Make Way Make Way

 

Never, I’m guessing, has my lack of pushiness and invisibility been more apparent than yesterday in Hampton Court.

We glimpsed the character that was playing Henry VIII, that despicable, ugly, fat, king from about 500 years ago. He was encircled at a respectable distance by camera toting visitors. Later when he wished to move on his herald cleared the way for him in the traditional noisy way by shouting loudly… “Make way for the King of England”. And the crowds around him instantly cleared and lo and behold…there was a path for the king to walk through the crowd.

Wow!

I need a herald.

I realised I was one plank short of a herald yesterday.

I had been forewarned about the imminent trouble to come…but did not realise it at the time.

Hampton Court is filled with baby monitors that crackled into life from time to time with the voices of those monitoring the attendants and visitors.

‘Does anyone know where the deaf tour is?’ I heard a voice ask, as we walked past yet another portrait of a plum sucking aristocrat.

I didn’t hear the reply as we entered the next room.

Later when we were about to leave the palace and enter the gardens, we had to walk around a courtyard in order to do so.

 

 

There was a crowd of people in front of us who were being addressed by a woman who was using sign language to speak to the group. I could tell from the woolly sound of her laughter that she was also deaf.

She’d told the group something interesting and possibly even hilarious, for the group then fractured into smaller units that seemed keen to discuss the information further both by signing and perhaps lip reading.

Heraldless I tried to edge through.

Impasse.

I was blocked, and could see no way through.

They did not move or seem aware that there were people trying to edge past them. I looked for gaps but it was like trying to get through closing pack ice. So focussed were they on whatever they were silently talking about they were oblivious of my intent…and that of the others who were trapped in the cul de sac behind me.

The others though were more cunning than I. I was thwarted but they had a secret weapon. They sent in their kids! And as everyone knows kids can get through just about anything. They snaked a zigzagged path through the group that barely parted to let them through and we grimly followed them and made it through.

The Teenager was not impressed, ‘You couldn’t even get through a crowd of deaf people,’ he said. ‘That was pathetic!’

It was true. And that was when I realised what was missing in my life: I need a herald!

If even King Henry’s huge girth had not been enough to enable him to plough a successful passage through his courtiers so that he had to resort to using a trumpeting herald to announce his desire to perambulate… then so do I.

I now understood better the purpose of the Henry’s trumpeters too!

So let’s make a start on the Christmas wish list…

Dear Santa,

I’ve been a good girl this year and I’d really like….

Item 1: One Herald (trumpet essential)

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