dressed as Henry VIII just suddenly bellowed "Hello Sweetie!" at you while you were removing the shattered remnants of cottage pie from a school hall floor and had no idea of who the hell River Song was and what her catchphrase was.  The jousting after that was a good show, very close and exciting and ended with a long overdue win for the Gentlemen.  This finally gives the gents another point and moves us on to:

GENTLEMEN 12 - 19 LADIES

That evening I took Amanda and James out to dinner, which was very nice.  The following day I drove down to Maidstone to see my lovely Shelley and took her out to lunch at Mexa Mexa our favourite restaurant in town.  We had a lovely day together sharing the sort of intimacy only and man and woman deeply in love can truly experience.   Yes, we wandered round loads of charity shops looking for bargains, mad passionate loonies that we are.  I drove home to Somerset that night, and apart from spending some time with my mate Pete Flanagan and a nice evening pint at the Rose and Crown at East Lambrook with Matthew Applegate, not a lot has been happening.  But a rest is as good as a change.  Or something.

Coming up the straight for Henry, I have an evening at Leeds Castle, some filming at Hever Castle, I am appearing on Emma Britton's BBC Somerset show as one of her "Somerset Lives" on March 16th and by the end of this month we will begin jousting again with a visit to Knebworth House.  Hoorah!

So what the hell would you have named this blog entry?  Exactly.  Me neither.

A Right Royal Knees Up

The true horror of the initiation ceremony for the Knights of Royal England was finally made public. The queue to join suddenly leaped from 3 to nearly 5.

Close friends and family, from across the country, were summoned to South Somerset for a very important reason. It was my birthday party! It's actually my birthday today, but frankly, apart from jobbing actors in the West End, no one has parties on a Sunday, so my 45th birthday thrash was to take place on February 25th 2012 at Barrington Village Hall. For once I was not to be dressed as Henry VIII at a party which was a relief. Music and sound was supplied by Party Tyme Entertainments, run by my mate Robbie Strickland from Stoke sub Hamdon, plus there would be a chance at the party for people to get up and do a song or two if they wished. Also we would be having a whip round to collect money for the National Autism Society and... well, just have a bit of fun! Lots of people chipped in with food and drink - my lovely friend Lisa Head (who I used to work with at Skandia in Southampton) was baking some cup cakes and bringing them with her. And they were fantastic - vanilla and chocolate, and just mind blowingly good.

Well the evening was a bit of a riot, mostly thanks to the Knights of Royal England, who turned up en masse, and made a pretty good party a quite staggeringly brilliant party. I kicked off the singing on stage by murdering "Fireflies" by Owl City, and then after a few crap jokes I sang "Chocolate Girl" by Deacon Blue in deference to the aforementioned, deeply wonderful Lisa Head. The Knights did a few songs, including an a capella version of "I'm Henry the Eighth I Am" with an impromptu "Full Monty" strip section, as you can see in the photo above. We ended the evening with wild singalongs to Guns N Roses, Green Day, Queen and a variety of others, and I had a splendid old time playing air guitar and singing The Boys are Back in Town with the deeply wonderful and insane Roland Bearne. Great stuff! The collected money came to about £220, which I shall bump up a bit more and then send a cheque off to the National Autism Society. I hope they'll be happy. We also had a jousting tournament, like in the schools, only this time with various plastered adults riding the hobby horses - most of the Knights of Royal England took part - and were soundly thrashed by a group of ordinary punters! Wonderful.

It was a truly legendary evening - made all the more special by having so many dear close friends and family with me. Thank you to all of you for your efforts to get there and support the evening. Today, I feel like I have just taken a punishment beating from the IRA, with aching knees and ankles (too much dancing), but it is definitely worth it. I can honestly say, it is the best party I have ever hosted. However, I think I now ought to go and have a long lie down in a dark room. Good night!

Coalway Junior, Coleford and Many Happy Returns!

Good King Hal about to get his robes caught in a piece of fearsome looking farm machinery. (left)

The alarm went off at 5am. Not again! It would have been very, very easy just to turn it off and slip back into the arms of sleep - I had to really make myself get up on Thursday morning. The drive up to Coleford in the Forest of Dean is nearly always a pleasurable one as you travel through some wonderful countryside once you have escaped from the M5. I have been visiting Coalway Junior for the past five years, and Thursday it was my sixth visit to this wonderful place. It is almost like returning to a family with each visit as there are so many friendly welcoming faces. You have not in your entire life heard such a loud, funny, laughter filled staff room! And the children are pretty cool too. We had a lovely day, with plenty of laughs in the morning and the children really displaying a fine level of Tudor knowledge. Some of their designs for their coats of arms were staggeringly good!

After a nice tuna baguette and salad at lunchtime it was back into the main hall for more of the same silliness. Despite frequent interruptions from children going into the canteen for music lessons on a loud piano, everything went swimmingly. The jousting tournament was again of a quite brilliantly high standard. Two fine teams went head to head in the final, and after a poor start the gents pulled themselves into a slight lead, only for them to be reigned in by a quite fabulous ladies team who stormed to victory. Wonderful stuff. This now makes the score:

GENTLEMEN 12 - 18 LADIES

The ladies are starting to pull away again now. Come on Gents!

At home I treated myself to a venison steak for dinner, which was delicious. So what was the cause of this gluttonous levity? Well, today is February 26th and is my 43rd birthday! So I am celebrating this morning with a banana and strawberry smoothie, and I am now expanding my mind by watching The Jeremy Kyle Show. I know how to enjoy myself! Dinner tomorrow night with a load of friends and family to look forward to, at the Duke of York pub in Shepton Beauchamp. Lovely!

Blackbrook School, Taunton

You wait for about two years for a new school in Taunton to book you, and then two turn up in the same week! After the fun and games of going to North Town School on Wednesday, here I was on Friday off to Blackbrook School. It was a bigger group today - about 140 children and they were very, very excited about Henry's visit!

It was a tremendously fun start to the day with the opening talk going down a storm, but I had to break at 10am as they were having an assembly in the hall and then the kids had a morning break, so I wasn't on again until nearly 11am. But we got through it. After a lunch of what were either perfectly adequate chicken fingers, or hugely over-cooked fish fingers (you could have wiped a chalk board clean with them!), it was on to the afternoon session. There was a great reply when I was getting the stocks session set up. I always tell the children that being drunk and disorderly could land you up in the stocks, but it was particularly frowned upon if you did it on a Sunday - I then ask them why it was so bad to be drunk and disorderly on a Sunday. The best answer I ever had was from a school boy in Essex who told me it was bad because all the football was on Sky on Sunday's and you'd miss it. But today's answer was: It was bad to be drunk and disorderly on a Sunday because the pubs weren't open long enough. So that told me!

We finished with a deafening jousting tournament that a very good gents side walked away with. I was just winding the show down and getting ready to leave when a load of the staff from the school came in with a birthday cake for me, complete with candles and a rousing singing of "Happy Birthday" for me! I was really touched!

I got home this evening with fine intentions of wandering over to the Duke of York pub in Shepton Beauchamp to watch the France v Wales rugby match on their big screen. But I have to admit that my bottom hit my chair in my front room and it was just too damn comfortable to get up and go out again. Sorry.

Tomorrow I am back at Barrington Court for their opening weekend of the season. I will be on parade between 12 noon and 4pm. I hope to see some of you there!