This isn’t quite what we had in mind to recognise our brilliant volunteers but without being able to gather together right now, this is all we have!

We asked some of our volunteers to write about why they volunteer with us and our first blog of the week is from Shona:

My name is Shona and I have been a volunteer at the King Richard III Visitor Centre for nearly three years. I do this because I love learning about our history.

I came to the Visitor Centre because I had followed the whole story of finding Richard and I was amazed, plus I had visited the Centre which I enjoyed. So, after a bit of time, I enquired about being a volunteer and have been here ever since.

I love talking to people about the story of Richard, particularly his death, and when I show visitors the grave it still gets me when people ask “Is this where he was?” and I say yes, and they are blown away. I also think it is an honour to be where history took place and keep the story of Richard III going so that he is not forgotten.

One young visitor made me smile when I was asked had we made the actual grave and I said no it was the real thing. Another visitor had quite a lengthy discussion with me on whether Richard had killed his nephews, at the end of our friendly discussion he said thank you for a wonderful chat and had left me a comments card which I was very touched with.

The most interesting question I’ve been asked was quite recent, “Would I want to meet Richard?”. I asked a couple of fellow volunteers the same question and one said no, in case their thoughts on Richard were completely changed after speaking to him, which was interesting.

Thank you to Shona and all of our fantastic Volunteer Team!