How George Pickles keeps watch on tradition in Ripon

IT’S a fine summer evening and George Pickles strides purposefully across the Market Square in Ripon. Dressed in a taupe frock coat trimmed with scarlet, black velvet tricorn hat and mirror buffed shoes, George heads for the obelisk, where, at the stroke of nine, he blows loudly on a horn, once at each corner.

The tradition George keeps alive is perhaps the oldest still performed in England and come rain or sleet, snow or hail, it has not been missed, not for one single night, since 886 AD.

Originally it was the task of the Wakeman and dates back to Alfred the Great’s rule; troubled times, with constant Viking raids in the north.

So when the king granted Ripon a royal charter he gave the horn as a symbol, together with a warning for his citizens “to be more vigilant”.

They took heed. While the city slept a ‘wake man’ patrolled the streets during the hours of darkness. He signalled the start of his duty by blowing his horn in the Market Place.

And a millennium on, George still does. It may be with a modern copy, but he says it’s still a devil to play.

“This one is bone and metal and the metal reacts to changes in temperature. That means it never sounds the same twice and sometimes the notes are longer. You’ve got to warm her up first.”

One good thing is that George no longer has to stay up all night. Now he carries out the custom to ensure the ancient ritual isn’t broken.

However, the medieval Towne Book of Ripon warns there may be more than pageant at stake: “The Wakeman shall not flitt out of the town to dwell or sojourn elsewhere during his term of office,” it reads. “Unless God do visit the said town with pestilence.”

And if he did flitt, all kinds of terrible things might befall the city. A couple of Januarys ago, George was on holiday and his deputy was standing in. There was a foot of snow on the ground and it was minus ten degrees. As the poor soul went to sound the first note, his lips froze to the horn. It made barely a squeak.

Now word around here is that if the horn isn’t blown correctly, the irate ghost of Ripon’s last Wakeman and first mayor, Hugh Ripley, will appear at the attic window in his old house just across the Market Square.

Sure enough, at least according to George, Ripley’s grimacing apparition appeared immediately. By the time his beleaguered deputy struggled to squeeze out the fourth note, all of Ripon was trembling in an earthquake.

But it’s not only wraithlike mayors who show their displeasure. Not long ago a local magician was performing for children in the old Wakeman’s house and asked George to come in uniform to tell the ghost story.

Apparently he had a trick relating to it but, to George’s surprise, the conjurer said his magic cloth wouldn’t rise unless it hears the sound of the horn.

“Unfortunately I’m not allowed to blow the horn unless on duty, but there were these 30 innocent, sad faces and I thought who’s going to know about one little blast. So I did and the cloth flew off the table to great applause.”

Sadly for George there was a reporter in the room. His subsequent article blew the cover, upset the mayor and George found himself at a disciplinary meeting where he was put on a charge.

At the age of 76, it was George’s first criminal record. Not many people, he says, have ever been done for blowing a horn.

That said the hornblower is in great demand. At his own expense and in his own time, George goes round the country giving talks about the Wakeman tradition.

Then there are the lucky wooden pennies, again paid for by George, and given out after he has set the watch. He says people with ailments flock for theirs, P&O cruise staff wear them round their necks and a famous TV star even keeps one in her bra.

“I didn’t know what I was unleashing on the world. They do actually work and I get letters from all over; from people whose fortunes have changed. I’ve had 27,000 made, so far, and I can’t get enough of them.”

However, the first Wakeman wasn’t quite as generous as George and refused to do the job for nothing. So a tax was devised to pay his wages.

This made him England’s first tax man, first policeman and first insurance man. How much you had to pay depended on where you lived. Those with a door facing the Market Square were considered wealthy and charged four pence per door, per year.

But if your entrance was down the side or round the back you were regarded as less well off and only charged a penny per door, per year.

“Well, it didn’t take the tight-fisted people of Ripon long to get wise to that one. All the homes were built right narrow and had a ginnel down the side leading to the front door.”

Even today you can see that legacy of thin, deep houses designed to avoid the tax.

By the 13th century the Wakeman had become responsible to the Archbishop for “arrangements within the town and for its security”.

And he was well protected. The Towne Book of 1598 orders anyone who “bycalls the Wakeman with any scornful or opprobrious or slanderous words, shall be punished in the stocks by the space of one day and one night”.

The Wakeman could also exact his own penalties, in the shape of fines, which was just as well. If anyone in town was burgled during the watch, he had to “make good and satisfy unto the party so wronged”.

Fortunately, George doesn’t have to settle those losses any more, nor is he expected to rule with a rod of iron, although that might come in handy on a boozy Saturday night.

“On a night there can be up to 100 people watching the Setting of the Watch. With mischievous adults I still get the message over, but I can be equally mischievous. Light hearted, you know, but never any swearing.”

By the reign of James I, the Wakeman had great powers and was elected annually by the city’s most influential men, who formed a ‘police force’.

But in 1604 it was decided the time had come to make things more democratic in Ripon. A mayor was elected by vote and the first to take office was Hugh Ripley.

Being the last Wakeman and wishing to keep the setting of the watch ceremony alive, Ripley appointed a hornblower to carry out the duty each evening on his behalf.

However, he didn’t trust him, so an extra duty was imposed. And that’s another obligation George still performs today. After setting the watch he must track down the mayor of the day, sound the horn three times in front of him, raise his hat, bow his head and say the words “Mr Mayor, the watch is set.”

But finding him can sometimes prove tricky.

“I have the mayor’s schedule of events but, when I’ve finished at the square, the first thing I do is check my phone in case there’s a text telling me he’s in the pub.

“The wife never knows when I’ll be home.”

For more than 1,000 years the Wakeman and hornblower have been part of daily life for the people of Ripon, but George says to others it can be downright mystifying.

“They’re totally bewildered. One couple even followed me when I went to sound the horn before the mayor.

“They said ‘We’ve been coming here all these years and when you said you were to go to the mayor’s house, we didn’t believe it actually happened’.”