About twenty years ago a
friend of mine, who was regular volunteer at events during the annual Arundel
Festival in August, invited me to take his place since he was unexpectedly not
able to perform those duties on a couple of occasions. I was happy to take his
place since it meant that I got to attend those events without the expense of
buying a ticket. On one occasion I had to arrive early and make sure that there
were no puddles of water on the seats laid out for an open air Shakespeare
performance in the Tilting Yard. I would then show people to their seat or
point them in the right direction. I would then be able to sit on the grass and
enjoy the evening. Eazy Peazy.
The last time on my short
stint as a helper was at a concert by a string quartet in the Barons Hall
inside the castle. When I reported for duty and explained again who I was and
who I was replacing, they had a brief chat amongst themselves, during which
time I realised that I was going to get the job nobody else wanted but I didn’t
mind, because again, I got in to the evening for free and did not mind being an
usherette or a go-for. A rather posh lady came back to me and said that they
were short of somebody to guard the picture gallery and would I mind spending
the evening there. She said that I would still here the music, since I would be
directly behind the performers but I could not see them and would I mind that.
Then she walked me to my
post and explained that my duty for the evening was simply to make sure that
anybody who had taken a wrong turn and wandered into the picture gallery was
turned back. The performers would be the only people that evening that should
be passing by me from the waiting room where they would be preparing for the
performance.
The woman asked me if I
minded being asked to stay there, and explained there would more than likely
not be anybody to turn away, it was just a precaution. I smiled at her a said
that I was fine, that I was happy in my own company.
Actually I was not just in my
own company. If you have ever taken the tour around the castle rooms, you would
know that this quite a long gallery, in fact it is a wide hallway, where many
of the earlier Dukes and Duchesses of Norfolk stand life sized, held
immortalised inside a huge gold frame gazing as ancient portraits do, directly
at the viewer. The gallery was in semi darkness apart from the small picture
lights illuminating these ancestral ghosts of former centuries.
As a child, I was never
taught to be afraid of the dark or of being left alone, in fact, it suited my
family to do just the reverse, and make sure that I learned that there was
nothing there in the darkness that was not there in the full light of day and
therefore nothing to be wary about in my surroundings, in a house where lights
were turned off to save on the electricity costs; I would be in trouble if my
parents got back to find that the shilling they had put in the meter had run
out when they returned.
So I stayed in the long
gallery in the company of a historic family whose faces and character were
painstakingly recorded by the artists of their day. They have now become
priceless art works by genius painters whose names are known throughout this
modern world.
My reverie was only briefly
disturbed when the members of the string quartet were guided in to the Barons
Hall where they would perform for the audience seated there awaiting a musical
evening. The hubbub I had heard building through the door as members of the
public entered and settled, quickly died to expectant silence as the recital
began. I sat listening to the music drifting quite clearly from what was for that
night, a concert hall. For a while I sat and stared back into the eyes of the
Dukes and Duchesses of old, Lady this and Lord that who were all long dead.
Mostly they were looking at me through stern eyes above a proud bearing, but
some seemed to share my amusement at the predicament I had found myself thrown
into.
A few looked at me with a
sort of curiosity, as if they were asking the same question that had crossed my
mind. What madness had put a total stranger to the Fitzalan-Howard dynasty in
such a position? Who was this woman standing there pretending to be the night
watchman? My thoughts and seemingly those of the forebears of the present noble
family, moved on to wondering, what sort of guard could I possibly be? There
was I in the midst of vast wealth in the form of family portraits of so many of
the ancestors of the group of people who had inherited this gigantic wealth of
oil paintings. There are Van Dyck’s, Reynolds, Gainsborough, and Canaletto’s.
Treasures that were way beyond my imagination in value.
I decided to make the most
of my certain luck, at having been so casually placed in such an enjoyable
position. It was so peaceful, yet frightfully bizarre and I felt blessed, as so
many thoughts flew around in my head, like what if the present Duke should
stride down the hall to join the proceedings, bump into me and ask who the
devil I was and what the devil I was doing there. Although I had ID in my bag,
I had not been asked to show it to anybody and nobody had asked to look in my bag,
something I would have thought would be standard for something like this.
Well it was their worry and
not mine, I was totally relaxed and very happy, no more than that, almost
joyous that the Fitzalan predecessors seemed so comfortable sharing this evening
with me, they were not threatened by me and I was equally at ease with them,
totally delighted to make their grand acquaintance.
During the interval when I
briefly saw the string quartet as they took a break from playing. The lady who
had appointed me to my delightful position came in and gave me a cup of tea to
keep me going. How kind; or was it guilty conscience at ditching this stranger
in the place that everybody else thought was too spooky for words. My gain,
their loss.
The second half commenced and
I continued to commune with my new friends to the soothing sound of chamber
music that seemed astonishingly appropriate. It was one of the greatest
pleasures of my life; so tranquil and peaceful and best of all, that I was
alone with all these fine people who I was sure had quite taken to me. The evening flew by through
sheer pleasure and I will remember this sheer chance happening for as long as I
live.
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