London calling.
London Walks connecting.
This… is London.
This is London Walks.
Streets ahead.
Story time. History time.
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A very good evening to you, London Walkers. It’s June 11th, 2025.
Here’s a wonderful poem called Warning. Written in 1961, it was voted Britain’s favourite poem. We have the late, lamented, much-loved English poet Jenny Joseph to thank for it. She was 28 when she wrote it. And, for the record, Jenny Joseph hated the colour purple.
Here’s the poem.
Warning
When I am an old woman I shall wear purple
With a red hat which doesn’t go, and doesn’t suit me.
And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves
And satin sandals, and say we’ve no money for butter.
I shall sit down on the pavement when I’m tired
And gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells
And run my stick along the public railings
And make up for the sobriety of my youth.
I shall go out in my slippers in the rain
And pick the flowers in other people’s gardens
And learn to spit.
You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat
And eat three pounds of sausages at a go
Or only bread and pickle for a week
And hoard pens and pencils and beermats and things in boxes.
But now we must have clothes that keep us dry
And pay our rent and not swear in the street
And set a good example for the children.
We must have friends to dinner and read the papers.
But maybe I ought to practise a little now?
So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised
When suddenly I am old, and start to wear purple.
The poem came to mind as soon as I thought of the item I’m going to lead with today. It’s an anniversary item about a memorable London event that happened 25 years ago yesterday. On June 10th, 2000. I thought, ok, I missed the anniversary by a day but so what. I’m going to wheel it a day later and I don’t give a fig. I’m an old guy and I wear purple.
Anyway, the item in question – the bit of London history, not my purple shoes, purple belt, purple scarf and mauve fedora – the item in question was the Millennium year debacle. The opening, on June 10th, 2000, of London’s new Millennium Bridge. The opening attracted a huge crowd – 90,000 people. 90,000 people walked across that narrow steel blade in the first few hours it was open. And, well, it swayed so much it had to be closed for safety checks and months of repairs and modifications. And in the way of these things, Londoners immediately christened it the Wobbly Bridge. Or Wibbly Wobbly, take your pick.
Well, wasn’t going to miss that. Even though I was a day out. But, hey, I’m allowed, I’m a super adult and I wear purple.
Purple gloves it’ll be on tomorrow’s Kensington Walk. Yes, I’ve already warned my Kensington Walkers. Sent them an advancer saying I’m going to be pretty easy to spot what with the red shoes, green belt purple gloves, black denim jacket and a scarf with a splash of colour. The whole garish production topped to the north with a Dauntless (aka my Lock & Co. limited edition navy blue fedora).
Anyway, as for today in London. Today was the anniversary of Virginia Woolf’s most famous character, Mrs Dalloway, going for her walk. So, naturally, our Mrs Dalloway’s London Walk hit the catwalk. I created and curate that walk and of course guide it. In the event, there were only two of us – one walker, a lovely guy named Stuart from York, and one guide, c’est moi, David. And you bet I am, I’m making a point here, we go, even if there’s just one person on the walk. And you know something, I loved it. Stuart’s a lovely guy. He was warm, friendly, appreciative, so interested. It was a joy to take him around. And, truth be told, Stuart caught a break. Because he was the only walker I was able to take him at walk’s end into that literary sanctuary of literary sanctuaries: the London Library. My favourite place in London. And indeed it was also a Virginia Woolf favourite place in London. Rolled out the red carpet for Stuart. Gave him, if I say so myself, a really good tour of the London Library. The wonderful reading room looking out over St James Square. We went into the stacks. The London Library’s classification scheme is very wonderfully dotty. So we explored the Science and Miscellaneous section. And then Topography: London. And then I took him to the Times Room. We looked at the Wednesday, June 13th, 1923 edition of the Times, to see what was going on on that Wednesday in mid-June when Mrs Dalloway went for her walk.
The walk meets just outside exit 4 of Westminster Underground Station at 9.50 am. So we can hear Big Ben strike 10, which is precisely the hour Mrs Dalloway hears it at the start of the novel. There. Out it boomed. The leaden circles dissolved in the air. Anyway, I always get to Westminster Underground Station to compose my thoughts. And coming up the escalator with me there were a dozen or so youngish women with white caps on their heads. Well, my curiosity was piqued. I asked one of them, “are you nurses? Or nursing students?” She said, “no, we’re Mennonites.” I said, “oh, Pennsylvania.” She said, “yes, but also Ohio and Indiana and Kansas.”
There you go, that’s London for you. It’s always got a surprise up it’s sleeve. This place is non-stop stimulating. It’s why I live here. Why I’ll never leave.
And speaking of non-stop stimulating. Clear London skies this evening. Perfect for the super rare Strawberry Moon tonight. The next one won’t be until 2043.
And finally, an email from our distinguished diplomat guide, Lisa Honan. In response to yesterday’s podcast about Napoleon and St Helena. I got a couple of things wrong and in the nicest possible way Lisa set me straight.
Here’s what she said.
Just listened!
That’s hilarious!
And of course (!) I’ve heard of Hudson Lowe. He gets a mention in my EIC tour – at the slavery monument. Hudson Lowe and Napoleon only met six times. They did of course loathe each other. But I haven’t heard of the man who followed him. I shall have to look him up.
Betsy wasn’t Betsy Briars. She was Betsy Balcombe. Their house was The Briars. It’s where Napoleon stayed while Longwood (his house) was being readied.
But you’ll have to wash your mouth out with carbolic I’m afraid. St Helena is pronounced ‘St Heleeeena’. Islanders go crackers if it’s mispronounced. But don’t worry because you’re in good company. Ridley Scott also made the same mistake.
Thanks for the plugs.
Lisa.
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.