About Jack

Jack is a Tudor pedlar stranded in the 20^th century by a time-warp. He arrives in costume and staggers into your classroom weighted down by his back-basket, bags and bundles of clothes and chattels and as much business as can be crammed into a school day. He paints a vivid picture of life in his time, using a wealth of artefacts, anecdotes, descriptions, activities and demonstrations. Jack Greene brings the look, feel, sounds and smells of the Tudors right into your classroom.

'Jack Greene Pedlar' has grown out of hundreds of hours or varied 'living history' work with school parties at a Tudor manor house and estate in Suffolk. In adapting it for in-school presentation it has been aligned with the current primary history curriculum:-

KS1: areas of study 1 and 3, key elements 2 and 3

KS2: areas of units 2, life in Tudor times, various key elements

His present may be any year from 1485 to 1660 he will come dressed - not too fashionably - for that year, perhaps with his grandfathers clothes in his pack, and look back over his half century of life and before. He might, for instance bring his longbow and some of the arrowheads from Bosworth Field, or describe the suppression of the local monastery, or the tragedy of the Mary Rose. He might get helpers to cast a small item in pewter. Whatever the year his dress and chattels conform to a high standard of authenticity.

The themes offered are presented in context of the everyday life of ordinary people and how it compares to life in the 21st century. Jack weaves a common backdrop of hardship and luxury, foul roads, poor housing, wood fires and simple pleasures, in the world both more and less secure, when nights were darker and stars brighter and more significant than they are now, when the traveller was rarer, more feared and more valued.

Jack can guarantee you a history lesson that pupils (and staff) will remember and learn from, almost like travelling back in time.

'Our most stimulating day' - Bristol teacher