| Profile : Huw Green | Huw Green lives in Nottingham and loves the burgeoning Drum and Bass scene as well as Selectadisc and the Broadway cinema. In addition to attending as many gigs as possible, he likes to keep an eye on the weird and wacky around the city. He enjoys windsurfing and goes to Rutland water to catch a breeze whenever there is enough time. When he grows up, Huw wants to be Donald Sutherland in M.A.S.H. |
Tell just about anyone that you live in Nottinghamshire and you can guarantee that one of the first images that flashes through their mind will be of a cheery archer clad in green, hat at a jaunty angle with a quiver full of arrows strapped to his back. This elusive figure is of course Robin Hood and he is the county's most famous cultural export. Tony Rotherham, aka Robin Hood, has been an expert on his present persona for most of his working life. A passionate teacher and dedicated historian, Rotherham is a tour guide and resident Robin Hood scholar at one of the city's biggest tourist attractions; The Tales of Robin Hood. Attention to detail is something that Tony feels strongly about "this is all very accurate, these are actual goose feathers that they would have used to make the arrows" he tells me as we board a carriage to take us through the mock up of forest life in the 1100s. Concessions to the legend While he acknowledges that certain concessions have to be made, "we have to pander to the traditionally held idea of what Robin Hood is" these are tempered by a sense of integrity and commitment to honest depiction. I ask Tony if he likes films such as Disney's Robin Hood and the Kevin Costner epic Prince of Thieves "I don't like either of those, the best film ever made about Robin Hood was Robin and Marian with Sean Connery in the 1970s. That was a lot closer to its subject and more accurate." Hardly surprising given Rotherham's comprehensive grasp of the subject and his meticulous eye for historical detail. As we ride through a foreboding Sherwood Forest, I can't help but be captivated as I hear the myths that surround our hero being debunked. Leather not tights "To make green tunics they would have to use a very strong arsenic solution to fix the colour into the material. Of course in those quantities it would have soaked through their skin and killed them, Lincoln Green was actually the type of wool that was used; it was spun in Lincolnshire."
 | | Tony in leather not tights! |
This explains Tony's decision to don leather boots and waistcoat instead of the traditional hat and tights "They came into the legend much later, that hat wouldn't have been fashionable until the 13th century." Tony speaks with authority, after a history degree begun at Oxford and completed with the Open University ("I couldn't afford to stay at Oxford and couldn't get a grant") he travelled to the Holy Land and hit the pilgrim trail. His life since has been spent avidly researching the legend that surrounds Robin Hood and travelling around the world to clear up some of the fuzzy thinking that goes with it. "Everywhere you go, if you mention Nottingham, people have heard of Robin Hood." Exactly who was he then? "It was never a name that was christened, Robin Hood would have been an alias. The first Robin Hood was based on a character called Sir Robert De Kyme, a knight who was dishonoured through debt, which was nearly as serious as murder back then. The last one that we know of comes from about 1483 and his name was Robert Forsooth." Drop the "Fors" and you're left with "Ooth", which became Ood and eventually Hood. A Nottinghamshire hero and the internationally recognised representative of even-handedness and charity, he is held in such high regard that a bronze statue stands outside the castle. How does Rotherham fill the role of this mysterious figure? Filling the role "Well he wouldn't necessarily have been a particularly nice guy, robbing from the rich to give to the poor didn't enter the legend for another 200 years, but in a time of tyranny, people needed a hero, someone to stand for something. Every culture has its own Robin Hood." This is only part of the story; centuries of history, legend and changing societal values have seen Robin Hood morph into any number of figures. Each generation makes him into what they want and, like so many legends; he ends up representing the values deemed importantly contemporary society. Being Robin Hood is a far more complex job than many people realise. "A big group of men living a forest couldn't have been commanded by one person, they would have separated into smaller groups of about 150, each group leader would have probably been known as Robin Hood." So Nottinghamshire's finest is a complex web of details, almost certainly an historical figure but by no means one to be taken at face value. Questions and answers How long have you lived in Nottingham? About 8 Years now. Where's your favourite place to go in the city? The castle has some excellent exhibitions and is always historically fascinating, not just what's inside but its own history as a site. I love to go there and the Galleries of Justice. If people say they are bored in Nottingham then I don't believe them, it is a great city and there is always so much to learn and do." Can you sum up Nottingham in three words? How about four: A place to be! | 
