The New Murrey and Blue blog

Last weekend was the Richard III Society AGM and Members’ Weekend at the Grand Hotel in Leicester. On Friday there was a gathering in the Guildhall, with drinks and food, but unfortunately, probably because of the first named storm of the year, Amy, the power both to the Guildhall and the Cathedral next door, was cut off. The concert, of Whitney Houston songs, which was supposed to be taking place at the Cathedral had to be postponed. However, the Guildhall occasion went ahead regardless and was, by all accounts, still a great success!

On the Saturday morning , we had the pleasure of coming face to face with the reconstruction of Richard III’s head, outside the glass cabinet and we were allowed to take photos and selfies of it! There were also various stalls with books and Richard III memorabilia for sale.

After time for a coffee, we all entered the hall for an excellent talk by Dr Tobias (Toby) Capwell and Dominic (Dom) Smee. They hadn’t met since they took part in the documentary follow-up to The King in the Car Park, called Richard III: The New Evidence. It was very relaxed and entertaining, with Toby remembering how he had become involved with Philippa Langley and the Looking for Richard project, and Dom describing the difficulties and challenges he had had to overcome in order to become Richard’s ‘stunt double’ (as Toby described it). He proved that Richard would have been capable of fighting, riding, charging and using weapons. In fact, Richard would have been very used to this, whereas to Dom it was all new as he’d only had a few months to train.