Let’s do some stories

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. This one’s dedicated to Heidi from Midland, Michigan. Who listens to London Calling when she’s mowing the lawn.

Today’s pin

He ruled 33 centuries ago. But you can be sure he lives on. I dare say lives on here in London. And in New York. And in Paris. And in Berlin. And certainly in Egypt. And elsewhere. All over the shop, really. I’m talking about the great Pharoah Ramesses II. We meet up with him on our British Museum Tour. His statue is the largest Egyptian sculpture in the British Museum. Large statue for a ruler of large appetites. Ramesses II had multiple wives and kept a harem of 200 women. First question is, was he able to remember all their names? Second question is, was he able to remember the names of his children? He sired more than 100 of them. Which is why we can rest assured that 132 generations later his descendents – lots of them – will be in amongst us today. Anything else to add? Yes, all those wives and mistresses – mistresses, would that be the word for the 200 ladies in the harem – all that bonking – it didn’t do Ramesses II any harm. He lived to be 90.

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Moving on, today’s Random – this one’s a go figure – but just in case we’re steaming away at the thought of Ramesses II’s exertions – here’s some cold water on the subject: well, cold water if you’re American, not if you’re European – the USA has more laws governing sexual behaviour than every country in Europe combined.

Ok today’s Ongoing.

Here I’m going to insert an extra element – a fourth element – to the London Calling podcast. Amazingly, we’ve had over 350,000 listens. That’s small change if you’re Joe Rogan or Conan O’Brien but we’re just a little walking tour company. So we’ll take it. Over the four years or so London Calling has been up and running we’ve had two stints of the podcast equivalent of Joe DiMaggio’s record 56-game hitting streak in baseball. A couple of years ago I put out a podcast every day for 420 consecutive days. And this latest run has been 50 plus consecutive days.

But I’m here today to say I can’t maintain the one every day pace. Each one of these takes me three to four hours to put together and put out. Because of that time commitment I’m shortchanging other London Walks work I should be doing.  So I’m going to drop it down to one a week, interspersed, I should think, with quite a few occasionals. As and when they arrive. So I think the regular weekly one will go out at about mid-day, our time, every Friday. Perfectly positioned to look forward to the weekend. Or to take stock of how the week has shaped up so far.

And there’ll probably be more London Walks news per se than there’s been in the past. By way of example, there’s an exciting new walk that will debut in October. I’ll set out all the particulars in Friday’s podcast.

In that same vein, Ulrike’s new walk – Women of Abbyss – The Feminist Jack the Ripper walk – is attracting nonstop rave reviews. By way of example, Emily Hassan went on this morning’s walk. Here’s her verdict: “Having attended my first London walks tour this morning, I cannot recommend Ulrike enough. Not only was this a profoundly informative experience, but I was also deeply moved by the content, with a particular focus on the lives of the women involved, and the unique sets of circumstances that drove them onto the streets. Ulrike is a marvellous storyteller and she paints a fascinating picture, not only of the lives of the five women conventionally characterised as ‘Ripper victims’ but of the society in which they struggled to survive. It is all too easy to reduce Polly, Annie, Kate, Elizabeth and Mary-Jane to stock characters, prostitutes whose lives are to be read solely in the context of their violent demises. Ulrike’s tour is a true antidote to this mawkish, lazy and outdated reading, and is therefore an absolute must!!”

Michael was there on the opening night. I say opening night but the walk actually takes place in the morning – making for a perfect fit with Petticoat Lane Market in full flow – Michael’s review reads: It was a privilege to be one of the first people to do this amazing walk with the fantastic Ulrike.

“This tour is as far removed from other types of tours on the subject of Jack the Ripper as it’s possible to get. It’s informative, fascinating and heartbreaking. She skilfully weaves the tragic tales of The Five with the complicated and festering history of Victorian London.

But it’s all told with sensitivity and insight. A truly excellent addition to The London Walks canon.”

And another guide who gets wall-to-wall rave reviews is award-winning Geologist Ruth Siddall. Ruth did her Urban Geology in St Giles tour yesterday. Denis Gojak was on the walk and he favoured us – favoured you, really – with a lengthy, exacting, carefully considered set of observations about the walk.

Denis Gojak pushes the boat out by saying: “The prospect of going on this walk was something I’d looked forward to, and it didn’t disappoint at all. Dr Ruth was personable, engaging and highly knowledgeable…” And it ends: “a definite must do. It’s my first London walk, but makes me want to try others.

As the ultimate test of whether it was worth it, I was able to go back to my hotel confidently spotting Portland stone, lavakite, different marbles and paving slabs.” Well, as I’ve been known to say, we can say it until we’re blue in the face but it counts for so much more if it comes from somebody who was on the walk as a customer. In short, don’t just take it from us.

Ok, let’s do some London history.

A great American dropped me a line a couple of days ago. He had been in a flush of excitement about taking a university Botany course. Auditing it. He’s retired. But it turned out to be a damp squib. Essentially because of what I’m tempted to call dud guiding. My pal’s son had got my friend a book about plant evolution that father and son had both found fascinating – How the World Turned Green.  My friend said, “So I thought taking an introductory botany class would be great.  Alas, as soon as the lecturer started the dream turned cold – I imagined 3 or 4 ways he could have made the introductory lecture engaging, but instead he just presented a bunch of facts.  Put me in mind of the many chats we’ve had that London Walks are almost always special because your guides don’t just spew information but context wrap them in stories.

Well, let’s do some stories – some context wrapping – about a couple of London executions. Famous executions. Tudor and Stuart executions. Start with Robert, the Earl of Essex. In Robert Lacey’s felicitous phrase, he was an Elizabeth Icarus. Essex was young and handsome. Elizabeth was old and hag-like. She was 32 years older than the young courtier. He flirted with her as if she were a pretty young thing. But they fell out in 1598. Over a court appointment. He lost his cool. His temper got the best of him. He turned his back on the Queen. You didn’t do that. He put his sword as if he were going to draw it. That was a huge no no. They had a shouting match. She slapped him. She said, “go and be hanged.”  He said – and this got back to her – “her condition – meaning her disposition – was as crooked as her cadaver. Five unforgettable words. No, make that two unforgettable words: crooked and cadaver. The aging queen’s young lover – he wasn’t of course but that was the fiction they played at when he was flattering her, courting favour with her – uttering those two terrible words the aging queen’s young lover pronounced his own death sentence.

And then let’s leap forward a few years to Sir Walter Raleigh’s execution in Old Palace Yard in front of the Palace of Westminster. At the foot of the scaffold Walter Raleigh paused, turned to the assembled multitude, and said, “So I take my leave of you all, making my peace with God. I have a long journey to take, and must bid the company farewell.” And that wasn’t said sombrely. It was said in good cheer, as if to remind them that there was no need to weep for him, as many were doing, since “all life is but a wandring to find home.” Up the ladder he went. There were just three of them there, the Dean, the Headsman and Raleigh. Raleigh asked the headsman if he could feel the edge of the axe, to see if it was sharp and good. The axeman hesitated. Raleigh – with aplomb, light and easy – repeated the request, as if it were the merest trifle, a courtesy. He said, “I pray thee, let me see it.” The headsman obliged him. Raleigh felt along the edge and nodded his approval. Smiling he said, “this is a sharp medicine but it is a physician for all diseases.” The headsman knelt and begged forgiveness. Raleigh put his hands on the headsman’s shoulder and reassured him. And then he said, “when I stretch forth my hands, despatch me.” Then came the blindfold. But Raleigh spurned it. He said, “Think you I fear the shadow of the axe, when I fear not the axe itself?” He knelt down. Facing west, he put his head on the block. Dean Tounson asked him if he would not rather lie facing east, facing the direction in which our Lord will return. Raleigh demurred. He said, “so that the heart be right, it is no matter which way the head lieth. He then in prayed in silence for a moment. And then gave the signal, stretched out his arms. The headsman was trembling. He wasn’t able to swing the axe. Raleigh thrust out his arms a second time. Again, the axeman, all aquiver, couldn’t do the deed. The crowd was transfixed. Had a miracle occurred. Had the sentence been commuted. Raleigh took charge. Gave a command. They were his last words. “What dost fear? Strike, man, strike.” The axe fell. And then fell again. Yes, it took two blows to sever the head. The crowd groaned. The executioner bent over, picked up the head, turned to the crowd to show them. But he couldn’t utter the customary words, “This is the head of a traitor.” Instead a voice in the crowd called out, “we have not another such head to be cut off.” The sheriffs tried to disperse the crowd, “go home, go home.” They refused to do so. Many were sobbing. Others were murmuring, “we might all as well be dead as live under a King who could butcher the paragon of Englishmen as a compliment to the Spanish Ambassador.” Sir Walter Raleigh’s head was put in a red velvet bag and taken away with his body in a black coach. His body was buried in front of the communion table, right there at St Margaret’s. The head was embalmed and kept by his widow till she died, 29 years later. It then passed to his son Carew, who kept it until his death. Son and father’s head were buried together.

Point taken? It’s the stories isn’t it? That line, “as crooked as her cadaver” and that red velvet bag and Raleigh’s running his fingers along the edge of the axe and his voice ringing out, rebuking the headsman, “what dost fear, strike man, strike.”

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.

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