London Walks connecting.

This… is London.

This is London Walks.

Streets ahead.

Story time. History time.

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Yes, it’s London Calling again. Second time today, December 2nd, 2024.

Tot ‘em up. That’s two London Calling podcasts in one day. A double header if you want to put it in baseball parlance. Anyway, yes, twofers, they’re as rare as hen’s teeth.

But that’s what we’ve got today. And I’ll level with you, it’s because it’s such a weird coincidence. Makes the proverbial hair on the back of my neck stand up.

Two hours ago Margarita, our lovely Russian, drops me a line. ‘I’ve got a new Christmas walk I’d like you to put up, David. It’s called London and the Nutcracker – the Ballet that  Changed  Christmas. I’m going to run it on Sunday morning, December 29th. At 10.45. Meeting point will be by the big Christmas tree in Trafalgar Square.

This is the perfect year to do it because it’s the 90th anniversary of the first performance outside of Russia of the Nutcracker Suite. The Nutcracker is of course quintessentially Russian and quintessentially Christmassy. It debuted in St Petersburg in 1891. But before this London performance in 1934 it had never been outside of Russia. And it caused a sensation here. I’ve done a ton of digging. Where Tchaikovsky was. Ditto the principals. What London was like that year. And really how it impacted Christmas. Dickens gets all the credit for creating the English Christmas – what’s below the radar is this wonderful Russian ballet. It caused a sensation. It was transformative for the English Christmas. That’s what we’re going to explore, that’s what we’re going to uncover on the walk.

I said, “you go for it, Margarita. Send me the particulars and I’ll put it up. We’ll lead with The Russians are coming. That’ll be the opening chord. The second chord will be A Russian is coming. You’re her, Margarita. You’re going to make the scales fall from the eyes of ten or fifteen London Walkers who never knew that about the English Christmas and a famous Russian ballet. Send me the particulars and I’ll run it up the flag pole.”

Which I did.

And then – and this most definitely wasn’t idle curiosity, I was in the grip of a fever, a couldn’t wait fever, I wanted to know a bit more about this ballet that had never before been performed outside of Russia – so I started doing some digging. Beginning with the prima ballerina, Alicia Markova – and what do I find out – smacked me between the eyes this, talk about a coincidence – today’s the 20th anniversary of the death of that greatest of ballerinas, Alicia Markova. Shiver up the spine stuff. That one was going to get told. And it just has.

You’ve been listening to This… is London, the London Walks podcast. Emanating from www.walks.com –

home of London Walks,

London’s signature walking tour company.

London’s local, time-honoured, fiercely independent, family-owned, just-the-right-size walking tour company.

And as long as we’re at it, London’s multi-award-winning walking tour company. Indeed, London’s only award-winning walking tour company.

And here’s the secret: London Walks is essentially run as a guides’ cooperative.

That’s the key to everything.

It’s the reason we’re able to attract and keep the best guides in London. You can get schlubbers to do this for £20 a walk. But you cannot get world-class guides – let alone accomplished professionals.

It’s not rocket science: you get what you pay for.

And just as surely, you also get what you don’t pay for.

Back in 1968 when we got started we quickly came to a fork in the road. We had to answer a searching question: Do we want to make the most money? Or do we want to be the best walking tour company in the world?

You want to make the most money you go the schlubbers route. You want to be the best walking tour company in the world you do whatever you have to do

to attract and keep the best guides in London –

you want them guiding for you, not for somebody else.

Bears repeating:

the way we’re structured – a guides’ cooperative –

is the key to the whole thing.

It’s the reason for all those awards, it’s the reason people who know go with London Walks, it’s the reason we’ve got a big following, a lively, loyal, discerning following – quality attracts quality.

It’s the reason we’re able – uniquely – to front our walks with accomplished, in many cases distinguished professionals:

By way of example, Stewart Purvis, the former Editor

(and subsequently CEO) of Independent Television News.

And Lisa Honan, who had a distinguished career as a diplomat (Lisa was the Governor of St Helena, the island where Napoleon breathed his last and, some say, had his penis amputated – Napoleon didn’t feel a thing – if thing’s the mot juste – he was dead.)

Stewart and Lisa – both of them CBEs – are just a couple of our headline acts.

Or take our Ripper Walk. It’s the creation of the world’s leading expert on Jack the Ripper, Donald Rumbelow, the author of the definitive book on the subject.  Britain’s most distinguished crime historian, Donald is, in the words of The Jack the Ripper A to Z, “internationally recognised as the leading authority on Jack the Ripper.” Donald’s emeritus now but he’s still the guiding light on our Ripper Walk. He curates the walk. He trains up and mentors our Ripper Walk guides. Fields any and all questions they throw at him.

The London Walks Aristocracy of Talent – its All-Star Team of Guides – includes a former London Mayor. It includes the former Chief Music Critic for the Evening Standard. It includes the Chair of the Association of Professional Tour Guides. And the former chair of the Guild of Guides.

It includes barristers, doctors, geologists, museum curators, a former London Museum archaeologist, historians,

university professors (one of them a distinguished Cambridge University paleontologist); it includes a criminal defence lawyer, Royal Shakespeare Company and National Theatre actors, a bevy of MVPs, Oscar winners (people who’ve won the big one, the Guide of the Year Award)…

well, you get the idea.

As that travel writer famously put it, “if this were a golf tournament, every name on the Leader Board would be a London Walks guide.”

And as we put it: London Walks Guides make the new familiar

and the familiar new.

And on that agreeable note…

come then, let us go forward together on some great London Walks.

And that’s by way of saying, Good walking and Good Londoning one and all. See ya next time.