Careful what you miss in school – it might just change your life

But for Philippa Langley, Richard III would still be under a Leicester car park

Philippa Langley at the reinterment of Richard III at Leicester Cathedral in 2015

It’s just so easy to miss things. If Philippa Langley hadn’t missed the lesson about the injustice done to Richard III at school, chances are she would never have found his body in a car park.

And if I’d been paying attention, I wouldn’t have missed her part in the discovery. But I wasn’t, which was a bonus of sorts as it was all largely new to me when I listened to her talk at Borders Book Festival recently.

The story begins in 1998. Philippa, who never usually has time to read, is looking for a book to take on holiday. She randomly picks Paul Murray Kendall’s Richard III. Odd choice - what’s wrong with a thriller?

The book has Philippa transfixed - the king is not the hunchback villain she thought (thanks Shakespeare) but one of the good guys. When she is diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome and forced to give up her job in advertising, she decides to write a screenplay to tell the story of the real Richard.

She becomes hooked and her research eventually takes her to a Leicester car park she believes may have been his burial site. It’s a warm spring day but she is suddenly cold, her hairs stand up on end and she has goosebumps. She is convinced the king is buried there. Ironically there is an R painted on the Tarmac. R for reserved apparently, not Richard. It is a car park after all.

Somehow she manages to persuade Leicester City Council to allow a dig to take place. Philippa books the University of Leicester Archaeological Services and pulls in the financial backing. All good until a ground penetrating radar study detects absolutely nothing and the money is withdrawn. Apparently this is the point she nearly gives up. But no, Philippa crowdfunds the cash and in 2012, the dig begins and finds a skeleton under the R which is DNA tested and found to be Richard III.

Unbelievable. A woman living in Edinburgh who is not an historical expert managed all this at the same time as doing general life, battling a debilitating illness and bringing up her kids. How did she get anyone to take her seriously?

Just goes to show what can happen if you quit your job and follow your dream. Dangerous stuff I’d say. This little hobby took 14 years of her life, plus another three to see Richard’s body reburied and she doesn’t even describe it as a fixation. It was my passion, she said. Let’s hope she never gets an obsession. Who knows what she’d do.