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The loudest man in town ANTONIA QUIRKE meets Peter Moore, the inimatable Town Crier for Central London HERE'S a departure from the norm - you're driving down Kensington High Street and suddenly find yourself faced with a man dressed like Captain Hook ringing a bell and riding on a camel. Unusual? Now imagine you're a refugee in a camp in the Philippines and suddenly you find yourself faced with a man dressed like Captain Hook, ringing a bell and crying "Oyez, oyez - he who is tired of London is tired of life."	Town Crier Peter Moore holding forth about the delights of the capital.
This isn't a character in a Roald Dahl poem, but Peter Moore "on the job" as London's premiere Town Crier and one of our capital's greatest tourist attractions both here and abroad. A charismatic cross between Sid James and Richard Burton, Peter was a jobbing actor before answering the Greater London Council's advertisment for Town Crier in the actors' newspaper, The Stage in 1977. That was how he landed the job as toastmaster, commentator, master of ceremonies and daily wearer of an outfit that Barbara Cartland would swoon over. The job as Town Crier, originally a one week contract, extended now to over 25 years and still counting, has taken him to the Going Live TV studios, Disneyland, the David Letterman Show on American television, boat launches, restaurant openings and prestigious national functions all over the Globe. Possibly one of our nosiest celebrities, the ebullient Mr Moore has rung his bell (no pun intended) in all manner of places including outside Buckingham Palace to announce the birth of Prince William in 1982. "It's a job that most people can only dream of - and I'll keep on doing it as long as I have a voice left," he tells me whilst puffing on a cream tipped Winterman's cigar. And what a voice it is, of an authorative but toe-warming voice-over timbre that would be guaranteed to sell you anything from Devonshire toffee to life insurance. Peter recalls the long gone, hazy days of the GLC when his duties included commentating at the horse show on Clapham Common, the Westminster children's weeken and Thames day. These days he's employed by the London Boroughs and, when he's not winging through time zones (he launched Virgin Atlantic airlines) and spreading the joys of England's capital, he's doing his stuff three times a week, outside the Tower Pageant - the historical time-travellers ride at Tower Hill which nestles in the skirts of the grim tower itself.
Peter ringing his bell outside the Tower of London	He doesn't seem out of place here at all, despite the milling crowds of Japanese tourists and awe-struck school children outside the place where Queen Katherine Howard was holed up for doing what the King of France called "wondrous naughty" with Thomas Culpepper behind her husband, King Henry VIII's back. Come to think of it Peter Moore does look a little like the youthful Henry the Eighth. It's a pity that Holbein's not around to catch him on canvas..