When nine-year-old Beatrice Delap, a London schoolgirl, shot off a letter to Captain Jack Sparrow, the world's most famous pirate ( so what if he is fictional?), seeking his assistance to organise a “mutiny” against her teachers, she never thought he would actually turn up.
So, Beatrice nearly gasped with excitement when, out of the blue, he did turn up at the school on Thursday in his full high-seas regalia complete with a cowboy hat, a necklace of beads and a rather menacing belt. He had with him with four of his other seafaring mates — just in case things got a bit rough.
The man in the pirate's costume was, of course, Johnny Depp, the charismatic Hollywood actor, who plays Captain Sparrow in the Pirates Of The Caribbean series. And, for a moment, the entire class at Meridian primary school, not to mention the teachers, was struck dumb.
“There were gasps and screams. He pulled the letter out of his pocket and said he was going to frame it. Then he called me down and gave me a hug,” Beatrice recalled.
At one point, Depp-the-pirate even “threatened'' to “take over'' the school but then had second thoughts and told the children that it was not a good day to organise a mutiny because police were watching. Instead, he spent the time performing for the children and dancing with fellow “pirates''.
Beatrice said: “He said the pirates were going to take over the school and only eat candy and our teeth would turn black and fall out…But [then] he said we shouldn't mutiny against the teachers because there were police outside and we might get into trouble.”
So, how did Beatrice think of writing to Captain Sparrow?
She said she got the idea when she heard that Depp was filming the latest instalment of the film at the Old Royal Naval College next door.
In her letter, she said: “Captain Jack Sparrow, at Meridian primary school we are a bunch of budding young pirates. Normally we're a right handful but we're having trouble mutinying against the teachers. We'd love it if you could come and help. From Beatrice Delap, aged nine, a budding pirate.”
