My primary job is to maintain the presence of the ravens at the Tower, ensuring there’s no break in the tradition—which, as you now know, may or may not be a tradition entirely invented by my Victorian predecessors, but which is important nonetheless! I’m an ex-soldier and I work for Historic Royal Palaces at a World Heritage Site, so you’d expect me to be interested in upholding tradition. But change is inevitable. Even during my time in the British Army, a famously hidebound and slow-moving organization, there were in fact constant changes. When I first became a boy soldier, for example, we did our basic training at Bassingbourn Barracks in Cambridgeshire, which is the place where Stanley Kubrick filmed Full Metal Jacket, and certainly when I joined up, the film was a pretty accurate portrait of basic military training! Looking back now I find it amazing that any of us survived. But by the time I became an army instructor the whole approach had changed for the better.
I’m very fortunate that I’ve had my wife to support me in all the challenges in my life and career, right from the beginning, with every deployment and every difficult decision. I remember I was on a senior NCO course once and I just wanted to come off it and give up, so I rang home, and my wife told me to stick with it: I became a sergeant as a consequence. Even when I started as a Yeoman Warder, we’d been living in a big house in Brighton and we turned up at the Tower and we were given the keys to our first tiny flat next to the Bloody Tower and we couldn’t even fit our sofa through the front door. Again I was ready to walk away, but my wife said fine, we’ll just put everything we own into storage and then we’ll arrange to have the windows taken out so we can get the furniture in, which is exactly what we did. Whoever you are, wherever you are, whatever you do in life, you have to learn to adapt.
I think what would be really interesting to do next at the Tower would be to establish a raven breeding program. Something similar has been tried before, and there have been ravens who were born here—Ronald Raven was the first, in 1989, and there were maybe a dozen others during the late 1980s and early 1990s—but there’s never really been a properly organized and monitored program. One of my predecessors as Ravenmaster, the great John Wilmington (4th Queen’s Own Hussars), made notes about his own struggle to encourage the birds to breed:
For many years I’ve tried to get them to mate and produce but to no avail. I’ve tried nests in the cage by Queen’s House; I’ve tried them in the arrow slits by the Wakefield Tower; I’ve tried them beneath the stairs of the White Tower itself; and this was a partial success, for they built a splendid nest—I brought wood and things for them to help them on their way, and they produced two lovely eggs which went well, they took turn about in feeding, preening, looking after one another on the nest, for nine days and then for some unknown reason they destroyed the eggs, but talking to the experts, they tell me that this quite often happens.
Nothing worth doing is ever easy.
I would really love the public to be able to experience what I’ve been privileged to witness over the years—from egg to adulthood, the whole process. A baby raven looks a bit like a grotesque miniature gargoyle, but then you see them grow and develop and you see them washing themselves and feeding themselves, becoming fully alert as they crane their tiny necks. It really is wonderful: it’s an education.
I think it would also be good to establish a breeding program here to enable us to get the right sort of birds into the Tower. As I said, at one time all our ravens were simply presented to us, often by old soldiers, or sometimes from zoos or indeed from members of the public who had just found ravens in the wild. I don’t agree with bringing birds born in the wild into the Tower, and there just aren’t that many breeders of captive ravens in the U.K., so we really do need to find our own solution if we’re to continue with our tradition. Ravens are now reestablishing themselves throughout the U.K.—and have now settled within about a thirty-mile radius of London. Perhaps one day we’ll even see wild ravens return to the Tower!
28
SENTINELS OF THE WHITE TOR
The old Ravenmasters liked to keep their knowledge to themselves. The care of the Tower ravens and the life of the Tower ravens was all a bit of a mystery. For better or for worse, I have taken the opposite approach. I suppose it’s just who I am. The Ravenmasters in years to come will doubtless do things differently as well. Once there was the Keeper of the Lions and Leopards, then there was the Master of the King’s Bears and Apes, then the Yeoman Quartermaster, and now there is the Ravenmaster. Who knows what the role will be in years to come?
At this stage in my career, I suppose I just wanted to share what I’ve learned about the birds from observing and working with them. I hope you’ve seen that, in a sense, caring for the ravens is easy, in the same way that caring for any animal is easy: you feed them, ensure they have enough water, keep them safe, and that’s about it—that’s all you really have to do. But fortunately, for most of us, thank goodness, caring isn’t just about meeting another creature’s basic needs. For me, after my life in the army, caring for the ravens has meant becoming a part of another family, of learning to trust and be trusted, of seeking to understand their needs, of being alongside them when they’re happy or depressed, when they’re angry or lonely, and of doing what I can, to the best of my ability, when they need my help.
If I had to sum up my raven care philosophy, it would be this: Animals are individuals just like us and they deserve to be treated with respect. A bit like a Yeoman Warder, the Tower ravens have a job to do: upholding tradition and reminding us of our past. In return, they get their food and lodgings for free. They rely on us, and we rely on them. And that’s it.
If you are in any way interested in birds, and yet like me just a few years ago you don’t know where to start, I suggest studying a particular bird: don’t try to learn about every species all at once. Pick a bird you love, or which fascinates you in some way. It doesn’t matter which one: a goose, a swan, a sparrow, a hawk. Learning about birds, like learning anything else, is all about patience and persistence and just doing the little things right, again and again. Get to know your bird. Attend to their peculiar traits and the shape of them, their flight, their song, the way they walk. Study their talons, their feathers, their tails. Look into their eyes.
Read a few books. Start with the easy stuff and then work up to the great scholars in the field: Bernd Heinrich, John and Colleen Marzluff, Oskar and Katharina Heinroth, Konrad Lorenz, Eberhard Gwinner. Go slowly. Be inquisitive. Be curious.
And my final piece of advice is this: In the end, to understand birds, you’ve got to be able to think like a bird. Which sounds ridiculous. But I believe that with just a bit of effort and imagination it’s possible at least to see things from their perspective, and so to begin to understand why they do what they do, how they feel, and why they are so similar and yet so utterly different from us.
* * *
Thank you so much for allowing me to share my love for the ravens of the Tower. Perhaps I might ask you to do me a small favor in return?
Years from now, long after our current ravens have gone, and I too have passed on to that great raven enclosure in the sky, you may be visiting the Tower. Perhaps there’s a raven there called Skaife and he is looking at you in that way that only ravens can. Don’t get too close—he may bite. But perhaps you might say hello to him from me.
Kn-ck, kn-ck. Kn-ck, kn-ck.
29
RISING ABOVE
Final check: 2300 hours.
Once again, it’s just me and the birds. The Tower is in darkness. Everyone is asleep.
I rise up onto Tower Green and open up the night box for Merlina. She’s the last to bed. She only goes to bed once all the other ravens have been put away for the night. Often she refuses to go to bed at all and stays up on the rooftops. It looks like she’s going to stay there tonight, watching and thinking.
Almost a thousand years ago a great fortress was built by a river on its northern shoreline, on the site of an old Roman fort, a huge buildi
ng reaching skyward, the likes of which no one in England had seen before. Designed to provide security and protection, it was also a reminder to the citizens of the city that they had been conquered.
Rising above it all were the birds.
They rise above it still.
The true guardians of the Tower of London.
Visit of HM Queen Elizabeth II, Dedication of the Chapel Royal of St. Peter ad Vincula, October 16, 2014.
Yeoman Warder Christopher Skaife, of Her Majesty’s Royal Palace and Fortress the Tower of London, and member of the Sovereign’s Body Guard of the Yeoman Guard Extraordinary.
Aerial view of the Tower of London.
Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red.
Biscuits and blood. Bon appétit!
Raven: Handle with Care.
Up close and personal.
Feeding the pigeons in Trafalgar Square.
I may be a raven, but I’m a lion amongst birds.
The Raven Memorial.
NOTES
3. The Rules
1. For a full list of Ravenmasters, see the appendix.
4. Roll Call
1. The longest-ever-serving raven at the Tower was James Crow, who entered service around 1880 and didn’t pass away until 1924, making him an incredible forty-four years old. Ravens in the wild would be lucky to live into their teens or twenties. We would of course never name a raven James Crow these days—times, thank goodness, have changed.
Appendix: Ravenmasters Since 1946
1. Change from Yeoman Quartermaster to Raven Master officially by 1969.
2. Change from Raven Master to Ravenmaster over time due to misspelling.
APPENDIX
RAVENMASTERS SINCE 1946
Pre-1946 there is little or no evidence of particular Yeoman Warders being tasked to care for the ravens. It is assumed therefore that the task of caring for the birds either fell to the Yeoman Quartermaster or was left to the garrison soldiers to feed them under the supervision of the Yeoman Warders.
Yeoman Quartermaster1
Henry Thomas Johns, Regimental Sergeant Major (RSM)
Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry (DCLI)
Yeoman Quartermaster, responsible for looking after the ravens 1946–1969.
Yeoman Warder Number: 230
Enrolled 1946–1970
Raven Master
John Wilmington, British Empire Medal (BEM) Staff Sergeant Major (SSM)
4th Queen’s Own Hussars / Queen’s Royal Irish Hussars (QRIH)
Raven Master, 1969–1992
Yeoman Warder Number: 282
Enrolled 1968–1992
Ravenmaster2
David Arthur Cope, Colour Sergeant (C/Sgt)
Royal Marines (RM)
Ravenmaster, 1992–2000
Yeoman Warder Number: 321
Enrolled 1982–2000
Ravenmaster
Derrick Coyle, Royal Victorian Medal (RVM) Regimental Sergeant Major (RSM)
Green Howards (GH)
Ravenmaster, 2000–2009
Yeoman Warder Number: 329
Enrolled 1984–2009
Ravenmaster
Ray (Rocky) Stones, Colour Sergeant (C/Sgt)
Scots Guards (SG) (band)
Ravenmaster, 2009–2011
Yeoman Warder Number: 368
Enrolled 2000–2011
Ravenmaster
Chris Skaife, Colour Sergeant (C/Sgt)
Queens Regiment / Princess of Wales’s Royal Regiment (QR) (PWRR)
Ravenmaster, 2011–present
Yeoman Warder Number: 379
Enrolled 2005–
SUGGESTED READING
ON RAVENS, BIRDS, AND OTHER CREATURES
Angell, Tony. Ravens, Crows, Magpies and Jays. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1978.
Armstrong, Edward A. The Folklore of Birds: An Enquiry into the Origin and Distribution of Some Magico-Religious Traditions. London: Collins, 1958; 2nd ed., rev. & enl., Mineola, N.Y.: Dover Publications, 1970.
Bekoff, Mark. Minding Animals: Awareness, Emotions, and Heart. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.
Blunt, Wilfrid. Linnaeus: The Compleat Naturalist, rev. ed. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001.
Bonner, John Tyler. The Evolution of Culture in Animals. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980.
Capote, Truman. A Capote Reader. New York: Random House, 1987.
Dixon, Charles. The Bird-Life of London. London: William Heinemann, 1909.
Dolan, Edward F. Animal Folklore: From Black Cats to White Horses. New York: Ivy Books, 1992.
Emery, Nathan J. Bird Brain: An Exploration of Avian Intelligence. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2016.
Feher-Elston, Catherine. Ravensong: A Natural and Fabulous History of Ravens and Crows. Flagstaff, Ariz.: Northland Publishing, 1991; repr. New York: Jeremy P. Tarcher / Penguin, 2005.
Fisher, James. The Shell Bird Book. London: Ebury Press and Michael Joseph, 1966.
Gill, Sam D., and Irene F. Sullivan. Dictionary of Native American Mythology. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1992.
Goodchild, Peter. Raven Tales: Traditional Stories of Native Peoples. Chicago: Chicago Review Press, 1991.
Goodwin, Derek. Crows of the World, 2nd ed. London: Natural History Museum Publications, 1986.
Heinrich, Bernd. Mind of the Raven: Investigations and Adventures with Wolf-Birds. New York: Cliff Street Books / HarperCollins, 1991.
________. Ravens in Winter. New York: Summit Books, 1989.
Hudson, W. H. Birds and Man, rev. ed. London: Duckworth & Co., 1915.
Lawrence, R. D. In Praise of Wolves. New York: Henry Holt, 1986.
Leeming, David Adams, with Margaret Adams Leeming. A Dictionary of Creation Myths. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1994.
Lorenz, Konrad. King Solomon’s Ring: New Light on Animal Ways. London: Methuen, 1952; repr. London, Routledge Classics, 2002.
Marzluff, John M., and Tony Angell. In the Company of Crows and Ravens. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2005.
O’Casey, Seán. The Green Crow. New York: George Braziller, 1956.
Ratcliffe, Derek. The Raven: A Natural History in Britain and Ireland. London: T and AD Poyser Ltd., 1997.
Ritvo, Harriet. The Animal Estate: The English and Other Creatures in the Victorian Age. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1989.
Rothenberg, David. Why Birds Sing: A Journey into the Mystery of Bird Song. New York: Basic Books, 2005.
Rowland, Beryl. Birds with Human Souls: A Guide to Bird Symbolism. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1978.
Savage, Candace. Bird Brains: The Intelligence of Crows, Ravens, Magpies, and Jays. San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1995.
Sax, Boria. City of Ravens. London and New York: Duckworth Overlook, 2011.
Swainson, Charles. The Folk Lore and Provincial Names of British Birds. London: Elliot Stock, 1886.
Turville-Petre, E.O.G. Myth and Religion of the North: The Religion of Ancient Scandinavia. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1964.
Wilmore, Sylvia Bruce. Crows, Jays, Ravens and Their Relatives. Exeter, Devon, U.K.: David and Charles, 1977.
Woolfson, Esther, Corvus: A Life with Birds. London: Granta Books, 2008; Berkeley, Calif.: Counterpoint, 2009.
ON THE TOWER OF LONDON, ENGLAND, AND FOLKLORE
Abbott, Geoffrey. Mysteries of the Tower of London. Nelson, Lancashire, U.K.: Hendon Publishing, 1998.
Ackroyd, Peter. Albion: The Origins of the English Imagination. London: Chatto and Windus, 2002; New York: Nan A. Talese / Doubleday, 2003.
Bell, W. G. The Tower of London. London: Lane, 1921.
Benham, William. The Tower of London. London: Seeley and Co., 1906.
Borman, Tracy. The Story of the Tower of London. London: Merrell Publishers in association with Historic Royal Palaces, 2015.
Brooke-Hunt, Violet. Prisoners of the Tower: Being an Account of some
who at divers times lay captive within its walls. London: Dent, 1899.
Dixon, William H. Her Majesty’s Tower, 7th ed. 2 vols. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1884. Orig. pub. 1869.
Hahn, Daniel. The Tower Menagerie: Being the Amazing True Story of the Royal Collection of Wild and Ferocious Beasts. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2003.
Harper, C. G. The Tower of London: Fortress, Palace and Prison. London: Chapman and Hall, 1909.
Impey, Edward, and Geoffrey Parnell. The Tower of London: The Official Illustrated History. London: Merrell Publishers, 2000.
Leigh, Felix. London Town. London: Marcus Ward, 1883.
Loftie, W. J. Authorized Guide to the Tower of London. London: H. M. Stationery Office, 1888.
Mears, Kenneth J. The Tower of London: 900 Years of English History. London: Phaidon, 1988.
Murphy, Clare, and David Souden, eds. Prisoners of the Tower: The Tower of London as a State Prison, 1110–1941. Hampton Court Palace, Surrey, U.K.: Historic Royal Palaces, 2004.
Newbery, Elizabeth. Tower Power: Tales from the Tower of London. Hampton Court Palace, Surrey, U.K.: Historic Royal Palaces, 2004.
Rowse, A. L. The Tower of London in the History of England. New York: Putnam, 1972.
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