London calling.
London Walks connecting.
This… is London.
This is London Walks.
Streets ahead.
Story time. History time.
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And, from London a very good evening to you, wherever you are. It’s September 8th, 2024.
Today’s pin…
How’s this for bizarre. I sit down at exactly 7.37 pm to write this one up. Apparently this is going to be the best night of the year to see Saturn. And yes, clouds permitting, we’ll be able to see it from London. So I go to the time and date website, Planets Visible in the Night Sky in London. Under the heading Saturn rise and set in London I learn that it, Saturn, will be up almost all night. And that it will rise – come into view – at 7.37 pm. It’s in the opposite direction of the Sun in the sky and is therefore visible most of the night. The boffins are saying we’ll be able to make out the planet itself with the naked eye but we’ll need a telescope to see the famous rings. And the very best viewing time for us here in Blighty: about 1.15 am this morning. Watch this space. I’m going to have a go. I’ll be out on the deck in about five hours. I’ll report back.
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Moving on, today’s Random – Saturn has 146 moons. Live and learn.
Ok today’s Ongoing. I was banging on yesterday about how stuff happens on London Walks. The unexpected. Surprises. Wheeling out some chapter and verse I cited the rare downpour on Thursday’s Old Westminster Walk. And legendary British newsman Andrew Marr happening by. And local resident Sheila coming out and introducing us to that burst of sunshine, her Lucas terrier Mozart. And telling us that great story about how the breed got its name.
But here’s the thing. I kept something back. Stored it up for today. We had a fourth surprise on that walk. Toward the end of the walk, just up ahead of us, walking by parliament, the platonic ideal of an upperclass English gentleman. Straight out of central casting. Beautifully tailored suit, bowler hat, wingtip shoes, almost certainly bespoke, probably Lobb and co., classy umbrella. Adorned with a very impressive badge. Assured manner. I said to my four walkers, “ok, there you go folks, feast your eyes, it’s a rare sighting but it’s the genuine article – a patrician Englishman. Some would say they’re an endangered species. I don’t think so. They’re few and far between but they’re certainly not extinct. And won’t be any time soon.
Anyway, the hunt was on. I wanted to know what the story was about that badge. And here’s where you-know-what came in handy. You-know-what being my American accent, my patent American manner. I get cut some slack that a native doesn’t have access to. And it works out at both ends of the social spectrum. Here’s a memory from 50 years ago. Toward the end of my first academic year in London I ran out of money. I knew an actress who when she was resting did supply teaching in an East End comprehensive. An all girls school. I asked her about it. She said, “sure, they’re always short-staffed. Drop by next week. I’ll introduce you to Mrs Gould the headmistress. I’m sure she’ll take you on. And Liz was right. All of that was a very interesting experience. I’ll maybe serve up a couple helpings of that experience one of these days. But it was there that I realised my nationality – my being a foreigner – privileged me in ways that weren’t available to my British contemporaries. To put it very bluntly, being an American, I was – and am – classless. In class terms I was unreadable. Opaque. As was, needless to say, my accent. I was just “the American” or “that American supply teacher.” And it meant I could be all over the shop in a social sense. Whether it was the couple of teachers who were Oxbridge types with cut glass accents right through to the Cockney dinner ladies. My nationality was a Freedom pass, a Get Out of Jail Card. Thinking about that a few years later when I got out into the newsroom and my editor was an upperclass Scot – father in the house of Lord, public school educated – yes, Gordonstoun, had a grander English accent than every Hooray Henry going –
said Editor, Michael was his name, could not have gone over to that school in Whitechapel and chatted readily and easily with those dinner ladies. They wouldn’t have trusted him. They would have clammed up. Got very guarded. “Why is here? What’s he on about?” Whereas this American accent of mine, it was a key. It unlocked doors that Michael couldn’t get through. Gave me access that he didn’t have.
So that’s the background. And sure enough I caught up with the patrician Englishman and laid it on. “Excuse me, I’m an American tourist – I noticed your badge – would you mind telling me what that’s all about?”
And Admiral Alan West, Baron West of Spithead, for it was he, opened right up. He said, “Oh, this, I’m Knight President of the Knights of the Round Table. I’ve just come from a church service.”
I gave him a sincere “oh, that is so cool, thanks so much”, turned back to my foursome. And, well, beamed at them.
London. It does it every time. This place is just so stimulating. Andrew Marr, Mozart, Admiral West, Baron West of Spithead, that’s a pretty good bag for one little walking tour.
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 Museum of London archaeologist, historians,
university professors (one of them a distinguished Cambridge University paleontologist); it includes
criminal defence lawyers,
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.