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 .
Sovereign . You know we go about our lives doing a job as best as we can and we don ’ t look for reward in any of these sorts of things . I ’ ve probably met Her Majesty three times personally but for very brief moments , um , and on one of those three occasions we did converse for about three minutes or so on a particular subject , it was about this medal actually [ points to another of his many medals ]. So but for her to acknowledge the job that I ’ ve done um , over the last 19 years plus my army time as well it ’ s just , it ’ s just unbelievable , it normally happens to somebody else , it doesn ’ t happen to you does it . I don ’ t think in my family that I ’ m aware of anybody being given an Order like this so you know ; it ’ s a great honour for me . And my wife was absolutely in tears , bless her , when that happened . We haven ’ t got a date yet set for when we go to the Palace to collect it and hopefully it will be Her Majesty that will dish it out .
It is also a big year for you for another reason as you are due to retire and having lived in such an amazing place , what ’ s it going to be like to leave the Tower behind ? I don ’ t know . It ’ s , it ’ s a big old change this one . We ’ re used to moving a lot of time , but this is the longest we ’ ve ever lived in one place , so nearly 19 years in the Tower . Living in the Tower of London has been quite different , you say you live in London , well technically I do but we ’ re so insular in the Tower of London . It ’ s a totally different way of life . When we go , when we get the opportunity to go home for the weekend we go down to our house and we live what can be considered to be a normal way of life . We live slightly under a false cloud really in the Tower because you ’ re protected hugely . It ’ s a little community in itself , we , as I said we ’ ve got our own pub so we have our own social life as well . Yeah we go out and about and do things like the shows and things like that . So it ’ s convenient for that sort of thing but invariably when it comes to the weekend we go down to our house because living by the seaside , you can ’ t beat it .
Sussex is lovely anyway and just going back and living a sort of normal way of life , we ’ re quite looking forward to that aspect of it , but we ’ ll regret some of the other aspects of living in the Tower . You know my grandchildren really , really love it . We ’ ve got seven grandkids and they love coming here and Pickle who ’ s 9 , her name ’ s Leah , I call her Pickle , and she said on Sunday funnily enough , we were having dinner and she said “ so you ’ re going to leave the Tower of London Grandad are you ?”, I said “ yeah , sorry darling we are ”, her little face was very sad and she said “ does that mean you won ’ t be famous anymore ?”
Our grandson who ’ s nearly 18 he had a project at school to write about a castle , you know do a story about a castle , and he was doing his homework and his mum sort of looked at him and said “ what ’ s the matter with you ?” “ I ’ ve got to write a story about a castle ”, he said . “ What ’ s the problem with that ?” she said . “ Well I don ’ t know what castle to write about ” he replied . She said “ well where do Grandma and Grandad live ? Tower of London . What ’ s that then ? A castle ! “
Of course he just takes it for granted that we live in the Tower of London , he didn ’ t conceive that it ’ s a castle . Anyway , so he starts his paragraph and his Mum has a quick read of it and it says the Tower of London was built by William the Confessor in 1966 ! So I thought right well I better go and have a chat to the school , so I went down and I spoke to his class to say that it ’ s not that at all , you know , put history straight . From the family point of it the kids are going to be sad about it , they ’ ll miss it , as we will .
It ’ s been a major part of all of their lives . Absolutely , well certainly Aaron who is 18 nearly , it ’ s been all of his life . He doesn ’ t know anything different . The younger children Evie and Ethan they ’ re just 5 so they won ’ t have fully benefited from us being here . Pickle and I we did a BBC documentary for CBeebies called My Story that ran two , three years ago and we had a fantastic time doing that , she loved it you know , she was a film star !
So when you hang your uniform up for the last time , what ’ s next for you ? Well I will retire officially on the 31st of March so we ’ re going to go back and live in Lancing . Then the plan is to retire , I ’ m going to play a bit of golf . My wife Pat and I love ballroom dancing so we ’ re going to carry that on ; we ’ re going to do the social aspects with that . I like my garden so I ’ m going to do some gardening , and also I go off and I do presentations . I ’ ve been known to do after dinner speeches and things like that . We ’ ve got a few cruises booked to go off and do presentations on cruise ships and things . Pat used to work in the Tower with me for 11 years and her knowledge of the Crown jewels is exceptional , she used to work there looking after the Crown Jewels . So between us we talk about the history of the Tower , the history of the Crown Jewels and the stories behind them and so I ’ m thinking that that might be another avenue for us . To go out to schools , colleges , professional organisations and go and talk , do a PowerPoint presentation
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 .
and things like that . We ’ ve got a lot of information between Pat and I , we have a lot of stories to tell and it would be such a shame if all of that experience was to retire at the same time we did .
Finally , you ’ ve probably been interviewed lots of times over your career . Is there a question that you wish you had been asked ? Very good question to ask . Perhaps ‘ are you planning to write a book ?’
So Alan , are you planning to write a book ? I ’ m not clever enough ; I ’ m not intelligent enough to write a book . My son ’ s written one . He ’ s on to his second one at the moment . So he ’ s the intelligent one , so is Pat . So is my daughter . It ’ s just me . Somebody suggested to me the other day it might be an idea that if there is someone who wants to do something like that and wants a subject to write it for you then that may be the way to go rather than me personally write a book . So yeah , would there be enough people interested in little old me from Newhaven ? I don ’ t know .
I ’ m hoping 10,000 Re : Magazine readers are . I recently did a BBC programme with Lucy Worsley [ British History ’ s Biggest Fibs with Lucy Worsley ] which was a really interesting to do . The radio ones I quite like and I ’ ve done a number of interviews on radio including recently with Chris Evans on Radio 2 but the one I would love to do would be Desert Island Discs . That ’ s one sort of thing I ’ d like to do . I ’ ve also done Gardener ’ s Question Time and I quite enjoyed that .
Brilliant . Alan , thank you very much for your time . Pleasure .
By Jason Edge
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