A day remembering the reinterment of Richard III

Saturday marked the first anniversary of the reinterment of King Richard III here in Leicester.

Services were held, exhibitions opened and books launched as we remembered the heady, exciting yet reverential and remarkable day twelve months ago.

I've blogged before about the events leading upto the occasion itself....but I've only just realised how much I've done so...here are the links

http://thinkingofthedays.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/the-day-they-found-king-richard-iii.html
http://thinkingofthedays.blogspot.com/2013/02/richard-iii-days-of-hype-and-hope.html
http://thinkingofthedays.blogspot.com/2013/02/more-days-of-richard-iii-mania.html
http://thinkingofthedays.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/a-day-of-spitting-feathers-more-about.html
http://thinkingofthedays.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/a-day-in-land-of-king-richard-iii.html
http://thinkingofthedays.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/days-of-richard-iii-fever.html
http://thinkingofthedays.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/richard-iiisunday-22-march-2015.html


But yesterday was a day of celebrating and remembering. Kirsteen Thomson who lives a few miles from Leicester opened her art exhibition at the Guildhall.

She's been fascinated by Richard III for many years. In fact, the King passed by the back of her garden over five hundred years ago. She painted the spot twenty years ago, ...and behind the green door in the painting lies the intact drawbridge to the old castle in Kirby Muxloe.

 

She's painted Leicester Cathedral, the Guildhall and other local landmarks as well as other places associated with the last Plantagenet King. Fotheringhay, where he was born, Edinburgh, Yorkshire and Wales. There's also a book about Richard III filled with her paintings ...

 

 

Another book launched yesterday was "How to bury a King" by the Reverend Pete Hobson. He's the man who was given the responsibility of  doing just that...the redesign of the cathedral and preparing it for the reinterment.

And that's something that has never been done before , so it really was a step into the unknown. Pete though is so calm and level headed , and in the build up to the pomp and pageantry of last year,
he remained quite serene every time I interviewed him.
His book tells  the inside story of what happened behind the scenes .

A CD was also launched on Saturday featuring the music during the services at Leicester Cathedral last March performed by the choir from Leicester Cathedral. I still remember the shiver at the back of my neck during the Sunday service when they sang.....

And a new, different portrait of Richard III was unveiled on Saturday at the King Richard III Visitor Centre. Back in February, the centre asked people to send in their photographic memories of the reinterment in Leicester. Over ten thousand images were sent in from all over the world, and the result is this, a rather stunning , three metre high , photo montage portrait of Richard.

I love it.....and when you look closely, you can  see some of the original photographs

Local dignitaries laid white roses at the statue of Richard just outside the Cathedral on Saturday too with quite a crowd there to watch.

The effect of  Richard's reinterment on Leicester and the county is huge - symbolically, historically and financially.

Working so close by to the cathedral, I'm amazed at the numbers of visitors there over the last year. To hear American, French , Canadian and even Australian voices as I walk past would have been very unusual a couple of years ago. Not now though.

Visitor numbers in Leicester and at the Bosworth Battlefield centre where Richard III was killed remain high, hotels are running at eighty per cent capacity,

It's been estimated this week that the reinterment  has brought £59 million worth of business to the city, and that's a conservative estimate.

But let's not just talk about money...there's a buzz about Leicester now. Our Midlands city has been put on the map historically, there's a pride about the place, and that's due to the 'Richard III effect' as it's known locally.

Of course our football team, Leicester City, have also been hitting the international headlines. The stuff of dreams, the story about our team who were languishing at the bottom of the Premier League in March last year, has now become a global phenomenon. Little Leicester City, are now at the top of the league, inspiring everyone ....and it's been suggested that Richard III , even though he died over five hundred years ago, could be responsible.

I'm not kidding. Some fans say since Richard was reinterred, the football team has had a runaway success, and that the facts speak for themselves. Is it a coincidence ? Or is it a form of "King Power" which incidentally is the name of  the stadium where Leicester City play?

Whatever, Leicester has changed since a dead king was found in a city car park and was reinterred at Leicester Cathedral. And it's a very positive change too.......





 

Richard III...Sunday 22 March 2015

It's a day I will remember for a very long time. Richard III's cortege made its way slowly around Leicestershire before finally arriving in Leicester. There, crowds were gathering...it's estimated that 35,000 people were in the city itself.

The sun shone, there was such a happy atmosphere as people watched the progress of the procession on big outdoor television screens and on a corner of Jubilee Square, Morris dancers stamped their feet, clicked their sticks to music which would have sounded so familiar to King Richard III.

Outside Leicester Cathedral, the crowds waited patiently, many clutching white roses for Richard

While Mabon the police dog did a last minute sweep of the  Cathedral Gardens

It was time for me to put on my lanyard and walk into the cathedral for the service of Compline with the rest of the invited guests.

Once in the Cathedral, I saw Simon Dixon who is the Special Collections Manager at the University of Leicester...he was in charge of the Bible which was later placed on Richard's coffin.

This is no ordinary bible. It a Latin Vulgate bible printed in 1481 during Richard III's lifetime. At the time of Richard's reign though, no Bible had been printed in England,- this one was printed by Johannes Amerbach in Basle, Switzerland.

It is beautiful ....




It was then time to sit and wait  for the service to begin, to admire the Cathedral ,which I see so often, all dressed up, to watch the lights flicker on the polished brass and wood, to chat to my neighbours sitting next to me, and to have a look at what form the service would take.

 Suddenly there a hush, all we could hear was the whirring of a helicopter overhead, and the sound of horses hooves outside the cathedral

We all stood as the Tower Bell began to ring. The coffin was led into Cathedral by servers and clergy including the Very Reverend David Monteith, the Dean of Leicester, His Eminence Cardinal Vincent Nichols , Archbishop of Westminster and the Right Reverend Tim Stephens, Bishop of Leicester.


I was positioned near to the entrance so the King's coffin passed within touching distance. It was a surreal moment, being aware of being so close to the mortal remains of  a King slain on the battlefield five hundred and thirty years ago and to be surrounded by the strong  scent of incense.

The service itself was memorable ,with the soothing ritual of Compline and the cathedral being packed with everyone from royalty and descendants of peers of the realm who fought at the Battle of Bosworth  to members of the public from all over the world .

 There was genuine emotion and a sense of a unique occasion, and above all there was the mediaeval and renaissance music from the organist Simon Headley, the Leicester Cathedral Choir and the Leicester Cathedral Chamber Choir. It was spellbinding as their voices rose to the rafters of the cathedral, especially during The Motet.

The hairs on the back of my neck tingled as I listened to this haunting, moving work which was composed for the memorial service of John F.Kennedy using the words of Prudentius who lived in the fifth century.

At the end of the service, I had to hurry back to the real world, to work. To interview people at the service, to interview the remarkable Pete Hobson who had been in charge of the whole Richard III project. He couldn't stop smiling. "Are those smiles of joy or relief that everything went so well?" I asked. "Both!" he replied with another huge grin.

Then it was back to the BBC studios, a hop, skip and a jump away from the Cathedral, to go on air describing what I'd seen and to edit some interviews to be used later that night and the following day.

And on leaving work, my friend Victoria Hicks, who is a television journalist for BBC East Midlands Today, and I walked back into the Cathedral Gardens just to stand for a while and reflect on the day, and to have a photo with Richard III's statue....

And for a final look at the Cathedral in the quiet of the night.

What a day. What a wonderful day.