The Sunday Express 5th December 2004
Marshall Julius
A HARD DAY'S KNIGHT
"I felt ready for battle. I was dangerous and scary"
Inspired by King Arthur, s:2's Marshall Julius squeezes his ample girth into chain mail and grabs his lance for a joust with the Knights Of Middle England. Now all he has to do is stay aboard his noble steed...
We have a lot in common with our medieval ancestors. Poverty, war, disease... they suffered just as much as we do. We do have a lot more celebrities, though Back in the dark days before television, or even the movies, the only stars in evidence were knights. They were the sports pros of their age, merrily trotting from tournament to tournament, cheerfully hacking away at one another for the extreme amusement of all from the lowliest serf to the loftiest royal. Decked out in shiny armour with showy crests and heavy weapons, they were the chief attraction in whatever passed for a sports arena. And the main event was jousting. That was where the real money was. Not to mention the honour.
If you were of noble birth and could knock a bloke off his horse with a big stick, you were made for life.
Every so often a movie comes along that reminds us of those happy days. It wasn't all plagues and beheadings after all. King Arthur is out this week on DVD and if it taught me anything it's that people used to love fighting. They couldn't get enough of it. And nobody did it better than the knights, born to be wild with enough cash in their pockets to fund their dangerous sport.
To celebrate the release of King Arthur - particularly the director's cut of the movie with an extra 20 minutes of violence - I was invited to spend a day in the shoes of those medieval superstars, to bounce around on a noble steed, to bash things with a lance and have a go to see if I'm hard enough, with a sword.
Deep in the heart of Warwickshire, near Warwick Castle, a unique little business called The Knights Of Middle England is waiting to teach you the ways of the warrior. They have the horses. They have the weapons. And they have the instructors, who are all charged up and ready to give you a day to remember.
It's a remarkable experience, though I have to admit that on the morning of my training, I made my way to their green and muddy base of operations with butterflies in my stomach. I hadn't sat on a horse in 20 years. When I was a kid I had a few riding lessons but quit because of my fear of galloping, and because my teacher kept laughing at me. I never found out why. But I wasn't going to chicken out. I hoped my instructors were capable of training anyone, no matter how useless.
My guide on my medieval crash course was Karl Ude-Martinez, 26, professional polo player and actor Helping him on the day was trusty aide Paul Ellis-Smith, 36. He was the scary one, calling himself The Black Knight, and you'd better do what he says or there'd be hell to pay.
l met them in the stables, surrounded by horses doing their thing, weeing and pooing with equine abandon. "They never stop," said Karl, handing me a large, round helmet that made me look Like a giant microphone.
Paul led me to my steed for the day, a huge brown thing called Spartan's Glory. To his friends he was Remo, but only time would tell if we would bond on the killing fields. I climbed aboard and grabbed the reins...
It's amazing how easy it is to connect with a horse. To really understand him.
Every time I made a mistake, like pulling the reins too tight or steering crazily like a drunk driver, he'd look around at me and instantly I would understand what he was thinking. Basically, whatever the horse is for pillock Still, I persevered.
We wandered towards a field with a wooden fence down the middle. It's called a tilt, and was designed to divide the knights as they charged towards one another, lances at the ready. We walked around it, Remo and me. So far so good.
Then I had to trot, which wasn't so easy. When you're watching someone else trotting it seems so slow, so sedate. But when you're on the horse, if you have no experience of trotting, it's a bit scary. It's a fast and bumpy ride, and though you're supposed to bounce in time with your mare, I kept going down when I was meant to go up and let me tell you, that leaves bruises.
Karl's mum, who was very nice but quite stern, walked up to me and without warning slapped me hard on the back "Sit up straight," she commanded. "You look like a sack of potatoes." With these encouraging words ringing in my ears, I was handed a light practice lance and given my first gaining challenge.
Two small hoops were attached to the tilt. All I had to do was ride past them and thread them with my lance. My first attempt went very well. Remo was only walking, after all, and I had plenty of time to line up my lance and capture both hoops. But then I had to do it trotting, and suddenly the multf-tasking totally blew my mind I had to hold the reins and steer, carry the lance and aim, sit up straight, bounce in time with the trots and worry about falling off, all at the same time.
I was all over the place, but stuck with it - and was finally able to save a little bit of face by threading my lance a couple more times through those elusive hoops. And I never did fall off a feat I credit to Karl and Paul entirely.
My final challenge of the morning was hitting the quintain, a shield-like target that spins around on impact. In days of olde, Karl tells me. knights would lash the bodies of slain enemies to the quintain and practice poking them instead. But I was still having trouble getting Remo to trot. "Kick him," yelled Karl "Steer him!" I gritted my teeth, booted my steed and tore off towards my target. I missed! Then missed again. But something was different. I wasn't doing any better than before but my courage was rising. I no longer feared for my life. Now all I wanted was to hit that damn shield And I did. Finally. The time had come to get into costume.
As Karl and Paul decked me out in full knight's clobber, with the chain mail and the flowing robes, the gloves, armour and shiny helmet, an amazing transformation came over me. I began to feel confident, excited. Invincible even, and my blood began to boil. With a heavy steel sword in my hands I felt ready for battle. I wanted to ride. l wanted to fight. I was dangerous and scary and suddenly I understood how it must have felt to be a knight preparing for a bloody battle. I was well up for a scrap. No wonder violence was so popular in those days. Remo was dressed up, too, and together we looked the part. We took on the hoops, laughed in the face of the quintain, and trotted about like there was no tomorrow. I still missed half my targets, probably more, but I didn't mind Honour was served by my few successes and, besides, I was having fun. My armour, lance and shield were heavy, and restricted my movements. Inside the helmet, I could barely see. Yet I felt completely at ease and in control. Proud in the saddle, even. You can't magine how great it feels. You have to have a go.
I even volunteered for some extra jousting, but eventually the time came to say goodbye to Remo who, I like to think, came to regard me as an amusing pest rather than the cumbersome idiot he had first encountered.
Satisfied with my progress, and eager to round off the day on yet another high, Karl ran me through some sword¬fighting moves that I picked up double quick. Chalk that up to years of fight¬sabre experience. We clashed steel and I liked it, repeating our carefully choreographed routine over and over until I no longer had to think about what I was doing and we could finally really go for it.
Karl lunged at me but I stepped aside and grabbed his hair, pushed his head down and kneed him in the face. He recovered Swished his sword in the air, but I ducked just in time to avoid decapitation.
Then he swung for my feet but I was already in the air, jumping high over his sword to deliver the final, killing stroke. Awesome.
I had spent the day in dress-up heaven and learned to fight, and play games, like a man. I had conquered my fears and improved my posture.
Energised, giddy and steeped in knightly lore, l bade Karl and Paul a fond farewell before riding off into the sunset in search of adventures new. King Arthur, here I come.
