London calling.
London Walks connecting.
This… is London.
This is London Walks.
Streets ahead.
Story time. History time.
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And a very good morning to you from London! It’s August 28th, 2024.
Something a little different today. We’re going to hear from some London Walkers. Ever wonder, what are the people like who go on London Walks? What sort of people am I going to be rubbing shoulders with? They my sort of people? Well, ask and thou shalt receive. This podcast is going to shed a bit of light on those questions.
I went on a busman’s holiday yesterday. Went on Simon’s superb day trip to Cambridge. And, yes, it was a chance to properly rub elbows with the other people on the excursion. Some London Walkers. What we call the third leg of the stool. Our customers. The people who make London Walks possible.
A chance to have a natter with them, get to know them. So on the train up to Cambridge I got the microphone out and had a chat with each and every walker. Got them into focus a bit. Where they’re from, how long are they in London, been to Cambridge before, what else have they been doing, how’s their holiday been so far, what brings them here today. Friendly, interested, slo-pitch softball questions. Anyway, my first four interviewees were Kathy and Jim from California and Jennifer and Owen from New York. Here you go, meet four really nice people. Exactly the sort of people you’d like to go to Cambridge with, get to know a bit – trade stories with, compare notes with, on a small group day tour from London.
[Interview with Kathy and Jim and Jennifer and Owen follows.]
Fast forward to day’s end. There was one small disappointment to the day. Just one. And I can live with it. Not least because it’s amused me no end, stirred my imagination. And given me hope, given me something to look forward to.
The grand finale to our Cambridge trip – for anybody who wants to – is punting on the Cam. The best boat ride in England. How good is it? The Rough Guide to Great Britain recently published a list of the 50 best things you can do in the UK. The Rough Guides A-List of Places to visit, things to do.
Punting on the Cam was in the Winner’s Circle. The Rough Guide adjudges it the third best thing to do this country. That is some accolade. And I’d say they’re spot on. An hour will never be better spent. Gliding along on the stream. The backs – all those trees and green. Those four great, hoary with age colleges. King’s College Chapel, one of the world’s greatest buildings. The cows of King’s College grazing in the backs. The occasional student sitting by the river, engrossed in a book. The punter – or chauffeur – the charming young Cambridge man or woman who skilfully poles the distinctive flat bottom boat along. And who regales you with good stories about what you’re gliding by. And of course the bridges. To die for, every last one of them. The Bridge of Sighs, the Mathematical Bridge. It just doesn’t get any better. Except it does get better. Or I thought it was going to yesterday. Owen had a business meeting at 4 pm. A business meeting he was going to take part in via Zoom. 4 pm was our embarkment time for our punt. And we talked Owen into taking his meeting while he was sitting in the back of the punt with us. I wanted to hear him say to his colleagues in New York and wherever else they were, “oh good afternoon everybody, yeah, I’m in a punt on the Cam in Cambridge in England. Here, have a look, this is what I’m seeing when I look around.” I wanted to be able to tell people, one of the guys on Simon’s Cambridge trip had a Zoom business conference call at 4 o’clock and damned if he didn’t attend that meeting while punting on the Thames. Unforgettable. Best business meeting ever. But, alas, in the end Owen baled on us. Decided he should take the meeting on terra firma. I suppose he rightly thought his punting on the Thames might take the meeting over. So that was a tiny disappointment. But it’s planted an idea. Something to aspire to. Next time I’m in Cambridge I’ll see if I can make something like that happen. Something that delightfully outrageous – that’s an envelope that’s got to be pushed.
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.