Normans win with last shot of match (Saxons 0 '“ Normans 1)

On Friday night I had observed numerous individuals outside the pubs around town, dressed appropriately. There was even a group of native-born Normans staggering between The Bull and The Kings Head, singing some incomprehensible and ribald song in French.

On entering Battle Abbey grounds we made our way to the battlefield, where the main action was to be held. As I wandered through the Saxon encampment it was apparent how seriously they were taking the whole re-enactment thing. Not an i-pad or mobile phone in sight.

All were dressed in simple cloth and ate bread, cheese and apples of a millennium earlier. By contrast many of their 21st Century visitors consumed large quantities of fish and chips from Battle ‘chippy’.

As I wandered around the encampment I was struck by the tenseness of the atmosphere. Some of the Saxons happily engaged with the spectators, explaining finer points of 11th century weaponry, but the majority of the menfolk were more withdrawn, awaiting the imminent clash of arms. I cornered two young soldiers clad in chain-mail and asked them if they felt the adrenalin yet.

“Just starting” one replied with a wry smile “once we start to gather and the chanting begins, then it really kicks in.”

When I asked them about the fighting, you could see the excitement in their eyes.

“I took three groin hits in this morning’s fight and I almost ‘lost it’” One said, referring to his temper rather than any threat to his reproductive capacity.

“The arrows are not pointed but they still leave a nasty bruise on the arms or legs if you get hit.” Said the other. “But you get a real sense of what it must have been like, particularly facing a man with a lance on a charging horse. You just don’t see the lance coming.”

The Norman encampment was much the same, but all the conversation was in French. A group of Norman soldiers knelt in prayer as a priest delivered a blessing and then exhorted them to smash English skulls. Sounds like the EU and Brexit is not a new phenomenon.

As they marched off there came a cry from one - in English “Today we go to die at Battle Abbey”

Whilst another shouted rather incongruously. “Vive Napoleon”.

The battle that followed was a well-choreographed stage show, which seemed almost tame by comparison with the very real emotions I had witnessed from the participants beforehand. At the end, as Edith Swan-neck searched the battlefield for her dead king, a belligerent voice shouted “It never happened!”

950 years on, you could almost hear 10,000 lost souls turning in their graves.