by Henry VIII contests a parking fine and discovers the appeals process has no royal exemption
I once fined entire counties for supporting the wrong claimant to my throne. A traffic warden in Islington fined me sixty pounds for a bay I genuinely believed was free after six.
The Ticket
I returned to my car to find a small yellow envelope tucked beneath the wiper, informing me of a Penalty Charge Notice for parking without valid authority between the hours of six and eight, hours I had been assured, by a sign I now believe was partially obscured by a plane tree, were free of charge. I have read treaties with fewer clauses than the small print on that sign.
The Appeal
I submitted a formal appeal to the council, explaining in considerable detail that the relevant signage was unclear, attaching photographs, and closing with a paragraph noting that I had once personally overturned judgments far more significant than a parking dispute purely through force of will. The council replied eleven days later with a single sentence rejecting my appeal and reducing the fine by precisely nothing.
The Second Appeal
I escalated the matter to an independent tribunal, a process Dev assured me was genuinely impartial, and prepared my case with the same seriousness I once brought to a papal hearing, except this time I represented myself, having learned from painful experience that lawyers cost more than the fine itself. The tribunal adjudicator, reviewing my photographs remotely, found in my favour within six minutes and cancelled the ticket entirely, the fastest and most satisfying legal victory of either of my lives.
The Warden
I later encountered the same traffic warden on a different street, and rather than confront him, I introduced myself and asked him plainly how a man endures a profession built entirely on being resented by strangers. He said you get used to it, and that most people shout, and that I was the first person all week to simply ask him a question like a human being. I told him that in my day, men who delivered bad news regularly lost their heads, and he laughed, uncertain whether I was joking, which is honestly the correct response to most things I say.
The Lesson
I have since photographed every parking sign I encounter, from every angle, before leaving my car anywhere in this city, a habit born entirely of paranoia. I annulled two marriages and broke from an entire church with less paperwork than it took to overturn one parking fine, and I say that not as complaint but as genuine, grudging respect for a bureaucracy that, unlike most of my former court, actually reviewed the evidence properly before ruling against me.
The Wider Lesson
I mentioned the whole affair to Trevor at the next pub quiz, and he told me half the borough has a similar story, and that photographing every sign before parking is simply what Londoners do now, the way earlier generations checked the weather before leaving the house. I have adopted the habit fully. Somewhere in my phone I now hold a small private archive of parking signage, evidence gathered against a system I have grown, despite everything, to grudgingly respect.
The appeals process, in the end, showed roughly the same patience as Henry VIII vs the Pope, minus the excommunication. Further reading on the wider chaos of modern Britain: Burnham’s homeowners tax plan, boiler repairs and all, London’s talent for charging you simply for looking at things, the full eyewitness account of how I came back in the first place.
