city areas and city grounds . Because living in the Tower of London you were housed and you were well fed , well clothed and well paid . And with the food , you knew you were going to be served beef . Beef was expensive , very , very expensive . The local people , peasants , could not afford it . And they knew that we were being fed these choice cuts of meat here . So a lot of the locals were very envious , very jealous . So seeing us walking through in our splendid red and gold uniforms , very distinctive looking , there go those greedy beefeaters . That is where we think it comes from . It is the most plausible theory that there is . But nobody really knows for sure . Possibly it started off as a mocking term .
So what are the main duties of a Yeoman Warder ? What do you guys have to do ? Well nowadays the duties are pretty much for the tourism trade . The Tower of London is actually run by a charity called Historic Royal Palaces . We get absolutely no government funding whatsoever . All the money that is generated through the gate receipts , through corporate events and so on is ploughed back into the system . There are two really iconic images that you get at the Tower of London , one being the crown jewels of course and the other being the Yeoman Warders . Our job is to facilitate the visitors coming in and we get somewhere in the region of 2.8 million visitors each year . Our job is to entertain and make sure they have a fulfilling day at the Tower of London . So essentially 95 % of our time is making sure visitors are happy and have a good time . 5 % of the time is dealing with things like ceremonial duties . So there are certain ceremonies that we have to attend and put on throughout the year . So mainly our duties include ; providing guided tours , looking after visitors , answering questions , taking photographs and just the general day-to-day looking after people that visit the Tower .
So , dealing with those 2.8 million visitors and the general public , being the general public ; if you were given £ 1 for every time somebody asked you a particular question , what is the question you get asked the most ? Well its three … well four if you like . The first one being , ‘ where are the toilets ’ generally .
( Laughter ) which was my first question when I arrived . If you take that one away , then the next one invariably is what the letters mean on our uniform . ER . To which the stock response is “ extremely romantic ”. The third question is where you get the name Beefeater from , which we have already spoken about . And thirdly it is how do you become a Yeoman Warder ? So those are the most frequent questions .
What is the most bizarre encounter you have had with a member of the general public ? I do not know … most people that come in are on holiday , so they are quite happy .
You have not had to deliver a baby or … No . Although we have some fatalities , heart attacks and things like that . We are all trained first-aiders so if you are going to have a heart attack , have it here . I tell you what , we have actually , I think in my time here of nearly 20 years , I think there have been half a dozen cases where we have to use the defib and we have kept people
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