London calling.
London Walks connecting.
This… is London.
This is London Walks.
Streets ahead.
Story time. History time.
Top of the morning to you London Walkers. Wherever you are.
It’s Friday, August 22nd, 2025.
First off, a bit of refreshment from the London Calling Book Club Corner. Our hostess this morning is the ever-delightful Ann. Another London Walks guide whose footprint is in the London Walks Walk of Fame. How could it be otherwise given the deluge of five-star reviews her walks attract. And what are Ann’s Walks? Well, in addition to Heart of the City and Undiscovered London she also does lots of specials. By way of example, Brook Green, William Morris and Friends, Cat Tails and that feast of four different Foodies London Walks.
Ergo the aroma about to waft your way. Here’s Ann.
She says, “As you can see, angled toward the Foodies…
I’m reading Nella Last’s Diary – 1939-45. Nella was one of hundreds of volunteers recruited by Mass Observation to write and send in a daily diary of their lives during the war.
Nella sews, she knits, she mends, she runs a charity shop raising cash for gift parcels for soldiers, and works in the WRVS canteen. She agonises over the irregular letters from her soldier son, serving abroad. And despite food shortages and rationing she produces 2 hot meals a day for her husband. Wonder at her resilience in wartime, at the changes in everyday life over the last 80 years, and perhaps pick up tips on how to turn scrappy mutton bones into a delicious meal.”
Thanks, Ann. I imagine there might be a morsel or two that’s found its way into your Foodies beat.
Ok, moving on.
This one was always on the cards. How could it be otherwise? It’s Europe’s biggest street party. And it’s right here in London. This weekend.
Yes, Notting Hill Carnival. Two million people. Two days. That’s half a million people per square mile. Basslines rattling the windows. Smoke and spice in the air.
Feathers, sequins, steel pans. You’re in for it now.
But let’s get some history in on the act. Let’s rewind. It’s not all feathers and rum punch from the start, oh no. Go back to 1958. Notting Hill wasn’t pastel townhouses and Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts. It was cheap digs, crumbling terraces, immigrants fresh off the Windrush. And tension. Racial tension. That summer? The Notting Hill race riots. Ugly, violent, raw. Teddy Boys attacking Black families. Streets on fire.
And then—out of that darkness – a brilliant, fierce woman: Claudia Jones. Trinidadian, journalist, activist. A firebrand. She says, “A people’s art is the genesis of their freedom.” And she means it. Segue to January 1959. St Pancras Town Hall: what have we got, we’ve got the very first Caribbean carnival in London. Indoors. Music, costumes, calypso. A balm for battered souls. A statement: we’re here, and we’re not going anywhere.
Next chapter? 1966. Enter Rhaune Laslett. Local activist, social worker. She organises a community street fair in Notting Hill. Invites a steel band. That steel band? That’s the moment. Boom. Carnival bursts onto the streets.
And once it’s out, you can’t put it back in the box. It grows. It swells. By the 1970s it’s steel pans rolling down Ladbroke Grove, reggae sound systems, sequins everywhere. It’s joy, but it’s defiance too. Police and carnival-goers often at loggerheads. Arrests. Clashes. 1976 – full-on riots. But Carnival survives. Because Carnival is stubborn.
Fast forward to today. What’ve we got? Bears repeating: the biggest street party in Europe. Bigger than Glastonbury. Bigger than Oktoberfest. Only Rio tops it. Two million people dancing in the streets of West London.
What happens? Well, where do you start? The music: steel pans, samba, soca, reggae, dub. And the sound systems – good grief, the sound systems! Towering stacks of speakers, big as houses, rattling the fillings out of your teeth. Rampage, Channel One, Aba Shanti – these aren’t DJs, these are institutions.
And the food. You don’t eat before you come, you eat here. Jerk chicken sizzling on oil drums. Curry goat, patties, fried plantain, corn on the cob dripping butter.
That smoky, spicy haze in the air? That’s the Carnival incense.
Then the costumes. Sequins. Glitter. Feather headdresses so big you wonder how they stay upright. Mas bands parading in themes: ancient myths, Caribbean gods, fantasy creatures. You’ll see Roman gladiators next to tropical birds the size of buses.
The parade snakes round Ladbroke Grove, Westbourne Grove, Chepstow Road. Floats thundering past, dancers whirling, drummers hammering.
And the moods. Two very different days. Sunday: Family Day. Calmer, kids in costume, steel bands, a bit of breathing room. Monday? Forget calm. It’s full tilt. Feathers, bass, bodies jammed together, streets heaving. If you want the spectacle, Monday’s your day.
Tips? Get there early. Mid-morning. Watch the floats assemble. Grab some food before the crush. By mid-afternoon you’re shoulder to shoulder with half a million people. Sardine time.
Must-sees? Steel bands. Just stand and let the pans wash over you – pure Trinidad. The parade floats, obviously. And pick a sound system or two. Don’t just stand still – wander. Carnival isn’t a show, it’s an experience. You dive in, get lost, dance with strangers, eat something messy, follow the music.
Is it for a cause? Oh yes. Don’t forget, Carnival’s roots are resistance. Out of the riots, out of racism, out of exclusion. Every drumbeat, every feather says: we’re here, we belong. And it pumps millions into the local economy – musicians, caterers, designers, the whole community.
Trouble? Sure. With two million people you’ll get pickpockets, you’ll get scuffles. The police presence is huge. But here’s the thing: two million bodies, and the overwhelming majority of it’s joyful, peaceful, electric.
Anecdotes? Yes, sure. And I’m not going to pull any punches here. It’s 1976 – riot year. Police shields up, bricks flying. And yet Carnival comes back the next year, stronger. Or this one: Guinness World Records says Notting Hill Carnival is the biggest street festival outside Rio. That’s some company.
And here’s the takeaway. Notting Hill Carnival isn’t something you watch. It’s something you live through. You don’t sit back. You move with it. It’s London’s heart beating Caribbean for one long, glorious weekend every August.
That’s the Carnival. Out of fire, a festival. Out of struggle, a celebration. Out of Notting Hill, the world.
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.