Meet staff behind the scenes at Royal Armouries Leeds including renowned jouster

“Little lads’ eyes pop out their heads, jaws drop onto the ground, there’s whooping and hollering from all family members as we knock ten barrels out of each other all in the name of history.”

It’s not the typical response when you ask someone about their day job. But then Andrew Deane doesn’t have a typical job – if there is such a thing. A living history officer at the Royal Armouries Museum in Leeds, Andy is in charge of live displays and is also a jouster of international renown.

Andy and his team of live interpreters are responsible for the performances and presentations held in the museum’s galleries every day. Their demonstrations include combat with swords and shields, jousting, monologues as historic characters and talks and tours. And they cover everything from the terracotta warriors to great buffalo hunts.

“My job has intrinsically always been focused on what is called live interpretation,” Andy says, “and that basically means interpreting a collection of inanimate objects – beautiful, deadly, but nonetheless objects behind glass cases.

“All these objects – weapons, swords, spears, bows – in these walls are all human stories. It’s not just about the object itself no matter how beautiful or well crafted it is or who wore it... Our job is to tell those stories.”

Andy has been at the museum since it opened in March 1996. After leaving drama college in London, he worked as a professional actor for 10 years and also became an assistant for the late John Waller, a noted fight director who guided combat sequences both on stage and screen.

Andy recalls that John, who became a creative director at the Armouries, contacted him about a position at the museum, as it was taking shape. “He said do you fancy riding horses, shooting firearms, shooting bows, fighting people and getting to act? I said – where do I sign?”

To devise their reenactments, Andy and his team take inspiration from the collection and historical research. They put on between five and eight presentations during a typical day, drawing from a varied repertoire.

“The directors and masters of the Armouries thankfully know that the living, breathing heart of the place is the fact that this is a museum full of life that always brings people’s focus back to a unique and world famous collection (of arms and armour),” says Andy.

Indeed, the museum’s worldwide reputation – and Andy’s personal renown – has enabled him to travel across the globe. He has jousted or performed in armoured combats on all but two continents and is a familiar face at the museum’s annual international jousting tournament.

“When I’m performing (at the Armouries joust), all I see is faces full of glee and excitement, not only from the children but also from the adults, because it’s a visual feast,” he says.

“But then I might also be doing a piece (in the galleries) about a First World War soldier that will be much more sensitive. With the conflicts of the 20th century, the kids always want to come up and look at the guns and the uniform.

"And then you get more senior members of society coming up and saying things like my uncle Tim was in that battle and he’s in a Commonwealth war grave. The fact we use real words from diaries, from letters, means there’s a sense of connectivity to the past that you get at very few other places.”

Mark Jackson, the acting head of education and events, agrees. “We know that people come in because they want to see stuff that they can’t see anywhere else,” he says. Mark works with the education team to facilitate learning for schools. Around 18,000 pupils visited last year to explore the collections themselves or to take part in workshops and activities.

He is also in charge of the museum’s events programme, overseeing the daily presentations in the galleries and planning special events tied to the collection and changing exhibitions.

“I think people think events management is really glamorous but it’s a lot of moving tables, stacking chairs and tidying up,” he says. “The thing I enjoy most though is doing creative work, like writing the script for the joust. We have the weirdest conversations in the office and the post we get is unreal. We had two swords delivered the other week – there’s not many places where that happens.”

As well as developing content with the live interpreters, Mark’s remit includes working behind the scenes with armourers and costume designers and with those who train stunt and jousting horses.

“I liaise with loads of really interesting suppliers. We’re having a brand new armour commissioned this year which is a replica of armour in our collection and I get to talk to real experts in their field.

“I’ve been talking about Tudor outfits with a costume marker, I deal with interpreters, re-enactors, film people. We’ve recently worked with Natalia Lee, one of the armourers for Game of Thrones. So I meet a weird and wonderful mix of people.”

By contrast, archives and records manager Philip Abbott spends many of his days working alone behind the scenes. He responds to public enquiries and requests for information and is responsible for sorting, preserving and cataloguing documents that are held at the site, including company records and publications relating to arms and armour.

They can be used to inform the creation of exhibitions and for research about the collections and the history of any potential purchases.

“I will never finish, I will never catalogue the whole collection,” says Philip, who joined the Armouries in London more than 30 years ago. “I reckon about 10 per cent of it is catalogued. I see the glass as a tenth full though and not 90 per cent empty - otherwise I’d just go spare.”

Like Philip, Manpreet Dhadda – and the front of house team in which she sits – plays a crucial part in the museum’s inner workings. A museum assistant, she has worked at the Armouries for just short of a year.

“If my team wasn’t there on the ground, the museum wouldn’t open,” she says. “We are there to open, to close, to be there in the galleries and to be a point of contact for the public or for other departments.”

Manpreet and her team rotate around the museum, signposting and supporting visitors and answering questions on the collections. “We get a lot of opportunities to learn and grow as historians and as people as well,” she says.

“Even though I see these collections all the time and see this museum a lot, I always get visitors who are seeing it for the first time. When they come in and then comment on the way out that it’s been brilliant, it’s like seeing it with new eyes again. There’s something for everybody.”

2020 marks the 500th anniversary of The Field of Cloth of Gold, a spectacular tournament held in 1520, between King Henry VIII of England and King Francis I of France.

As guardian of some of Henry VIII’s armours, the Royal Armouries Museum is hosting a special commemorative The Field of Cloth of Gold themed joust over the late May bank holiday weekend.

Visit royalarmouries.org