London calling.
London Walks connecting.
This… is London.
This is London Walks.
Streets ahead.
Story time. History time.
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Top of the morning to you, London Walkers. Wherever you are.
It’s Valentine’s Day.
So howzabout a Valentine’s Day poem to shove the boat out.
Ok, it’s not a designatedly Valentine’s Day poem but I think you’ll agree it’s a gem of a fit for February 14th – pairs perfectly with Valentine’s Day.
It’s by John Horder and is titled Two Chips.
Here we go. Two Chips.
There was a chip of a lady diamond
Who said ‘Twinkle twinkle,’
And a chip of a gentleman diamond
Who said ‘Twinkle twinkle,’
And when they were fused into one
By a large Manhattan jeweller
They sparkled.
Now in case you were wondering, who was John Horder. He was my neighbour. Died eight years ago. The world’s a much poorer place without him. Lived here in West Hampstead. He was known as the hugging poet. Loved to walk across Hampstead Heath. Gets my vote. Loved the Wet Fish Cafe. Also gets my vote. I never got to see his flat. I wish I had. His sister said stopping by to see him there was an event in itself. He had a table, a couple of chairs and nothing else, except thousands of books. Which you had to climb over to give him a hug.
London. It’s full of larger than life characters.
Now, what about Valentine’s Day itself. The good saint whose day it is was a third-century martyr. The date’s association with love and lovers can be traced back to the 14th century.
Well, that’s in its modern incarnation. Switch on the historical afterburner and you all the way back to Roman times. The flint hits the steel – you get the spark – in the date itself. February 14th is the eve of the Lupercalia. And what do you know, Lupercalia was an ancient festival of fertility.
Everybody was getting in on the act in mid-February. Including the birds. Those randy birds. They couldn’t wait until the fertility festival itself, Lupercalia on February 15th. Hang about until February 15th? No thanks said the birds. No way we’re going to hang about. That’s for the nerds. Not to put too fine a point on it, the early bird gets the sperm. So the birds got it on on the day before. Chose their mates on February 14th. Or so popular wisdom had it. Why did people believe that? Who knows? Maybe bird song at this time of the year was more full-throated. Anyway, as the old saying put it, ‘On St Valentine, all the birds of the air in couples do join.’
And in due course, our lot – people – lads and lasses, men and women – took the hint. Jumped the gun with the birds. Like the birds in couples did join the day before the fertility festival kicked off. You have to feel for the Romans a bit. Their big day – Lupercalia – rolls up and they draw a blank. Everybody’s spent. The Romans gave an orgy and nobody came.
Ok, that’s your Valentine’s Day greeting from London Calling. Though I suppose I had better mention our Valentine’s Day Special. It goes at 2.30 pm this afternoon from Covent Garden Underground Station.
And as for a billing, how do you go wrong with a Valentine’s Day London Walk that rejoices in the title, Bless me! deliver me, help, hold me! It’s Ian’s Valentine’s Day Special! Though as it happens, Ian’s under the weather, so Ulrike has stepped up. Bless us, the gorgeous, wonderful, huggable Ulrike has delivered us. And will be delivering the walk.
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.
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