British Actor Becomes Freeman In London

Oscar -winning actor Colin Firth has been awarded Freedom of the City of London for his services to acting.
The British movie star accepted the honour at the Guildhall by reading the Declaration of a Freeman, which allows him to carry out his trade.
New freemen are enrolled in a ceremony in Guildhall, when they receive a guide to conducting their lives in an honourable fashion and an impressive sealed certificate.
There are a number of rights traditionally but apocryphally associated with the honour thought to have come about in 1937. For eaxmple the right to drive sheep and cattle over London Bridge; to a silken rope, if hanged; to carry a naked sword in public; or that if the City of London Police finds a freeman drunk and incapable, they will bundle him or her into a taxi and send them home rather than throw them into a cell. While sheep have occasionally been driven over London Bridge on special occasions, the rest of these "privileges" are now effectively symbolic.
Alderman David Wootton, Lord Mayor of the City of London, said Firth was a very deserving candidate.
(LB)