We have all been there, coming dwelling worse at 2am, solely to understand you’ve got forgotten your keys and should yell at your roommate to allow you to in. However for Megan Clawson, being overlooked is a complete completely different story.
‘You’ll be able to’t are available after midnight, you may’t exit both. As well as, no motion in any respect is allowed between 9:30 PM and 10 PM whereas they do the ceremonial locking of the tower. It occurred each evening for 700 years at precisely the identical time – aside from one time within the Blitz, when the tower was bombed and it was completed seven minutes late – they wrote to the king apologizing and received a reply saying: ‘ Thanks for placing out the fireplace and caring for the injured, however ensuring it by no means occurs once more.’”
Residing a traditional life as an strange individual in such an irregular setting is rarely misplaced on Clawson. Her entrance door is the sally gate, the identical door that Anne Boleyn handed by way of on the eve of her coronation as Henry VIII and the place he proclaimed that he would love her for the remainder of her life (ahem).
“When me and my boyfriend are hungover, we go to a McDonald’s and produce it by way of the port of name. We now not have a queen strolling by way of these doorways and dropping her king husband to his knees at me bringing my burger and chips by way of.
Clawson, 23, is certainly one of about 80 individuals who name the Tower of London dwelling. She lived most of her life together with her mom in Lincolnshire and two years in the past moved in together with her father, who grew to become a Beefeater after his 30-year profession within the RAF. “You should have been within the Military for at the least 22 years, attain the rank of non-commissioned officer or regimental sergeant main, and be awarded the Medal for Lengthy Service and Good Conduct. It wasn’t his plan, however he received the job.”
The position of Clawson’s father Chris is each ceremonial and safety primarily based – the Beefeaters give excursions however are additionally the protectors of the Tower – there’s a Beefeater on watch within the Byward Tower 24 hours a day. Her father additionally guarded the Queen’s coffin whereas she lay in state.
“Beefeaters are just about the one folks allowed to stay right here, and their households. I moved to London for college and went to dorms, so I got here right here dragging a suitcase of laundry over the cobblestones and my dad would cook dinner for me. I might eat rooster nuggets and chips within the tower and assume, “What the hell is my life?” Then the pandemic occurred and I actually moved in.
The home is in a cottage guarded by backyard gnomes alongside the outer partitions of the tower, the place Clawson’s neighbors embrace the Constable, the Keeper of the Crown Jewels and the top of the Royal Fusiliers. There are rows of spinning clotheslines subsequent to medieval towers, and Clawson parks her automotive on the location of the firing vary used to execute German spies throughout each world wars. Spy Josef Jakobs was held in a cell the place the rubbish cans are actually saved – then marched previous her door on his method to his demise. Folks have reported listening to the sound of marching boots at evening.
Clawson typically senses a ghostly presence when strolling her canine Ethel at evening. “I’ll really feel like somebody is watching me. All of the chimneys appear like ghosts, it is the scariest factor ever. However different days it feels nice and also you assume, ‘I am in a fortress, I really feel like a princess.’”
Resident advantages
Being a resident offers Clawson sure advantages. “I have been within the crypt of the chapel, which most individuals aren’t allowed to enter. Listed below are many of the well-known our bodies, reminiscent of Anne Boleyn and Sir Thomas Extra. Each time they dig into the tower they discover our bodies – they tried to construct a wheelchair ramp to get into the chapel and located two our bodies.”
The opposite resident-only privilege is their very own non-public pub, The Keys, the place you may get pleasure from a double Beefeater G&T in an setting set with an executioner’s axe. “On the residents aspect you may put on no matter you need, on the opposite aspect there’s a costume code. Even when the Prime Minister got here to the gate and mentioned, ‘I need a drink in your pub’, they’d say, ‘No, you have to be invited by a Beefeater.’
“One of many Beefeaters placed on disco and final New 12 months’s Eve we had an Elvis impersonator and we did quizzes and homicide thriller nights.”
The fascinating mix of the conventional and the exceptional impressed Clawson to put in writing her first novel, a rom-com set in her uncommon environment that explores one other side of her you-really-could-not-should-live – her boyfriend, George, can be a Royal Guard.
They met on Tinder within the mom of all coincidences. “I needed to say, ‘Oh, my dad’s a Beefeater, so that you type of work with him,'” she says. they have been by way of that have, they have been that individual.”
Clawson didn’t confess till George discovered himself despatched to the Tower to maintain watch. “However now I really feel like a 3rd wheel. They are going to be watching tv right here and there is going to be a scene the place somebody makes use of a gun they usually’re like, ‘How have they got a lot ammunition in that gun?’ I simply sit with the canine and don’t know what they’re speaking about.”
Romanticized imaginative and prescient
Clawson needed to make use of her ebook to present folks a glimpse into one thing that’s usually closed off. “Nevertheless, what occurs within the ebook didn’t occur to me in actual life. Sure, my dad is a Beefeater and my boyfriend is a King’s Guard, however there are issues I’ve romanticized that I want would occur and issues I am actually glad did not occur.
She has additionally amassed a big following on social media from individuals who imagine she lives a lifetime of continuous royal and societal celebrations. ‘Everybody thinks I am a landed gentry, however the individuals who stay listed here are working class. They’ve been within the military, they arrive from city halls and all have completely different backgrounds and they’re thrown right into a palace.’
Nevertheless, it typically means excesses with pomp and circumstance. “There are parades the place you are feeling such as you’re in some type of historic drama with folks on the balconies enjoying these lengthy trumpets. It is like all British stereotype and it is all actual,” she says. “I see Princess Anne very often – if there may be an occasion, she comes to present the royal seal of approval. After I see her automotive in entrance of the pub, I feel: ‘Oh, there’s Anne once more.’”
Preparations for the coronation are in full swing and though the tower might be closed, there might be a gun salute. Good friend George prepares for his personal half within the occasion, after sending Clawson a photograph of him making an attempt on his coronation uniform – although he is aware of nothing about his duties on the large day. “The individuals who know know every part, however in my buddy’s rank they present as much as be informed when and the place to march.”
Clawson typically has to remind herself of the happiness in her distinctive dwelling state of affairs, at the same time as throngs of vacationers peek in by way of her bed room window. “I am very grateful. Every single day you may assume, ‘Oh, I’ve to undergo a crowd of individuals to get out of right here,’ however equally you assume, ‘Oh my God, I am strolling in Henry VIII’s footsteps.’”
Fall arduous for the Royal Guard by Megan Clawson is revealed by Avon, for £8.99
