That JORVIK Viking Thing Podcast

Historical Reenactment or Living History?

June 18, 2021 Miranda Schmeiderer, Ronald Kane, Philip Roebuck, Lottie Adcock, Jon Arey
That JORVIK Viking Thing Podcast
Historical Reenactment or Living History?
Show Notes Transcript Chapter Markers

Reenactment is so much more than people dressing up in a field and hitting each other with blunted weapons - though it definitely involves that too! Join us as we talk to four reenactors and living history interpreters who tell us about how they got started, their particular area of expertise, and what they love the best about reenactment and living history!

More Information:
Schola Normannorum
Eboracum Early Dance / Dance the Past

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Miranda  0:04  
In Viking times, a "thing" was a gathering a place where leaders and warriors could meet and talk. In the 21st century, our "thing" is a virtual place where history academics and enthusiasts from around the world can come together to share knowledge. I'm your host, Miranda Schmeiderer. So hold onto your helmets for this episode of That JORVIK Viking Thing Podcast.

Miranda  0:32  
This time, we're doing things a little differently. Instead of talking to one guest, we've invited four guests onto the show to talk about their experience with historical re-enactment. We have Ronald Kane, Philip Roebuck, Lottie Adcock and Jon Arey with us today, each talking about a different aspect of re-enactment that they're involved with. 

Miranda  0:52  
But first things first, what is re-enactment? Most people may think it's just people dressing up in costumes and fighting in a field. But it's so much more than that. We briefly discussed Viking re-enactment in Yorkshire with Chris Tuckley all the way back on episode three, so make sure you give that a listen. But it actually goes back much further in time. Historical re-enactment stretches all the way back to Roman times, when emperors would recreate famous battles and amphitheatres for the entertainment of the crowds. Of course, we've moved on a little bit since then, and today, even when historical battles are recreated, weapons are blunted or shoot blank ammunition so that injuries are kept to a minimum. But it just shows that people have always been interested in history and reliving it over and over, even when they're the ones making it themselves. 

Miranda  1:38  
Simply put, historical re-enactment is recreating history. Reenactors use archaeological and documentary evidence to reconstruct everything from clothes to speech to food. To the casual observer, reenactors dress up, hang out in the field and teach visitors about history. It's not too different from our own Viking interpreters here at the JORVIK Viking Centre, but like our own Viking interpreters, there's a lot of research that goes into every aspect of this recreation. Hours and hours are spent on research and then even more hours are spent on reconstructing costumes - or "kit," as they call it. Everything from coats and shoes to jewellery and accessories is fair game for a reenactor and there are even crafters who specialise in particular trades, such as historical leather work, woodwork and pottery. Like we discussed with Bruni in our last episode about nalbinding, a lot of these traditional techniques are on the decline and in danger of dying out. But re-enacting is one method to preserve these crafts. First up, we have Ronald Kane, one of the people responsible for researching and crafting the kits that our Vikings were at the JORVIK Viking Centre. He's also been re-enacting a wide range of periods for over 20 years. Here he is talking about his very first experience with re-enactment. Tell us what you know about re-enactment?

Ronald  3:00  
Well, let me just paint a picture for you. Imagine a 17 year old Irish lad who, by virtue of being part of an archery club, ends up in the wilds of County Clare in an open air museum. And while he's there, another living historian puts a sword in his hand and says, "do you wanna have a go?" He says yes, spends the next two hours learning how to wield this iron blade without hurting himself or anybody else in the process. About three hours later, with 20 other of his companions, is storming Cragganowen in this open air museum as part of a display. And that was me about 25 years ago. And I had so much fun on that day. I haven't looked back since essentially. So that's it, it's really, at the heart of it, running around a field with a big iron bar, having a lot of fun, pretending you're someone from the past. 

Miranda  3:53  
Doesn't sound too bad. 

Ronald  3:54  
No, no, no, it's fantastic. And I've been doing it now for you know, well over 20 years. And there's all sorts of different kinds of ways of doing this, you know, so that sort of diversity and variability has just kept me interested all the way along all those different avenues to go down.

Miranda  4:11  
So you focus on the historical battle re-enactment specifically, can you tell us a little bit about that?

Ronald  4:17  
Yeah, in terms of historical combat, there's three or four different types and they've all got their own sort of unique characteristics, but essentially, they're all, in some form or other, trying to recreate combat forms of the past, either for public view or for your own personal enjoyment, or even just as a form of exercise. So those types, you've got battle re-enactment, which can be anywhere from you know, 20 folks in the fields to 200 all they're recreating some form of battle be that the you know, the great Viking horde coming into maraud the Saxons or maybe the Yorkist and their latest fight against the Confederation of the Lancastrians at the Battle of Tewkesbury. It can be any number of those things, but it's a public display. And you've got people in historical costume and authentic armour and arms of some description, recreating that battle for the public. And that's one way that people can engage in it. 

Ronald  5:15  
Another type a bit of an offshoot of that is what's known as Historical European Martial Arts or HEMA for short. And that's where you've got people who are so interested in the combat styles or the specific techniques of the of the fighting styles that they've gone back and they've researched the the old works of the old masters, maybe Hans Talhoffer or somebody like that. And what they've done is they've tried to recreate a modern fighting system that uses those historical weapons. And they do that in the same way that anybody does maybe Kendo today. building on the knowledge of the Samurai masters of Japan and now it's a modern martial art. So people have taken it in that direction. 

Ronald  5:58  
Some people aren't satisfied with that, some people have a bit more of a competitive edge, certainly me and my younger brother definitely had that at different points. And you have certain types of competitive combat - because any system that you put together of historical combat is going to have a way of doing it. So that maybe you'll have certain areas of the body that will constitute a hit point or a kill point, or certain areas of the body that are definitely out of bounds, the head, and so on. So once you develop a system whereby you can do this to some degree safely, then you start to be able to introduce some sort of competitive element to it. So there are there are competitions, sort of all over Europe, all over the world where people try to compete, there's even all the way up to full contact, full armour jousting tournaments that happen at full tilt. They are as dramatic to watch now as they would have been then. And even stage combat, which everybody will be familiar with, from movies, TV, theatre, is still a form of that. You're looking at the body mechanics, about how the body moves in conjunction with some form of historical weapon and then putting that into a system. So even that has elements as well, and they're all tremendous fun. They're all something that I've enjoyed greatly.

Miranda  7:10  
So what historical periods then do you re-enact?

Ronald  7:13  
I am not particularly fussy about my historical periods, I will do almost anything. So anything from the Celts right up through to the Second World War. I've taken part and all sorts of different periods. For me, the whole process of doing it, as far as putting together the impression, working on the kit and equipment, finding out what the different fighting styles are, certainly the evolution of that from, you know, long iron swords from the Celtic Iron Age to short gladiuses in the Roman era, you know, back through to long thin rapiers getting into the 17th century, they're all fun, and they're all fun in their own different way. So for me, I've never felt particularly obliged to restrict myself to any one period. One of the things that I think is really important for anybody who does any form of especially battle re-enactment is to always bear in mind, at least in the back of your mind, that whilst it can be great fun, and there's a tremendous amount of of experiential knowledge you can gain from physically wielding a sword and holding the shield, having to fight for, you know, maybe minutes to hours at a time to get a sense of what that was like, there's always going to be a missing element. And that missing element is you're actually not trying to kill anyone. And more importantly, no one is trying to kill you either. But that's a really important part of the mix that if you're going to understand combat of the period that you did, you do need to appreciate it. And so that's a bit that you always have to just test your own understanding and just sort of test yourself with, to know that you're not actually reliving an experience that someone at the time would have had. There always will be that element that's missing. But having said that, if you stand at the top of Senlac Hill, with 500 other Saxons, bracing the shield wall against 50 armed mounted Norman knights who are charging up said hill in your direction, even though you know it's perfectly safe, even though you know all the risk assessments have been done, even though you know those horses at the last minute, when the swords come out over the shields, are going to veer to the right and run along the line and then go back down the hill again, you know all of that. But still, when those horses and those hooves are charging up toward you in that direction, you can't help but get some little sense of what you think it might have been like to be part of that. And that is from maybe a 17 year old kid being given given a sword and my inner 10 year old child going "WEEEE! This is fun!" to being a grown man at the top of Senlac Hill, experiencing that, that's always going to be a connecting thread that just keeps me coming back. So yeah, spread this fun, recommend it to anyone.

Miranda  10:05  
Next up is Philip Roebuck, a Norman period reenactor with a group called Normannis. Philip's interest in re-enactment is a little less bloody, although, as you'll hear, it didn't necessarily start that way. Okay, Phil, tell me what you know about re-enacting.

Philip  10:22  
So re-enactment is something that I got involved in just probably over 10 years ago, as a fresh faced student at a student fair, where I saw someone with swords on a table and thought "that could be for me" which I think is is actually quite interesting. It's always the shinies and the swords and those things that they get people interested. But through re-enactment, I've discovered that my real passion for history is not in the combat, but in the way that people lived in the past. And recreating that as accurately as possible in order to let modern people get an idea of what life was like centuries ago is, I think, the most rewarding part of re-enactment for me. So there's part of it that is sort of character stuff sort of inhabiting a persona that you've created of someone from the past, but a lot of it is interacting with the public. And actually, for me, quite academic, in some regards. It's a way of moving history from textbooks into a more engaging form for people. So it's finding the little quirks of history that we can learn through archaeology and through historical research, and then presenting them in a way which isn't just text on a page or lectures, but seeing people live that life that is probably the most sort of rewarding part of re-enactment to me, and that's why I ended up getting heavily involved in religious re-enactment.

Miranda  12:00  
So that is what you kind of specialise in then, isn't it? So what specifically does it mean to be a religious reenactor?

Philip  12:08  
So the way that it started is probably the best way to understand that because the re-enactment society I was a part of, we focus on Norman and Angevin history. So post-conquest, particularly looking at sort of the 11th and 12th centuries, and we were very invested in, as I say, representing all aspects of medieval life. So you start with the things like the big battles and that and the combat that tends to draw the crowd. But then we would also do things like dramatic displays based on law courts, and explain difference between modern and medieval legal systems, crafts and textiles, things which a lot of re-enactment societies do around the world, keeping these historical sort of crafts alive. But when it comes to actually representing how people live, you can't actually separate life and religion in a neat way when you're looking particularly at this sort of high to late medieval period. History is church history at that point, and you've got warfare, you've got people's lives, you've got land management, all of it is influenced by faith and belief and religion. So when you're then trying to represent a tenant farmer, it would be disingenuous to not mention the fact that you're going to church regularly and that you have beliefs about how the world was created and how it works. And what is expected of you as a mediaeval Christian.

Miranda  13:44  
So is the character that you inhabit then a religious leader or are they just a religious person?

Philip  13:50  
Well, it varies. I say I was quite lucky to have other like minded people who work had been thinking similar things and between us, we decided to start representing the sort of religious side of medieval life, but obviously, with being just nervous, and depending a lot of times on what audiences and clients are expecting from an event, you have to sort of tailor it in a way that makes it accessible to people and is also still appropriate to the venue and the storyline that you're giving. So I've done simple things as just a pilgrim who is travelling and is stopped off at the castle or wherever we are, as well as being a papal legate in a canon law courts, so looking at the legal systems of the church and most often, I'll represent something monastic nowadays so Benedictine monk, or a Benedictine Abbot, to show that the religious parts of medieval life can't be just kept separate or ignored, but they are an integral part of the medieval experience.

Miranda  15:06  
Amazing. Lastly, tell us your favourite re-enactment memory?

Philip  15:11  
Oh, that's a tough question. I will say that it was probably a show that I was involved in at Tutbury. And we were doing a storyline that we sort of crafted which was of a small dispute growing larger and larger and getting more and more people involved. And it is kicked off by the translating of a relic - so a relic from a nearby church is being brought to the castle. And the cult of relics hadn't really kicked off by this point, but it was starting, so the connection to the saints was a very important part of people's understanding of Christianity. And so this movement of a relic gets a lot of local people upset. And I portrayed the rather more nefarious than intended chaplain of the castle who had had the relic brought. And the local priest, who was quite upset about it, arrived with a mob full of upset villagers. And as is almost necessary for re-enactment things escalated. Local barons started throwing their lot in and it eventually became a conflict over control of the castle. But it was kicked off by this, this relic. And so the end of the day, we never planned who was going to sort of win. But at the end of one day, it ended up being an absolute bloodbath, all of the soldiers who had come in ended up sort of falling over or fighting each other, and then the absolute devastation and the the sort of show ended with me returning the relic to the rather crestfallen priest, and just asking if it was worth it before storming off. And I don't think anyone who had come to the castle that day expected to be sort of emotionally gut punched. I don't think we had intended that either. But it's one of the joys of this pastime is that when you have people who are so committed and can inhabit these roles, you can allow life to play out or in that case, combat and death to play out. But in a way which is very natural, and actually can be quite emotional, quite moving as well. So that's probably one of my favourite things, particularly as a church reenactor.

Miranda  17:50  
So if people want to learn more or learn from you, specifically, you've got a YouTube channel, haven't you? Where can people find that?

Philip  17:57  
I have! Yes. So on YouTube, I have a channel called Schola Normannorum, where I do videos about Norman history, and particularly a sort of 12th century history. And typically, I try to focus on the less well known things, so it's not kings and warfare, it's folklore, religious belief and odd little quirks of the 12th century.

Miranda  18:21  
As Ronald and Philip both mentioned, a huge part of the fun with re-enactment is recreating everyday life for people in the past. An area that often gets overlooked is historical dance. Lottie Adcock, educator and founder of Eboracum Early Dance and Dance The Past is here to tell us about her experience with re-enactment. All right, so Lottie, can you tell us a little bit about your history with re-enactment, please, and what you do?

Lottie  18:46  
Yeah, so I'm a historic dancer, which is probably a bit of an unusual one to hear from. What we're trying to do in historic dance is, as accurately as possible, try and recreate the dance that our ancestors in the past would have done. And there's a variety levels of accuracy, depending on what period we're talking about, and what sort of resources are still there, but we try our best. And it comes from the resurgence in the 1950s of folk dance, interest in folk dance and research that went into the history of folk dance. So it's very, very similar to a lot of versions of folk dancing, but it's got a sort of historic twist. The thing I like the most about historic dances, you can invest as much or as little as you want. Some people just turn up to do the dancing and get a bit of exercise. Some people get really into what it tells us about etiquette and social structure and manners and customs at the time. Some people get really into the technical side and researching the steps and things like that. And it's just a really great opportunity to do as much or as little as you want. You can focus on one era. So there are people who just do Jane Austen Regency dancing, there's people that do lots of different eras, I like doing as many as possible, because why not? Some people get really into the performative side, we get a lot of actors, people who really enjoy playing a character through a dance. And then there's some people, like I said, that are really into the technical side and looking at how a step might be interpreted in different ways. Because if someone has put in the historic record that you do a single step, how is that performed? What do you do with your hands, all these different things, and you might look at pictures and other documents at the time and try and sort of piece together what you think is happening. And that's what's really fun, that it's all the sort of opportunity to recreate and experiment, and work together as a community to put that together. 

Miranda  20:43  
So I do have a quick question. 

Lottie  20:45  
Yeah. 

Miranda  20:45  
So we talked to a few people about like Viking re-enactment or Norman re-enactment, but obviously, there probably aren't as many sorts of records and things for dance during that time. So what's the oldest, you know, historical dancing that tends to be done?

Lottie  21:02  
Okay. So yeah, it was some level of accuracy, we can kind of do medieval dance, okay, based on images, and what comes later and sort of looking at the space that they had, and the places they were dancing and that sort of thing. And being able to sort of work out what we think is the case, you will find people who do historic dance from earlier than then generally, it tends to be non European dancing, like things like belly dancing, and things like that, that have a longer recorded history or have changed less over the time. But yeah, I mean, I'm totally up for trying to do a Viking dance, to see how it'd go, it would have a lot of like screaming and battle marches. It'd be great, it'd be great. So I got into this form of dancing when I was 16, which was a long time ago now. And personally, I love it, because it really feels like it connects me to the people in the past, like dance was so much more a part of their lives. It was a place where you met your husband, it was a place where you met your friends, it was opportunities to make it or break it in society, as it were. And I think when you dance these dances, personally, I can feel the joy and the excitement and the emotions of people in the past in a way that I don't get from other forms of re-enactment or from reading a book. Also, it's just legitimately fun, which is always good. And there's a great community around it, you'll find that there are groups all over the UK, and therefore there are events all over the UK. We do performances, we do historical re-enactments, we go to other festivals, we do historic balls, summer schools, the big event every year is an annual festival where everyone gets together for a weekend moves throughout the UK. There'll be lots of history related events on the Friday and Sunday to do with the place that we're staying, historic tours and things like that. But then on the Saturday, everyone from all over the UK or the different groups can showcase a bit of dancing. And then in the evening we have a big knees up big ball, normally a Regency one, and everyone can get to know everyone else and get a chance to dance with everyone else. And then you build up that community and you see those people again and again and again at different events. I mean, we're talking about like 10 years of meeting the same people all the time says it's built up a really nice, inclusive community. That's actually one of my favourite memories of the dances, the last Festival, which was obviously in 2019, I decided I wanted to do a solo piece, it was one of the most scariest things I've ever done. But I danced with a sort of ghost partner, as if I was practising my dancing, as I'm sure they would have done historically, as I definitely do when I'm practising a dance to work out how I'm gonna teach it. But they were very basic dances, they were nothing dramatic, very, very simple. But at the end, everyone stood up, everyone came over, congratulated me, said that they were really proud of me. And people still talk about it now, like I'll meet people, and they'll be like, you're that girl who did that dance like two years ago. And it's just really, really nice and really supportive and encouraging community because so much, when it comes to something physical like dance, is so much of it, of the knowledge is in people's heads, and they just don't want it to die out. So they are always trying to encourage more people to get involved in particularly young people to get involved and learn more before before it dies out. And then we go back to the 1950s when no one knew what any of this stuff was. So if you'd like to get involved in early dance, the first thing I would suggest you do if you're from the UK, is look up the early dance circle website. They will have a list of all the different dance tutors, all the different dance groups from throughout the UK that you can get in touch with if you're International. There are so many international groups as something that Australia, America, mainland Europe, so just do a bit of googling. Find out your local group if you're international. If you're in York, come join me, Eboracum Dance, you can Google that. We're on Facebook. But if you're just interested more generally in that group, any of the events that I'm running in York, anything that's going on in this area, then you can look at my website, which is Dance The Past, all one word, .co.uk. And I'm that DanceThePast on all social media, including YouTube. If you're interested in looking at a few events or something, before you go are getting a bit of my historic background of some of these dances, I hope you'll join us hopefully and get your dancing shoes on.

Miranda  25:33  
So far, everyone's mentioned getting to engage with the public, which is kind of the specialty of our last guest with us. We've got Jon Arey, a living history enthusiast who specialises in woodturning. In true Viking fashion, he spoke to us from a little spot in the woods next to a crackling fire and told us all about his love of teaching history by doing. What got you into re-enactment? When did you start?

Jon  25:58  
Okay, I got into re-enactment probably about six or seven years ago. And I think that you know what the very first thing I'm going to pick you up on is a lot of the time, we don't use the term re-enactment, we use the term living history, or LH for sure. And I think that's mainly because the perceptions of re-enactment that could just be somebody putting something on, I'm going to go pretend to be that person. So reliving in a past event is what re-enactments about. And we do elements of re-enacting certain parts of history. But in general, we call ourselves living history, because you can come and you can see us doing things that would normally do. And when I'm doing something, I'm not necessarily re-enacting something, because I don't know that. Does that make sense? So first question, I got into it because I already did woodworking, green woodworking. And I really enjoyed that certain period of history where a lot of the woodworking that I do came about, and so it was a natural progression for me.

Miranda  26:59  
So what type of re-enactment do you do then Jon?

Jon  27:02  
Okay, so the type of living history that I do? Yeah, I'm gonna keep pulling up on that one. [laughing] The living history that I do is very much around, you know, what's the Viking Age 793 to 1050, Viking/Norman, that's a period that I've sort of found my, like, the woodworking skills. So that's the sort of period that I do.

Miranda  27:25  
Amazing. So you do in living history, you do quite a lot of crafting and things. Can you tell us a little bit about that?

Jon  27:32  
Yeah, absolutely. Well, obviously, there's a lot of them, I mean, one of the groups called the Vikings, which is a UK wide organisation. And basically, there is a lot of people that do various different things, various different crafts, parts of that sort of time period. So what people would have done to make it interesting for people, and there's, predictably, quite a lot of people enjoy the combat side. And I think that for the Viking period, I think Vikings are well known for the fighting ability. So for certain people, a lot of that sort of period, the fighting side sort of draws them in. Now, obviously, that's great. If you are maybe, you know, quite fit, quite able bodied, and you can do the fighting. But obviously, other things happen. We don't usually have children during the fighting, of course, so children need to look at things to do. Some people are not able bodied, we do have men and women that do fighting, there's no issues there. But when it comes to the actual living history side, trying to sort of look at what would have happened, you know, various people, we've got blacksmiths, we've got people that do various crafts, art, things from carving to dyeing, making food, obviously woodworking is a big thing for me. And during that particular time period, woodworking was obviously quite a prevalent thing. It was one of the most abundant natural materials to make things from. And I absolutely love the idea of being able to make almost anything from what's around you, that the natural side of things. So I got into doing woodworking, I enjoyed making various things. And I think most people and certainly at York, the big part of what I do is I use a pole lathe, which for me, has given me a nice connection with, for example, Jorvik because I turn bowls, which is something that obviously happened at Coppergate. And it's been able to give me a really good sense of belonging to the sort of Jorvik side of things. So I did bowl turning, I started off learning to use an axe and knives as normal, and I made small things then I found that I was able to hold the conversation and I was also able to keep people interested in what I was doing and give them a bit of information and I think that's that's a really important thing. So yeah.

Miranda  29:43  
Well, that does kind of bring me on to the next question. Why is living history and specifically like the historical crafting and everything - why is that important to do? Why do we show people that?

Jon  29:53  
Honestly, I think there's a few reasons behind that. And I think you'll get a different answer from different people. I think some people will of the more common reasons is it escapism. So living history can be, when you use the term re-enactment, it can be very much about leaving that persona, that personality. And most people that do living history, do you actually have a character, which I do as well, Tryggvi Treehammer, the woodworker, I think it's quite a fun thing to do. So one of the reasons I enjoyed doing it was I really enjoyed the aspect of being able to demonstrate to people how amazing some of the technology was during that time period. And also, one of the things that's very important from a woodworking perspective is that a lot of the the tools and techniques and how we do wood work, that's not really changed at all. So I love that we still have people that do basket weaving, we still have people that do making panels doing wattle and daub. Also, you've got people like me and yourselves who do experimental archaeology or experimental ideas of "I wonder whether this is possible? We know that certain technologies existed, is it possible? We might not have found something, but is it possible for you to do this particular thing?" I've got that at the moment, I use a pole lathe. And one of the examples of things that's controversial is I can put a stone onto a pole lathe and I can create a grinder which you could use for making jewellery for example. Experimental archaeology is, you know, can we do that? Was that possible? There isn't any evidence of that, but it's a good guess. So it's really nice to be able to try and interpret from the archaeology how that was done, so that we can ultimately understand our past and where we came from. But also, we can understand maybe a little bit more about the mindset of that particular period.

Miranda  31:38  
So we haven't really gone into the experimental archaeology before. And I think that's a really important part of what you guys do is, you know, obviously, there's only so much evidence in the archaeological record. And a lot of it can, kind of has to be guesswork until we know otherwise. So I think that's really important.

Jon  31:56  
Absolutely, certainly within the Vikings, these other groups, you can join, but within the Vikings groups, we've got officers - authenticity officers, we call them. So it's fun. So that we're giving as much realism to people who come and see you as possible. And I'm obviously wearing clothes today, the shoes are JORVIK turn shoes, they're based in a find at JORVIK and everything that I'm wearing, it's been hand dyed, it's being hand stitched. So it's also really good from a performance point of view to give somebody, give people, the members of the public something interesting to be able to come and see, you know, you pick up information better from watching and learning. And that's how I learned. I struggle with certain aspects of learning. For me personally being able - I learned all my woodworking by watching, repeating. And that is what we believe happened during the very period that we're talking about.

Miranda  32:49  
I've got one more question for you. And I feel like it might be a big one. What is your favourite memory from what you've done with living history?

Jon  32:55  
Oh, goodness me, well, can I be honest? I have been very lucky that through doing living history, I've been able to visit a few different places. And I think that because of the fact that I do the pole lathe turning, I remember visiting JORVIK when I was in school myself, and I'm not just saying this because I'm talking to yourself, but when JORVIK reopened, it was actually my birthday. It's like just after the eighth of April, I was asked to come down onto Coppergate and actually put my pole lathe down onto Coppergate, which meant that I was turning, actually, at Coppergate, and for me as a woodturner, I actually think when my favourite memories was somebody came out from JORVIK was very, super excited about the fact that I was doing this bowl turning and you know, yeah, absolutely. It's great. Yeah. Yeah, it's like, wow. And it was, it was almost a realisation that up to that point, I was the first person to actually make and produce a bowl in the same location on Coppergate. This is the first time anybody's done this, since it was the street of the vessel or the cup turners. And for me, that's a really important memory, because nobody can take that off me. I actually turned the bowl on Coppergate on a handmade lathe that I made with a tree and a piece of wood that I cut down and done. And that for me was really magical. So probably my fondest memory was that because it meant something. It wasn't just funny, it was brilliant. And I'm not just saying it because I'm talking to you over here.

Miranda  34:31  
[laughing] You're just saying that, you just love JORVIK. That's fair, that works for me.

Jon  34:36  
I've been very fortunate to actually be able to arrange to handle some of the bowls that were found. And it was an absolute honour. I made a couple of replicas for the schools. And it was really such an honour to be able to do that. But actually, to hold that history in your hand. And I think that's what we want to give as living history people. We want to be able to give that little bit back to people. This is a really good idea, to the best of our knowledge, what that history was like.

Miranda  35:02  
Special thanks to Ronald, Philip, Lottie and Jon for being with us today. You can find their links for all of their social media profiles in the show notes. Make sure you check them out and while you're at it, why don't you book tickets to the JORVIK Viking Centre? Come see our Vikings kitted up in costume, faithfully researched and created by our team, including Ronald. Thanks for listening to That JORVIK Viking Thing Podcast. You can find us on Spotify, Apple podcasts and anywhere you get your podcasts. Don't forget to rate and leave us a review, and if you enjoyed the show, please share it with a friend. It's the best way to help support your favourite Viking podcast.

Miranda  35:53  
That JORVIK Viking Thing Podcast is a production of the JORVIK Group and York Archaeological Trust. Researched by Miranda Schmeiderer and Ashley Fisher. Written and produced by Ashley Fisher. Sound designed and edited by Miranda Schmeiderer.

Intro
Battle Reenactment with Ronald Kane
Church Reenactment with Philip Roebuck
Historic Dance with Lottie Adcock
Living History with Jon Arey
Outro