ST MARY’S INSTITUTE OF HISTORICAL RESEARCH INCIDENT REPORT

Competition entry by Carol Malone

QUEEN VICTORIA’S CORONATION

I was stood in front of the Director’s desk clutching the Incident Report. I’d never been in the Director’s office before, but then again, I’d never nearly caused the death of Queen Victoria, and on her Coronation Day as well. As I handed over the report I blurted out, “this wasn’t my fault, not really and it wasn’t anyone else’s either. It was just a series of unfortunate events, ‘Clean-All’ Bathroom Cleaner, which turns out to be highly flammable and following orders, actually STRICTLY following orders, ma’am.”

Incident Report: N.B. 0001

Assignment: Record and Document Queen Victoria’s Coronation

Date: 28^th June 1838.

Location: Westminster Abbey.

Personnel: Miss Knotts, Miss Kent, Mr Rutland, & Mr Devon (Trainee Historians). Miss Durham (Security) and Miss Batty (Trainee Housekeeper and Inadvertent Stowaway).

I, that’s me Miss Batty, had been ordered in no uncertain terms by the Head of Housekeeping to clean every single toilet at St Mary’s after I’d accidentally dyed all the bedsheets pink, not just Barbie pink but glow in the dark neon pink. I had just finished the Men’s in Hawking Hanger when a strong whiff of cabbage caught my attention, so I followed my nose into one of those shed thingies. I was surprised to find all that techy stuff in the shed, but I saw the door at the back led to a toilet, and well I had been ordered to clean every toilet at St Mary’s. So I set to with my trusty mop and ‘Clean-All’ Bathroom Cleaner (supplied by the R&D dept). I had my headphones on, so I wasn’t aware that Knotts, Kent, Rutland, Devon and Durham had entered and, I believe the word is, ‘jumped’ to 1838. They were on their first solo jump to record the chaos of Queen Victoria’s Coronation.

I exited the shed thingy, looked around and realised I was no longer at St Mary’s but elsewhere. Confused, I wandered around and saw I was in Dean’s Yard, Westminster Abbey. I knew it was Westminster Abbey because I’d been there on a school trip a few years before.

A portly man with a fob-watch in his hand shouting “you’re late, you’re late” grabbed me by the elbow and hustled me into the Cloisters, along with numerous other boys and young men (sidenote: I’m often mistaken for a boy, I blame the hair it’s very short and I’m very tall and gangly). A very voluminous surplice was slipped over my head but luckily, I managed to hold onto my mop (I’d have been in real trouble if I’d lost yet another piece of equipment… after last time). We, that’s me and the boys, were herded into two lines and moved into the body of the Abbey and we began to process up the Nave behind a gaggle of richly attired clergymen, with me holding up my mop like a processional cross. Initially I thought the fumes from ‘Clean-All’ was giving me hallucinations, but no, I was there in real time and not knowing how to get out of the situation decided to go with the flow. The choir and I had a spectacular view of the whole proceedings, I even saw the Archbishop of Canterbury shove the Coronation Ring onto the wrong finger. The look Vicky gave him could have curdled milk. I bet he was off her Christmas Card list, hold on, had Christmas Cards been invented then? After hours and hours of standing, singing, praying and craning our necks to get a better look we all trooped back up the Nave towards the West Door.

The royal party were just organising itself to leave when I recognised a group of people hanging around at the back bickering about whose fault it was that they hadn’t got a better view and that they had missed all the action. I shouted “cooee”, but they didn’t hear me, so I waved my mop around, you know like those tour guides do when they want to attract the attention of their group. Well, they saw that and so did everyone else, especially when it brushed one of the large Church candles and burst into multi-coloured flames and my energetic waving caused small bits of fiery mop fibres to shoot off in all directions, some towards the Queen and her attendants . I had been using ‘Clean-All’ all day and my mop-head was saturated with the stuff, (sidenote: perhaps we shouldn’t be using ‘Clean-All’, especially in very old building, just a thought). Someone, Rutland I think, shouted, “Flaming Nora” and Durham man-handled my through the door and into the Cloisters, the others slammed it shut in the face of the gawping congregation. At least I was no longer likely to set fire to anything else. The six of us stood around watching the mop-head slowly disintegrate into a pile of lemony smelling ash. “Well,” said Durham, “that rounds off a very successful assignment, NOT!!!”. “All of you, especially you Batty, back to the pod, and no running in the corridors”. I was divested of my surplice, which was left neatly folded, if slightly singed, on the Cloister steps.

Once back at the shed thingy, or pod as I now know it’s called, we had a cup of tea and waited for the furore to die down before we jumped back to St Mary’s. Durham called for Security to escort us to the Chief of Operations’ office to explain ourselves. I have an eidetic memory, so I was able to recall all the details of the ceremony, which was more than, and I quote here, “that utter useless shower of incompetent so-called historians could”. She ordered me to apologise to the Head of Housekeeping for being AWOL all afternoon and destroying St Mary’s property, namely the mop-head, the handle survived, badly burned but still usable (sidenote: could we have some flame-resistant mop handles in the future? Please). Also to write this report and personally hand it to the Director and to await my fate.

Yours sincerely, Nora Batty

AKA Flaming Nora

The Director read my report in silence, turned her chair to gaze out of the window, for a very, very long time. I was just about to slink out of the room when she turned back and said, “So, Batty, would you like a transfer to the History Department?”

---

CLICK HERE for information on how to enter the competition.

---