interest in archery) visited Lillywhites, and Waller sold him a longbow and arrows. Through that and other contacts made while working there, Waller discovered an opportunity suited to his interests and skills - fight arranger, action coordinator and historical adviser for stage and screen. His first engagement was in 1965 for a production of the pantomime Babes in the Wood at the London Palladium. During his career, he worked on over 60 plays and 15 operas in London and the English regions, about 50 television dramas, soap operas and documentaries, and many television commercials (including a 28-year association with Strongbow cider and its "thudding arrows" motif). He worked on more than 10 feature films; including Anne of a Thousand Days (1969), Mary, Queen of Scots (1971), Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975), and Legend (1985). He taught actors at, among other institutions, the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art and the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. His guiding principle was, "reality first, theatricality second". He strove for historical accuracy; before him, staged sword fighting had been largely based around modern sport fencing techniques. In fantasy settings his question was, "If it could have happened, how would it have happened?" In 1967, he left Lillywhites to set up his own shop, Bows and Blades, on Tower Hill, facing the main entrance to the Tower of London; it prospered. In 1969, he was a founding member of the Society of British Fight Directors (which later changed its name to the British Academy of Dramatic Combat, and which was later still absorbed into the British Academy of Stage and Screen Combat). He pioneered safer practices in medieval and renaissance combat reenactment. He collaborated with Brigadier Peter Young, founder of The Sealed Knot, a society which specialises in English Civil War reenactment. The modern acceptance of reenactment and living history, based on careful research and experiment, as valid and useful owes much to Waller's and Young's hard work, enthusiasm and skill. The Medieval Society flourished, and in its day gave many displays of martial skills, including archery, foot combat and jousting, at historic venues in the United Kingdom and France. In 1973, Waller invented the balsawood lance, which has the advantages for show combat that it breaks easily (often spectacularly) on impact, and poses less risk to even an armoured human target than one of stouter wood. It was used in