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 22nd, 2024.
Today’s pin…I sometimes think of these entries as being akin to those Lantern festivals that quite a few Asian countries rejoice in. You know, they light a candle in a little paper boat and send it on its way down a stream. Well, we’ve had a miniature flotilla here the last couple of days of pins about living in London, housing in London. So let’s light one more candle here, add one more boat to that little flotilla. Shed just a little bit of light on a London borough you won’t have heard of unless you live in London. Drum roll. Curtain up on Waltham Forest in Northeast London. It’s just been crowned the best place in London for first-time home buyers to move to. And why is that? Well, first of all, superb transport links. But also lots of bakeries, gyms, markets, allotments and pubs. And even if you’re a hardened Londoner you have to be a little bit in awe of Waltham Forest’s transport links: four tube stations, eight overground stations and over 500 bus stops. It’d be a showstopper of a city by itself if it were in Kansas. Anyway, there you go – if you’re going to come and join us, think you might like to buy a place in London, you better put Waltham Forest on your checklist.
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Moving on, today’s Random – in about 90 seconds you’re going to be sitting comfortably and finding out about star guide Molly. I interviewed her a few hours ago. At one point in the interview, Molly said, “you nailed it David.”
I doubt if Molly knew it – this area tends to be one of my specialties – but that expression is a shooting star of sorts. Yes, a meteor, a comet. With a clearly visible tail behind it as it streaks across a conversation. And ‘fraid so, once again we’re in the realm of crime and punishment. You’ll remember, the last two Randoms had to do with the cat-o-nine-tails and flogging. Well, flogging and hanging weren’t the only punishments available in those kindly, gentle days. A lesser punishment was to be taken to the gibbet – or the gallows – and nailed to it through the earlobes. And it goes without saying, they were often gender specific in the good old days. Which of course is a misnomer. They were bad old days. Especially bad for the women who were nailed through the tongue for slander.
And so we come to today’s Ongoing. Meet Molly, maybe the most qualified guide on the team. Think of the exacting selection process any top-flight organisation has for the people it picks out to take on board. And if the V & A and the British Museum and the Museum of London and the Royal Academy of Art all say, we want you… well, at no little risk of belabouring the obvious, you’re the real deal. You come trailing clouds of glory. Here’s Molly.
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.