In the shadow of a Royal Wedding

Mary Barnes, team vicar of St John the Baptist church in Windsor, writes about what it’s been like to live life in the media spotlight in past weeks

This week it seemed as though we all had our ‘15 minutes of fame’.
For the last couple of weeks just walking in and out of church meant facing a barrage of tv cameras, reporters, technicians or just a curious crowd gathered to see who was being interviewed.

So the dilemma is – do you stride past them and ignore them, do you walk in front of the camera and hope to catch a glimpse of yourself on the TV news – or do you take the long route round into the back entrance of the church?

The excitement, of course,  is the royal wedding which took place just 50 yards from St. John the Baptist church in the High Street of Windsor. At the church we are used to nestling just yards from the mighty walls of the castle – a place bigger than the town of Windsor itself. The name of the local Borough ward is ‘Castle Without’ and we are one of only four Royal Boroughs in England and Wales.

The media arrived as soon as the wedding was announced. Every day there were camera crews in the High Street, many of them from abroad, all wanting someone to interview. It surprised me just how many people were willing to be interviewed.

Weeks before the wedding the clergy in Windsor were regularly getting calls asking for us to comment on the royal wedding – though I wonder why we were expected to have any greater wisdom or information on it than any other clergy. One curious request came from a German TV station who wanted to film our Sunday service even though we explained to them that the Royal Family aren’t part of our congregation and we weren’t involved in the wedding.

Being in a prime position just yards down the road from the Guildhall we were then overrun by TV crews sizing up the various vantage points for cameras and reporters. It seems as though everyone (except the vicar!) has been up our bell tower recently – camera crews, reporters, insurance assessors, the police, the bomb squad, the police mountaining group, churchwardens, bellringers et al.

It has been fun to have the place full of the media. A few days before the wedding the technicians began to lay cables.  All around the churchyard was criss-crossed by heavy duty cables, lines all neatly laid and covered – all carefully colour coded. They wandered in and out for coffees and lunches when the coffee bar was open and came in to shelter from the snow on Friday morning.

There has been wild speculation about the vast sums of money paid to the local shops by the media for the use of their windows. There were camera people hanging out of every possible window and filming from every possible vantage point on Saturday – some looked like very precarious positions hanging from 2nd floor windows of the store opposite the Guildhall.

Saturday was great – you couldn’t move within 200 yards of the Castle and the Guildhall with the crowds of people who lined Park Street and the High Street to catch a glimpse of the wedding party, but Windsor always has a buzz about it –  it is the second most visited tourist venue in the UK. The church opened up the coffee bar and offered hospitality to hundreds of people.

By Sunday morning, however, there was no trace left of the media, the crowds, the curiosity – Windsor was back to normal. Life will seem quite quiet after the excitement of the last few weeks.