Bird man

Meet Yeoman Warder Christopher Skaife of Her Majesty’s Royal Palace and Fortress the Tower of London and member of the Sovereign’s Body Guard of the Yeoman Guard Extraordinary. He is also master of the tower’s seven resident ravens: the Ravenmaster. Although ceremonial guardians of the tower, warders must have 22 years of unblemished military service. The raven job, on the other hand, becomes a lifetime affair.

“This book,” Skaife writes, “is about my life and work with the Tower ravens, and what it takes to be Ravenmaster.” An affinity is what it takes, something in the genes, for the ravens of the tower are not a petting zoo; they would as readily take out your eye or eat a slice of your nose as scarf down a blood-soaked dog biscuit or steal your sandwich. The Ravenmaster must have a passion for the birds, and learn all the do’s and don’ts of the birds’ very particular way of doing things.

Warders serve as tower guides, possessing a taste for history and a talent for storytelling. (They must memorize a 13,000-word story for delivery to visitors, fresh as a daisy every time.) Skaife is a jaunty, top-shelf storyteller. Not only has he got a flair for the basic tower story, and the history and mystery of the ravens, but he can swing off piste, like a jazz improvisation, to fill in the story with scads of local color.

Which is not to forget the birds, which are a demanding, at times unpredictable, lot. Mostly, they have their way, and if you deviate from the path, there will be grief to pay. Skaife’s education in things raven starts from the ground up, all the careful observation, planning and husbandry. Still, there will be those days. A member of the tower conspiracy — a collection of ravens is called a conspiracy, which goes to show — “once stole a child’s small teddy bear and pulled off its head. That didn’t go so well.” Croak, croak, said the raven.

Richard Lea-Hair Chris Skaife is the Ravenmaster at the Tower of London.