Leicester Cathedral's oral history project on the discovery of Richard III

Leicester Cathedral is running an oral history project to capture the story of the discovery, identification, and reinterment of Richard III in 2015.

Here are a few snippets from the project's site:

Richard Buckley, former director of University of Leicester Archaeological Services, talking about Philippa Langley's powers of persuasion

"The site was occupied by Social Services department, but Philippa managed to get the ear of the then Chief Executive, Sheila Locke, who was attracted by the idea, which I thought, you know, if I'd gone to them and said, 'I want to destroy your car park on this wild goose chase for an unachievable project'", they'd have said 'No', so fair play to her for getting them to agree, so that, yes, they agreed to that." 

Jo Appleby, osteologist at the University of Leicester, on realising she was working on Richard III's skeleton 

"So, I started looking a little to the side to see if that was it, and I realised that no, the spine did go to the side, but it went to the side in anatomical alignment, it was still, it was still articulated. And as I followed it round, I began to realise, okay, there's a, there's a curve in this spine. And that was the point where I thought, I think this is Richard. 

"I'd already, when we started uncovering the upper cranium, that we weren't sure if it was part of the body, I'd noticed that there was an unusually square looking hole in the cheek. And I thought, well it's probably just some damage from the ground, but it was very strangely square hole that does look a bit suspicious, I wonder what that is. 

"And that was the point where I put those two things together, and I thought, that square hole actually is genuinely an injury, isn't it?"

Richard Buckley on being told by Matthew Morris what had been discovered:

"But then Mathew then whispered a bit slightly more assertedly. 'Well, the skeleton's got evidence for trauma to the skull and curvature of the spine'. And for me, that was when it was... It was like an out of body experience, it was like things were now happening that I had no control over, and I just couldn't believe it, and I couldn't, I can't repeat what I said!

"I jumped up and down! You know, nowadays, what's it called... That programme called Detectorists, where they talk about the dance that the detectorists do, where they find some gold. I think I did a bit more of a stamping, I think mine was, because I just couldn't believe it. 

"You know, I really couldn't believe it. What are the odds then, of being successful? So anyway, that's what happened."