Task 2
Town Criers Compete to Be Best in Britain.
Standing before a crowd of busy shoppers, John Bartholomew, the town crier of Hastings, adjusted the angle of his hat, cleared his throat and almost cleared the streets. The noise generated by an experienced crier can reach 120 decibels – roughly what you hear when a fighter jet takes off, or from the front row of a heavy metal concert. And this was just the introduction to the National Town Crier Championship, held in this East Sussex town. In the age of communication, the crier might seem like a relic of the past, but for the guys in buckles and knee breeches, the business is – literally – booming.
Unfortunately, it isn’t enough only to be loud. Contestants are also judged on their diction, clarity, intonation, and standard of dress. “You have to be understood as well as heard,” said Mr. Bartholomew, a former serviceman, splendid in a traditional romantic outfit of emerald velvet, who gets £600 a year for his efforts. “You have to know how to seize people’s attention. It’s the whole package.”
Hundreds of towns throughout Britain have kept their criers for ceremonial reasons, but the number of criers is growing again, and with the revival has come a rise in competition.
A proper, competition-grade cry must begin with the traditional “Oyez, oyez, oyez!” and end with the National Anthem. Most criers further preface their announcements with a ring of a hand bell, although horns, trumpets and even rattles are permitted.
Loud? Lampposts bent and children rushed away in terror as Michael Wood, 54, a three-time world champion from East Yorkshire opened up with a message of greetings from his home region. It was so deafening you wondered why he needed to make the trip. “It’s a good life,” he said. “I do it pretty much full time – ceremonies, TV work and so on.”
The audience was astonished to see the next participant, 75-year-old Doris Eastwood, a former pub owner, who had spent long years shouting at her hard-drinking customers to go home, which gave her a taste for making public proclamations. “I thought I’d be good at it,” she said, “so I sold the pub and applied for this job in Weymouth, and it’s been a wonderful life. You meet all kinds of people, and all the history is fascinating.”
In medieval Britain, criers were the nation’s news announcers delivering laws, important proclamations, messages from wars and even advertisements. Their status was soon indicated by the fine uniform they wore, and the unique royal protection they enjoyed. It was a part of the crier’s job to deliver bad news such as tax rises, and the closing of gaming-houses, and to this day it remains a crime to stop or interrupt a town crier as he goes about his business.
Which statement is TRUE, according to PARAGRAPH 1?
