Oyez, Oyez, Oyez, the familiar cry of Alfie Johnson as his voice and ringing hand bell sounded out in Marlborough High Street on Saturday to mark a significant event.
Alfie, now 82 and in a mobility scooter following a stroke last year, was celebrating his 200th shout since he was appointed Town Crier in May, 1994, and doing so to the delight of shoppers up and down the High Street.
And children in particular wondered exactly who was the man in his colourful red and blue colourful uniform and wearing a tricorn hat.
“They think I’m a pirate,” Marlborough born and bred Alfie told Marlborough News Online. “There was this little girl who came out of a shoe shop with her brother and wanted to try on my pirate hat. And you should have seen the beam on her face when I handed it to her.”
Alfie, who is there at every major mayoral and royal event in the town, worked as a boot repairer, then for a saddler and finally as a lorry driver before retiring. He had his eye on the Town Crier post when he heard his predecessor was hanging up his bell.
“And I got the surprise of my life when the Mayor at the time phoned on a Sunday and told me to visit the town offices,” he recalled. “I went alone not knowing what to expect until someone said, ‘You’re a Marlborough man, you’ll be perfect for the job.”
But he realises that, at his age and with his disability, he too will have to give up sometime. “If I can hold on until May next year, then I will have completed 20 years,” he said. “That should do it.”
Then it will be a new voice that declares God Save the Queen after every shout — and raises his hat in tribute.
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