Kim Siddorn

The funeral will be held tomorrow of Kim Siddorn, founder of one of the oldest and biggest re-enactment groups in the country, Regia Anglorum.

Back when I was an archaeologist, I met Kim, and other members of Regia Anglorum, when they came to the castle in North Wales where I was one of the diggers. The local community had got so interested in what we were doing at the top of the hill at Caergwrle that they decided to hold a Historical Festival, and they invited members of Regia Anglorum along to do living history and skirmishing.
It was great fun! I made a costume, one of the first medieval costumes I'd ever made, with Laura Ashley fabric and a pinafore dress pattern - and I asked a nun of my acquaintance how to make a proper wimple, which I could fasten on with three pins, and without a mirror, if I had to.
I went to work on the bus that weekend, in costume, which turned a few heads. Most people seemed to think I was a nun, despite the patterned fabric of my overdress. One of the Saxon ladies with Regia told me she had the same problem, which was why she had decorated her wimple with embroidery to make it less nun-like.
The chaps in Norman chainmail were great, too - I was doing some of the castle tours, showing what the archaeologists had found so far and talking about the history of the castle, and they were so enthusiastic! It was great to have a discussion with the people I was showing round, who knew about castle design.
Kim Siddorn did the commentary for the shows that Regia put on, and he was very interesting, talking about how members of the society looked at things like the Bayeaux Tapestry and tried to work things out by experiment - for instance, what were those little squares depicted on the tapestry attached to the chainmail cowl? It seemed most likely that they were extra face protection, which could dangle down when not in use.

So that show, and the one the following year, whetted my appetite for re-enactment. In fact, several people who were volunteering on the dig wanted to set up a Regia group in the village. The only reason I didn't join in the end was because I moved away to do archaeology in London - and the group in Caergwrle ended up as the Samhain Society, which still exists.

Here's a picture of the corner of the castle where the medieval bread oven was found - which I helped to excavate.

Learning to use a Lucet

Here's a picture of a lucet with some cord, from Box Elder blog, which is written by Lucy, who lives in Brittany. Her description of how she came to learn the technique is on January 28th on her blog.
This is something I've been doing for some time, as a medieval craft, though as she says, it goes back to Viking times. The cords you can make with this simple tool are hard wearing and strong, and are useful for so many things, like bootlaces, or drawstrings for bags or clothing. Recently I've been lucetting loose cords, which I then plaited, and then wove into a rug on a peg loom. I've got them all around my bed now, and they're lovely and scrunchy to walk on in bare feet.
My latest project is to try a two coloured cord. Last year at Wonderwool, at the Royal Welsh Showground, I got some chunky wool in white and dark green, thinking I would make a belt. I've only just now got round to trying it, and the double loops are making a thick square cord which should go very well with my medieval dress and overtunic - the dress is red linen, and the overtunic is dark green wool.

This is me, outside one of Drudion's tents, at the Hereford History Weekend two years ago.

Historical Re-enactment: how I got started

Over on the Living History Forum there's a discussion of how various re-enactors got started with this - well, more than a hobby and more like a way of life. For some it seems to be a fascination with swords, or the Sharpe novels, or playing on World War Two tanks as a child.

For me, it started with a Viking on a bus.

I was eleven, and on holiday on the Isle of Man. Every year, they hold a big Viking Festival in Peel, complete with longship races across the bay (yes, they have more than one!). My family were staying in Douglas, so we got the bus across the island to see what it was all about.
Sitting on the bus in front of me, so close I could have reached out to touch the fur on his collar if I'd dared, was one of the Vikings, in his costume, with his shield and weapons.
Looking back on it, his kit owed more to Hollywood than historical research, but I was hooked. I wanted to be the sort of person who dressed in costume, on the bus.

When I got to university, studying history and archaeology, the only re-enactment group on campus was the Sealed Knot. They were a division of Gilbert de Haughton's regiment, Royalists, and I went to pike drill behind the halls of residence, and climbed up Pendle Hill on Hallowe'en looking for witches to burn, and shouted "The King and the Cause" at the Battle of Nantwich - which terrified the life out of me. It was a big battle, with cannon, and there I was, in the middle of a pike push (which is like a rugby scrum with added sixteen foot long poles), with my helmet askew.
The following year, I joined the Gilbert and Sullivan society instead, and became a fairy in Iolanthe!

There was still something about re-enactment that attracted me, though, so when the grandson of the lady I was working for was going through problems at school, I suggested re-enactment to get him away from the computer and out in the open air, with interesting people and things to do. He was interested in history, so that was a good start. I found a local medieval group, brushed up my rusty sewing skills to make the kit, and off we went.
The lad dropped out after a season or so, having discovered an interest in archery, which he could do with his grandad locally, and I stayed on, learned spinning and weaving, and basic swordplay, to go with my knowledge of the history and archaeology of the period - and I've been doing it ever since.

And whenever I get the chance, I travel on the bus or train in kit. You never know when an impressionable child might be watching, and be inspired for life!

Medieval and Canal Fair

When I was eleven years old, I went on holiday with my family to the Isle of Man, and we made the bus journey across the island from Douglas to Peel to see the Viking Festival. Sitting on the bus just in front of me, close enough that I could have reached out and touched his fur collar, was one of the Vikings. Looking back on it, the kit he was wearing owed more to Hollywood than history, but I was hooked. I wanted to grow up and do that!
So these days, I travel on buses and trains in kit as much as I can. You never know who will be inspired.

This weekend, I was able to go to Droitwich Spa for one day of a three day show. As it's Bank Holiday, and a busy time in the shop, I couldn't take any more time off. I went to Droitwich Spa last year, and loved it. The show was put on in a little park next to the canal, and I got chatting to some lovely Indian grannies, who saw the group's quernstone and remembered grinding corn like that in their villages back in India when they were young. There were no Indian grannies this year, but three young boys took over the quernstone, and made so much flour that they ended up making flat breads with it, and having them cooked over our open fire.
Over on the other side of the tref (the modern Welsh word for town, which we use to describe our encampment), people were trying on chainmail and handling weapons. Re-enactment weapons are exactly like medieval weapons, apart from being blunted. When we re-enact battles we don't actually want to kill the people on the other side - but we are still holding swords which are basically big lumps of steel, or swinging axes and spears, so we have to be trained to do it as safely as possible. We like to give members of the public an up-close view of the weapons that were used, so they can feel the weight, and understand more of what it felt like to fight. Callum the Callous also does a very good talk on the different sorts of arrow heads available.
I was doing spinning and weaving and making cords with a lucet, and my new venture of bringing along examples of natural dyes and talking about them was a great success. Talking about what people wore - and how long it took to make cloth - also gets people thinking about what it was like to live in the Middle Ages. I got several people commenting on how good it was that there were some people who were carrying on the old traditions - just in case civilisation as we know it fell apart, in which case we would need people who knew how to do things in the old ways. I even sold one lady a lucet. She thought cord making would be something relaxing to do while she was watching telly in the evenings.

The rest of the fair (there was another medieval group at the far end, but they seemed to be from the Wars of the Roses period, about a hundred years after us) was made up mostly of local groups and canal related groups. There were some very small Scouts - I'm sure they had to be eleven to join when I was young, but these seemed younger than that. There were charities relating to different waterways, as well as ferret racing (they were raising money for animal charities). Those were some very laid back ferrets, who loved being handled between races!
There was also a big real ale tent - I had a very nice pint from there while we were putting the tents up, but we don't drink alcohol during shows, and I had to disguise my Fairtrade milky coffee in a wooden goblet!
One tent was publicising the Canal and River Trust. They were set up quite recently when British Waterways stopped having responsibility for maintaining the rivers and canals as a cost-cutting measure by the government, leaving the work in the hands of volunteers and local charities. The young man who was manning the stall feared a return to the 1960s, when a lot of canals were derelict because of lack of maintenance. A lot of them have been brought back into use, but without regular maintenance they could be lost again.

I had to pack up and leave the show early, so I came back on the train and bus in my medieval dress - though I did take my sharp eating knife off my belt (it's surprising how useful a knife can be on camp, when you would never think of carrying one around in daily life!). I also removed my medieval head-dress, a hairnet which is held in place by a length of silk under my chin, and with a linen 'crown' topping it off - this is the fashion that Gerald of Wales described for the Welshwomen of his day, and it also means I am portraying a respectable woman. Another lady of the group, Rowan, always goes bareheaded, and takes great delight in pointing out to the public that she is not a respectable woman!



Here I am in last year's costume, a linen dress with a wool over-tunic. This year I have a new black wool dress with 'angel' sleeves. I embroidered round the neck and the edges of the sleeves with the brightest colours I could find in my sewing box - red, yellow and green - only for one of the ladies at the local Stitch and Bitch group to exclaim; "Rasta colours!"

Wonderwool

Every year the Royal Welsh Showground at Builth Wells is host to a celebration of all things yarn related - Wonderwool was on last weekend, and I was able to get a lift with some other ladies from the local Stitch and Bitch group to make a day of it.
And you do need a day. I'm very organised, and start at one end of the vast hall, and walk up and down the aisles until I reach the other end - and it takes around an hour if you're only glancing at the stalls for a quick recce to start with. When I know roughly what's there, I go back to the ones that caught my eye to have a closer look.
This year I was looking for things I could use for re-enactment. I'm going to my first medieval show of the year next weekend, at Droitwich, and I wanted to have a good display of medieval dyes to show people. I already have madder (which makes red) and weld (which makes yellow). I managed to get St John's Wort (a versatile plant that can make brown, maroon, yellow and green, depending on what mordant* you use), walnut husks (brown), Dyer's Greenweed (yellow, but when used with woad it's half of Lincoln green), cutch grass (yellow), and dyer's chamomile (yellow again). I got all those from the Mulberry Dyer and Fiery Felts. All I'm missing now is some woad for the blues.
One of the reasons I do this is to demonstrate that medieval people didn't go round in mud-coloured clothes all the time. Dye plants were free to pick - all it took was time and a lot of boiling in a cauldron. In fact, peasants were more likely to be wearing pastel shades (because those were cheaper), while richer people wore stronger colours. The word "migraine" originally meant a bright scarlet dye - strong enough to give you a headache!
I was also after lucets, so I can use them to teach the basics of cord making. I got some nice ones from Hedgehog Equipment, and I found a book on more advanced techniques for myself (always stay one step ahead of your students!).

*a mordant fixes the dye so it doesn't run when the cloth is washed. Common medieval mordants included salt and urine!