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West Cheshire Rural

Talks archives

With his handbell and dressed up in his finery, David Mitchell had this audience eating out of his hand as he regaled us with hilarious stories of his experiences as Chester's town crier. Indeed, Chester is the only place in Britain to have retained the tradition of a regular midday proclamation at a fixed place and time (12 noon, Tuesday-Saturday, between May and August). In medieval England the job of the town crier (or bellman) was to inform townspeople of the latest news, proclamations, by-laws and any other imortant information as most folk were illiterate. Proclaiming the news was not their only role. Originally they patrolled the streets after dark acting as peace-keepers, arresting miscreants and taking them to the stocks for punishment. It was also their job to make sure fires were damped down for the night after the curfew bell. David's talk was articulate, funny, refreshing and highly entertaining and he left many of us aching with laughter.

On Thursday 18th January we were treated to a highly entertaining talk by Simon Michael, a barrister who has drawn on is experiences in court to write several best-selling crime novels. Mr Michael was both amusing and erudite, as he told us of his rise from the east end of London to becoming a barrister in Middle Temple, one of the four Inns of Court in the city. His talk was peppered with fascinating facts about the Middle Temple itself, his confrontations with the notorious Kray twins and the dreadful racism he experienced in his first chambers, where he was called, amongst other things, a 'Jew Boy' and was the victim of those more senior barristers, who refused to let him take their 'returned' cases because of his less-than-privileged background. Simon Michael's talk was very amusing and enlightening, particularly about police corruption and politicians' bad behaviour. The audience was left wanting more...