With the reinterment successfully accomplished and the beautifully carved tomb in place, it was time to reveal it to the public. Different in tone, the Reveal service was a visual feast featuring dancers from Curve theatre. Hours later the surrounding streets were illuminated with candlelight as people wandered, whilst fireworks launched from the Cathedral roof lit up the night sky. Bringing to a close a quite extraordinary and sublime week the city had indeed surpassed itself.
THE SERVICE OF REVEAL AND LEICESTER GLOWS – FRIDAY 27 MARCH 2015
RICHARD SMITH, CHAIR OF THE LEICESTERSHIRE BRANCH OF THE RICHARD III SOCIETY, RECALLING CARRYING THE RICHARD III BANNERS DURING THE REVEAL SERVICE
"Dean David decided that Sally and myself could sort of carry them down the nave to the…….. Where the tomb had just been revealed that day.Now the problem of the banners is that if you hold them up ever so high, you're going to…. the top of the frame post, sort of thing, will hit the furnishings in the Cathedral. I know it's a tall building, but it's amazing what hazards there are.And of course, you've got the senior clergy. I mean, there's Bishop Tim there and others, you know, there's me sort of thinking, I've got to watch what I'm doing, or I'll have Bishop Tim's eye out on this, and that will not be good advertisement for the Society and the papers tomorrow morning!"
TIM STEVENS, FORMER BISHOP OF LEICESTER, GIVING HIS REFLECTIONS ON THE REVEAL SERVICE
"The Reveal, I was able to be more emotional about it, because somehow there was less at stake. We'd got through the week, and now there was the theatre providing the drama. I think the Dean had a headache in the middle of the night because they're trying to put the stone on, well, literally, two or three o'clock in the morning. But I wasn't involved in that. But the Reveal service was a great, I think, release of tension, and energy, and was very, very moving."
JOHANNES ARENS, FORMER CANON PRECENTOR OF LEICESTER CATHEDRAL, RECALLING THE REVEAL SERVICE
"That was probably my favourite service of them all, because it was a collaboration with the young Curve theatre. Again, it created relationships... fabulous... And all these young people from all sorts of different backgrounds, mostly not Christians, did a fabulous thing, and that was a great event, that was really fun and very visual and kinesthetic, and led into a party, into a street party. And allowed everybody who wasn't in church to take part then all afternoon and evening. Was a tangible excitement all around."
MANDY FORD, FABRIC WORKSTREAM LEAD AND FORMER CHAIR OF CATHEDRAL FABRIC ADVISORY COMMITTEE, REFLECTING ON THE REVEAL SERVICE
"Again, something that will, you know, live with me long afterwards, and then after the Reveal service, which had a kind of lovely Leicester chaos about it, really and, you know, had a very different atmosphere. It was, you know, all the... that the great and the good had all gone home by then, and there were, you know, just had a much more... It was the home team, if you like."
LEICESTER GLOWS
DAVID MONTEITH, FORMER DEAN OF LEICESTER
"I'd agreed that we would have these medieval fireworks, medieval firework display from the Cathedral, because I'd been to Santiago de Compostela, and I saw them doing this thing called Setting the Cathedral on Fire and I thought, well, if they can do it there, we can do our version of that. So that was…. that was…that was wonderful and amazing, although my heart was my mouth thinking, Oh, I hope we don't set the place on fire, literally and…. But then the thing, the thing which having these big, lit candle flames in the small, narrow streets of the old part of the city of Leicester, suddenly we transform the place back into a medieval city, in a way, and it had a kind of an intimate quality about it."
JOHN FLORANCE, FORMER RADIO LEICESTER PRESENTER
"But that sense of relief and it was all being worthwhile really got me on the evening of the last day when Leicester celebrated and the lights went on all over the…..all over the street, and there were celebrations galore. And I can remember that evening, we popped into an Indian restaurant, a good old Indian, Leicester Indian restaurant, had a good curry, and came out and saw all these celebrations. I thought, well, this is just something very special, really."
MATHEW MORRIS, DIG SUPERVISOR
"That was brilliant, that evening. Fantastic night, yeah, really magical. And then, and then, I remember watching the fireworks, standing next to David Monteith, and sort of slightly feeling him wincing every time a firework hit the tower, thinking, oh God, they've crisped the falcons!"
PETER SOULSBY, CITY MAYOR
"It also was great to see how much it engaged families, and how much it engaged families from the many different communities that are less there, you know, it wasn't just, you know, for those of mature age, and you know, indigenous to the city. There were lots of people there who, you know, are from, say, new communities, well-established communities, but for the many communities of Leicester were there, and lots of people of different ages."
TIM STEVENS, FORMER BISHOP OF LEICESTER
"I think people had never seen their city up lit from little alabaster bowls with candlelight before. I'd never seen anything like it before and then fireworks from the roof of the Cathedral. But what struck me, was that people were wandering around the streets lit like that and having conversations with each other in in the half-light. And I certainly wandered around, talked to all kinds of people. I had no idea who they were, but you just got the sense that people's defences were down. We were a real community of Leicester people, meeting each other, talking to each other. We'd all shared this very special moment in our history, and we kind of knew we'd never experience anything quite the same again, but we wanted to savour it. And I think in some ways that, in some ways, that was the most special moment of all."
