Meet Your Guide – Charlie

There is no other guide who has anything approaching Charlie’s take on London. He’s a lifelong Londoner. He’s been obsessed with London housing from the time he was a youngster. His work – his career – was in housing, at the local government level. In other words, at the pit face, at the sharp end. And not just for one council. So he brings years of wide-ranging and in-depth insider’s perspective and understanding and insight into the most fundamentally human element of urban, London life: housing. Where and how Londoners live.

Charlie knows things about London that “ordinary people” don’t know – he lights up all kinds of unusual corners.

And he’s a top-flight, very experienced, professionally qualified guide.

Special guy.

QUOTES

“I have a worrying sense about London”

“London is beginning to be drained of its family life”

“One of the reasons for doing the canal walk is it gives you this slice right through the city”

“people came back from the war having learned how to drive motor vehicles”

“many London horses were conscripted – very few of them survived”

“it has some pretty grisly interludes”

“it’s a tour that you can’t do on the ground”

“horses past, horses present”

“early photography has this enormous power”

“it was worse in dry weather”

“the heavy London fog was like a saucepan lid”

“it was a means of asserting power and authority”

“it has a great impact on people”

“old maps help you understand how a place was configured”

“skim across bits of London and connect them together”

“we’re only scratching the surface of this city”

“London’s changing”