We show the families where potentially they may live because you know some of us live in really nice parts of the Tower .
history as I saw it . The fact that I knew that I could learn it was neither here nor there . I knew that was going to be easily done because of my teaching experience in the past . The challenge for me was would I be interested in it . In doing it and in presenting it . You know because you have to be very , very up front and interested in what you are doing otherwise it reverts on the audience . That is the thing that I thought was going to be the hardest . But as it turned out I just thoroughly enjoyed doing it in the end you know learning it , presenting it . Because and I keep saying to my guys now you are not historians . We are story-tellers of historical events in the Tower of London . So that makes a huge difference in the way you present the thing . So coming here was not that much of a challenge really for me .
We show the families where potentially they may live because you know some of us live in really nice parts of the Tower .
So how many Yeoman Warders are there ? Well currently there are 37 . When I first arrived there were 42 and it has remained at that sort of figure of around 40 since the Yeoman body was formed really . You have got to really go way back to the Norman Conquest as to when it was formed . Essentially when monarchs lived in the White Tower before the inner and outer walls were built there was always a personal bodyguard . But they need people to be guarding the buildings as opposed to the monarch . So there is a subtle difference . The Tower grew in size but over a 250 year period from 1078 it is now 18 acres . There is documentation that suggests that there were 40 Yeoman Warders living in and guarding the tower . Not the monarch as such but guarding the actual tower .
The actual building itself ? Yes .
So if there are only around 40 Yeoman Warders , how hard is it to become one ? Well , it is difficult to quantify really . Personally I found it quite easy to be honest . But that was because I was obviously the right person for the job .
On the last recruitment we were looking for two people ; one to replace me and one to replace a colleague . So we had on this occasion 45 applications for two positions . Prior to that we had one position and we had 85 applicants . So it does vary and it varies particularly at the time of year when people are leaving the military . You have to have served in the military .
So what are the criteria ? Well the criteria are that you need to have a minimum of 22 years in the military . So that is all the forces now , so the army , air force , royal marines and the navy . You have to have done 22 years minimum .
You have to have reached the rank of Sergeant Major or equivalent in any of those services and you have to have the armed service with combat medal which is that one [ points to the many medals on his chest ], the purple one , and that is awarded after , in my days , after 18 years of good loyal military service . Then you can apply and that is the first thing . We advertise the fact that we have got a vacancy we then invite them to put their applications in electronically . We look at those and we cannot do 45 interviews , it is just impossible , so we have to go down a sifting process and one we check to make sure that they have that [ points again at his good conduct medal ], because if they do not have that it just goes in the reject pile . You know you cannot come here unless you have the good conduct . There are about 20 people in the selection process we do not have one individual who makes that decision because we want to make sure we get the right person . OK . So let us assume they are qualified , we then invite them to an interview along with their families . We invite the families so it is like an away day .
We explain to them the job . Warts and all . We tell it as it is . The good bits . The bad bits . The challenging bits . All the other elements to it . We show the families where potentially they may live because you know some of us live in really nice parts
of the Tower . Others , you know , it is just a temporary accommodation until another comes vacant and they can go in . So we show them that so that the families have also got to be comfortable living here .
So it is not just one person . Only one person may be employed but the whole family have got to be on board with it . Absolutely . You do not have to live here if you do not want to but nobody really wants to commute great distances so invariably everybody lives here . So we do that and from those we sort of cut down from the sifting process and we normally look at 15 people for the first phase of the interviews . From those 15 once the families have gone looking around whatever we will interview the other ones and from that we probably get four or five that we like the look of through that process and we will invite them back on their own to do more formal interviews . And from that we will then make a selection whether it is one or two . So it is quite an intensive process .
Yeoman Warders are quite often referred to as Beefeaters , where does that name come from ? Yes . Nobody really knows where the name comes from , Beefeater . It is a nickname . That is all that it is . It may have been a derogatory term years ago when Yeoman Warders in their splendid red and gold uniforms used to all patrol outside in the
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