Christopher Skaife has what he describes as “the oddest job in Britain”. His official title is Yeoman Warder of Her Majesty’s Royal Palace and Fortress the Tower of London. He is one of the former soldiers who are selected to be the ceremonial guardians of the Tower of London and custodians of its ancient rituals. As if that isn’t Gormenghastian enough, Skaife is also the Tower’s ravenmaster, responsible for the safety and welfare of the seven fearsome, black-as-night corvids on whose continued residence at the Tower the fate of the nation depends, at least according to legend. As Skaife neatly puts it: “I look after the ravens – and the ravens look after us.”
Skaife grew up in Dover; at the age of 16, after some run-ins with the police and fights with local gangs, he left to join the army: “My parents probably thought, well, if it’s not that, he’s going to end up in jail.” It was, he says, “the best decision I ever made”. After two decades of military service he applied to be a Yeoman Warder. He admits the ravens are now “my life”.
His daily routine begins when he steps out of his apartment in the walls of the Tower at 5.30: “There’s no one around, just me and the shadows of a thousand years of history”. As well as giving tours to visitors, he is responsible for releasing the ravens in the morning, ensuring they are watered and fed (apparently for a treat they get dog biscuits soaked in blood) and rounding them up at night – no easy task, one that has involved hazardous night-time climbs on scaffolding and across rooftops.
A natural storyteller, Skaife writes with affection and insight about these powerful, unpredictable and highly intelligent birds. Ravens are big: some two feet high, with a wingspan of up to four feet and weighing two and a half pounds. They are equipped with a vicious beak (“as good as any axe or razor”) and powerful talons. He was once summoned by the sound of tourists screaming: a raven had caught a pigeon and was eating it “from the inside out while it was still alive” next to a queue for the Jewel House. With their iridescent black plumage, the birds have long been associated with death and war. They are, he says, “the soldier’s natural ally”.
This is not a work of natural history but a wonderfully personal account. “In learning about the ravens,” Skaife writes, “I have discovered a lot about what it means to be a human: I’ve learned to listen, to observe, and to be still. The ravens have been my teachers and I have been their pupil.”
