The curious case of Richard III and the Scotland Yard detective

Richard III is having a moment. The Lost King, a film version of the unearthing of poor Richard’s remains from a car park in Leicester where he’d lain ignominiously for centuries, is coming to cinemas at the beginning of October.

The film is accompanied by a useful dispute about the credit for the find between Philippa Langley, the amateur historian played by Sally Hawkins, whose instinct led to the discovery of the remains, and the academics at the University of Leicester who carried out the research and commissioned archaeological excavators who dug him up.

It’s all a bit like the plot of The Dig, the other film that put glamour into archaeology, in which Edith Pretty (Carey Mulligan), a landowner with a hunch about the bump in her land, commissions local amateur Basil Browne (Ralph Fiennes) to dig it up in the face of sneery academics from the British Museum, and lo, Sutton Hoo was uncovered.

What’s more, there’s to be an exhibition at the Wallace Collection to go with the film, featuring the armour in which dishy Harry Lloyd plays the king. It’s all terrific as a way of rehabilitating poor Richard, whose brand never recovered from the Shakespeare play and the assumption that he had his little nephews killed in the Tower.

But the best case for the rehabilitation of Richard was made in 1951, in a detective story by the crime writer, Josephine Tey. The Daughter of Time is about a convalescing Scotland Yard inspector, Alan Grant, who decides to take up a very cold case from his hospital bed: who murdered the Princes in the Tower?

Looking at the picture of Richard, he decides he’s far too sensitive to do in his nephews; Henry VII is another matter. So he brings his copper’s skills to bear on the case. Yet the really fascinating thing about Tey’s novel is that Inspector Grant consults the opinions of the nurses on his ward about what they think of Richard. Was he victim or villain? The nurses think Richard was a bad ‘un. Can you imagine most NHS nurses now having views on Richard III?

So… how to rejuvenate ‘

the country’s high streets, squeezed by competition from online retailers and swingeing rents and heating bills? I came across one brilliantly simple solution in Norwich when I was getting fitted in Bowman and Elliott, traditional shoe people, for a pair of their street slippers.

If you bought right there, in-store, rather than online, you got what they called a local price, viz, 20 per cent off. Which, for a pair costing £220 to £350, is quite the bargain. “It’s a way of supporting Norwich,” the man with the shoe horn told me. “If people come into us, they’ll go into other shops.”

It’s a genius idea. Mind you, good luck finding an online retailer who would spend an hour finding the best possible fit. This is slow shopping and it’s great.

The unwilling

‘

departure of Roger Bolton from the Feedback

slot on Radio 4 is bad news. He was that rare thing, the courteous, articulate but insistent journalist – formerly of Panorama

– who brought the views of ordinary people to the attention of the BBC’S big shots.

And by all accounts they were terrifically reluctant to be held to account. Roger Bolton is a modest man – no Emily Maitlis – but he gave a voice to the unheard. So… why was he given the push? He’s 76. Need you ask? Let’s get him back.

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