On the day of the ceremony itself many people gathered to watch me hand the repaired scroll back from across the religious spectrum. Lots of photos were taken by one Simon Caldwell and a few are reproduced below.  As part of the ceremony I gave a presentation of the similarities between the Tyburn story and that of M'gillat Esther and a short summary of the restoration work I had undertaken. There were prayers and readings of thanksgiving which are in a pdf on the Tyburn convent website together with a full speech by Mother General, Mother M. Xavier McMonagle who blows a mean shofar (but that was a different day).

Photos below courtesy of and © Simon Caldwell.

The story was picked up by both the Jewish and Catholic press - though to be honest more the Catholic press and I had the honour of appearing in articles that were beside those featuring the Pope - not something I was particular used to.  A selection are reproduced below.

And finally because the whole thing had been so fascinating, a real challenge and not something that a sofer normally gets involved with, I turned the entire episode into a book Restoring the Tyburn Megillah that chronicles the restoration of this old manuscript, re-inking, patching, dirt removal, dealing with missing words etc., investigates the many parallels between the two stories including difficult kings, strong minded queens and a large hanging tree and shows each column with a full translation.  It is available in both paperback and PDF.

Below: the front, back and spine of Restoring The Tyburn Megillah.

A special project, a special scroll and a special ceremony and, as the Mother General said during the BBC interview “we are all the children of Abraham in faith’ and therefore a character like Esther does have a special importance ... because hopefully out of that comes a rescue and a reprieve and an enlightenment on a spiritual level, at least, for humanity”

Mordechai Pinchas