Job-Robin of Sherwood

Robin of Sherwood
http://www.robinhood.uk.com/
One of my favourite jobs was working at the Robin Hood centre as Will Scarlet one of the merry men, I wanted to be one of the sheriffs men because they had better outfits and got to wear black leather, but I wasn’t aloud due to my sheepish personality and boyish looks, with this and so many of my other jobs there is a common theme which runs through out, which is the nature of the jobs I do, the pointlessness ridiculousness of them, this is a common ground between me and work colleagues an unspoken

” what are we doing here”
this was no more prevalent than in the “Tales of Robin Hood” the silliness of the job I enjoyed rather allot, dressing up everyday with no real purpose other than too ill around. In the entrance to the Robin Hood centre is a sort of fake barn yard and a huge door which is supposed to be the gateway to Sherwood Forest. I would stand at the door in full costume waiting for the general public to queue up for the experience. There was a secret button concealed that I would have to press, after pressing this button I would have a certain amount of time to deliver the script before the door opened. The visitors would then be led into the first room and corridor, with paper Mache forest and “old smell” pumping out, I would have to run to the cave section to meet them at that entrance to guide them through delivering another piece of script. I would then run round to the beginning of the ride were I would put them on to the ride, then run to the end and get them off again. And then if we were short staffed which we often were I would go and work in the Sherwood Café and serve drinks burgers and fries.

Your contract was unspecific they had you doing all kinds I walked into Sherwood forest café one morn only to find maid Marianne, Robin Hood and Fryer Tuck hoovering and moping the floor in full dress, these moments were an often occurrence and truly ironic to the true spirit of Robin Hood and his merry men.

Maid Marianne was a Gothic emo, bordering on suicide constantly, with awful scratches up her arm and black makeup and lipstick ,and not to attractive either when ever I spoke to her it was like speaking to satin herself, I used to just wish she would get it over with and put us all out of our misery.

Where as Robin Hood was a much more interesting character an ex army officer, who had been in the army for sometime and even fought I think by the sound of it poor man, he had some sort of breakdown in the army, and through this traumatic experience he was searching for some kind of saviour. This is often the case with ex army people or anyone who has suffered in this way often people turn to religion and to god. With this chap instead of finding god he found “Robin Hood”, he studied Robin Hood relentlessly and divorced himself from the real world completely. he boasted of how he never read papers and didn’t own a T.V he was no longer interested in the world, he knew everything there was to know about Robin Hood and not much else.
He designed and made all our outfits using traditional hand sewing methods, which was unbelievable for such a machismo guy, he was a founding member of the Robin Hood enjoyment society, and for all intensive purposes he was Robin Hood. We lived in the same area “ Sherwood forest” after a shift id have to change really quickly so as not to get the bus with him because he wouldn’t change, he dressed like Robin Hood all the time and carried a real sword with him which I’m guessing was an illegal weapon a true outlaw, or maybe just schizophrenic?
The tragedy of that tail was I heard some years later he was sacked for some reason or other, I’m guessing it was for stealing from the shop. It would be like sacking the queen, this man had become Robin Hood it its hard to know were the poor man can go from their, I cant imagine what possible options he had other than to live as a savage in the woods, or perhaps a career as a seamstress?. Although I would have loved to see his back to work interview at the job centre him dressed in full regalia.