London calling.
London Walks connecting.
This… is London.
This is London Walks.
Streets ahead.
Story time. History time.
A very good evening to you London Walkers. Wherever you are.
It’s Sunday, August 10th, 2025.
And, yes, calling all London Walkers. But also calling all bibliophiles. And for sure, I’m supremely confident most London Walkers are bibliophiles. And on that score, we’ve got something of a tradition getting underway here. I’m talking about the London Calling Book Club Corner. And, yes, we’re going to drop in there this evening. It’s our first port of call.
Moderating tonight is Nick Day, our most successful actor-guide. Nick’s playing Cardinal Wolsey in “A Man For All Seasons” — currently at The Harold Pinter Theatre in the West End. Nick ‘fesses up to taking a book to work every night. He says he gets through one a week. He hastens to add, too much time off stage rather than on, you might think!
His favourite so far has been In the Distance by Hernan Diaz. Nick says it’s a gripping story of a man’s most testing passage through life. Utterly compelling. Published by Daunt Books — everyone’s favourite bookshop, he hopes. Whenever Nick passes an independent bookshop, he nips inside and asks them to recommend a book. What a great tip. Nick says it’s a policy that has served him really well. His recommendation tonight, In the Distance, was bought at the Kemp Town Bookshop in Brighton. A super place with coffee upstairs. For the record, says he made the mistake of randomly choosing his own book as well — which turned out to be dire!
Ok, moving on. Got a couple of August 10th anniversaries for you. It was on August 10th, 1912 that Virginia Stephen married Leonard Woolf. And just like that she was Virginia Woolf. The ceremony took place in London at St Pancras Registry Office.
And one more. August 10th is St Lawrence’s Day. St Lawrence is the patron saint of cooks. And why is that you say? You sure. you want to know? Well, if you insist, they martyred St Lawrence by grilling him over a slow fire. His emblem is a gridiron. Next time you’re standing before St Lawrence Jewry in Guildhall Yard in the City, be sure to look up… There it is, the gridiron on the wind vane on top of the church spire.
Ok, main course. This one’s about the Brigg – the world’s greatest umbrella. My pal Tom Underwood has a mini collection of Brigg Umbrellas. I caught up with Tom. We talked umbrellas. Fascinating. I learned a lot about the Rolls Royce of umbrellas. And now you’re about to. Here’s my interview with Tom.
[Interview follows]
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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.