Hamilton’s town crier has won a top award in Britain.

Ed Christopher beat 19 other competitors in the National Town Crier Competition, held at Helmsley Castle in North Yorkshire — and also picked up the award for best-dressed crier.

Mr Christopher said: “I feel great, I love it. Everybody comes to win it. It is good camaraderie. There are a different group of characters and we all support each other. Everybody enjoys it.”

He had to perform a “home cry” about Bermuda and then a cry about Helmsley’s strong links with the Magna Carta, the 1215 declaration of rights that King John was forced to sign by rebel barons.

Mr Christopher said: “For the home cry, I talked about fun in the sun in Bermuda, a little bit of rum, swizzle in and you will swagger out, pink sand and the beaches and our blue waters.

“I had a bit about everything and a little bit about the City of Hamilton and the people with warm and friendly smiles.

“We also had to write and cry about Sir Robert De Ros — the first lord of Helmsley who was one of the 25 barons and guarantors of the Magna Carta with King John.”

Mr Christopher added: “The Yorkshire Post headline was ‘A wink and a swagger helps town crier sail to the top’, which they must have picked up from my home cry.”

The criers competed before a panel of specially selected judges under the rules of The Ancient and Honourable Guild of Town Criers.

Mr Christopher said: “You have to speak loudly and to be heard with clarity. You need to be understood — every word — so I wasn’t my usual Bermudian self.

“You also need to know what is true and what is fiction. Personality might help a little bit.”

Mr Christopher — a regular competitor at overseas competitions and familiar sight on the streets of Hamilton — designed his prize-winning costume himself.

He said: “The one that I wore is about five years old; it is not the one I wear on my tours.

“I keep this one for the official duties and competition. It was made by a young lady in Exeter called Tania Boddy.

“I designed it a while back, I got the gold braids from London. I didn’t want it to look like anyone else’s.”