My day… involves being part of a team of six Team Leaders and some sixty or so Warders, working under our Visitor Experience Manager, to ensure that each and every visitor to Hampton Court Palace has the most enjoyable time they can at this large and often confusing site. Typically the day starts with ensuring that the thirty three posts are all staffed and that the route I’m responsible for is opened, safe and ship shape. It ends with closing the routes and, on occasion, preparing for and overseeing an evening function. In between it can involve any number of things; answering questions on heraldry, history and where the loos are, finding missing children, liaising with various departments, arranging and preparing for training and, of course, sorting out the paperwork.

You need to be: Flexible, as a site as large and varied as Hampton Court Palace demands flexibility. You also have to like people and have a passion for telling the myriad stories the palace contains.

Previously I was… a skinny beardless boy who went from school into a printing apprenticeship. I worked for the next sixteen years as a tin printer at a factory in my home town of Southall.