This blog isn’t becoming a recruitment agency but if you live in the vicinity of Ripon in North Yorkshire and have a bit of puff in your lungs, you have until noon tomorrow to apply for a job with a difference – to become one of the city’s three part-time hornblowers.

Ever since Alfred the Great gave the place a horn on a visit in 886CE, a curious nightly ritual takes place in the square at nine o’clock sharp. Resplendent in a fawn frock coat and a black tricorn hat set at a jaunty angle, the official hornblower sounds a blast at each corner of the obelisk, checks with the mayor that the night watch has been set and then gives the horn another three toots. For these not overly strenuous duties, you can pick up £8.72 an hour and a further £21.12 for every civic ceremony you attend.

The last full-time hornblower was George Pickles who called time on his role in 2015. If you get the job, let me know. After all, it never does to blow your own trumpet!

Filed under: Humour, News Tagged: Alfred the Great, George Pickles, Ripon in North Yorkshire, Ripon seeks to recruit a hornblower, the Ripon hornblower