Growing up in the SK

Writing this the first thing I asked my self was where to begin. Well now I’m 31 years old, with 31 years of sealed knot experience, 2nd in command of a company which I helped form and build from just a few friends. I will end this blog at the age if sixteen when I take the field at Nantwich.

So, I’ll start at the beginning. I was born in 1983 in to a loving family, but as far as I’m concerned I was born lucky with what I see as a second family The Sealed Knot. With hundreds of uncles and aunts, also known as mum and dads close friends, who have been with me all my life and have in my adult live become my friends who I can seek advice from. My Sealed Knot Family consisted of Charles Gerrard’s regiment of foot.

As I got older between

5-10 my father was now C.O and those I looked up to John Pickup, Darrel Hunt and Steve Clark, I won’t list a pile of names, decided It was time I started to drill with the pike block, well basic drill anyway still a bit small for pike pushing. I quickly found out that there was more to being a pikeman than fighting there was drinking ale as well, well anything I could steal from under a beer tent table. During the battles I would march down with the regiment then watch the battle, looking back I tend to think they were much better than they are now but that might just because I see things from a different aspect now. One thing is true though musters where more imaginative. I remember cearw castle being blown up, witch burnings, and even at Grate Torrington where a full size church was built only for us to turn up and burn to the ground.

Around the time of Dad becoming C.O Mum moved to Lord Hoptons Tercio to become their chief of Staff which meant I had new people to meet and learn new things from. I was never a popular child at school but going to musters I always had lots of other children to play with, eventually I stopped watching the battles every time we went away, and me and my friend’s would have our own battles, the wooden swords where much more robust those days.

By the time I was 10 we had a full complement of the Jarvis family sealed knotting, Mum, Dad, Myself, Mathew, Lucy, Elinor and Amy who had just been bean born. When going to musters it always felt like it was going to take forever to arrive so we would play car games I normally would fall asleep. But once my tent was up the first thig I wanted was to put my kit on. These days it’s just Mathew, Elinor and myself who still take an active role. By Now Dad was no longer C.O of Gerrard’s and had come to Join Mum on Hopton’s staff. During this stage of Mum and Dad’s S.K career I realised there were other roles apart from being a pikeman, but in my opinion it’s still the best role.

In my early teenage years I joined the apprentices, in those days we got involved in pre-battle displays with the baggage train. Being in the apprentices was brilliant for getting involved in the musters but it wasn’t the

fighting which was what I was looking forward to. I eventually found it quite frustrating waiting till I was sixteen, but by that time I was I was trained in pike and musket and the most important thing, in my view, how to talk to the public visiting our musters.

Finally at sixteen I was old enough to take the field I had a full set of authentic kit including latchets, so at

Nantwich I was all rearing to go. Dad and Jonathon came in the block with me. The guys had bought me pre-battle drinks and we stood outside the Oddfellows pub jeering at the rest of the army as they marched passed for the rose bowl competition. Then we had a quick drill session in the beer garden and then made our way down to the battle field. It was everything I hoped it would be, apart from losing my shoes in the wet sticky mud, and I’ve never looked back.

Now looking back I think growing up in the sealed knot was fantastic, not an opportunity a lot of children have, and now most of my friends are knotters.

Growing up I found things hard as I said I wasn’t popular at school I struggled with dyslexia and didn’t really read till I was about 10 but then the first thing I read was Shakespeare. The things I mostly got out of growing up in the knot was a sense of self I knew who I was and what mattered to me as well as good social skills and a desire to compete at everything I do. I have a desire for knowledge I have a love of history and literature.

I would say the sealed knot is a family environment where everyone looks after each other I have heard members even say there regiments are the family they would choose for themselves. My parents met each other there, and I met my girlfriend there.