The scroll was brought to her, but she had no pen, so consequently used a bodkin from her sewing basket. She was sewing in her garden when the time arose to choose her sheriffs. I do like my dad’s, where he explains that it dates back to the time of Elizabeth I. There are a couple of explanations for this rather odd method of choosing. The list of nominees is put on to a vellum (calf skin) scroll which is 15 feet long by a foot wide and, as in centuries before, the Queen chooses her high sheriffs using a silver bodkin, which is a large sewing needle, to prick a hole in the scroll over the selected nominee’s name. This is followed by the ‘pricking of the sheriffs’ by the Sovereign in March (I bet you’ve been thinking that was a typo!). Formal nominations take place at the High Court in London on November 12th and is presided over by the Lord Chief Justice. It is the duty of the incumbent high sheriffs to nominate successors. To counter the problem, a new official, the ‘coroner’, was installed to oversee all the sheriffs (although clearly they have a very different role today!). This made them very powerful and some, like the supposedly merciless Sheriff of Nottingham, abused this power. They collected rents and taxes and were responsible for keeping the peace, which also led to them assuming responsibility for prisoners. They were the king’s representatives at a local level and executed writs on his behalf. We don’t know for sure when the first shire reeve appeared, but we do know that Alfred the Great (871-901) appointed men to this role. ‘Reeve’ comes from the Anglo-Saxon word ‘reeafan’ which was a levy or seizure. The original sheriff is possibly the oldest official role in the country, and the name derives from ‘shire reeve’, meaning the governor of a shire or county. City sheriffs have largely disappeared, apart from in London where there are two. The second category is now mainly a ceremonial role to represent the Crown at county level and are known as high sheriffs. Debts below £600 can only be recovered by bailiffs, and debts over £5,000 can only be recovered by sheriffs. They are authorised by the Lord Chancellor, but privately employed, unlike bailiffs, who are salaried civil servants. Those featured in the BBC programme are officially High Court Enforcement Officers and are tasked with collecting money or goods in respect of a debt. Today there are two distinct categories of sheriff in our country. The word sheriff immediately conjures up two images for me, a Wild West cowboy with a star-shaped badge, and the actor Alan Rickman, whose portrayal of the embodiment of evil that was the Sheriff of Nottingham in the 1995 film ‘Robin Hood, Prince Of Thieves’ was so memorable. I was undecided as to what to plump for, until I opened my iPad and there on the open BBC iPlayer app was a programme called ‘The sheriffs are coming’. Today, I experienced such a moment after reading Dad’s piece from 8th April 1978 in which he talked about the April weather, albino people (following on from his mention of albino blackbirds a couple of weeks before), the annual influx of migrating birds, clouds and the custom of ‘pricking the sheriffs’. Often, at the very point I think inspiration has left for its holidays, I see or hear something that ends up being the pivotal subject of the column. When I sit down to write these columns, I usually have no idea what I’m going to write about until I read the column that Dad wrote in the corresponding week 40 years ago. This column appeared in the Darlington & Stockton Times on 6th April 2018, & the Gazette & Herald 4th April 2018. Alan Rickman as the dastardly Sheriff of Nottingham The new High Sheriff of North Yorkshire, Christopher Legard, front centre, with outgoing High Sheriff Simon Wrightson, front left.
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