London calling.
London Walks connecting.
This… is London.
This is London Walks.
Streets ahead.
Story time. History time.
A very good evening to you London Walkers. Wherever you are.
It’s Saturday, October 11th, 2025.
Double act again today. Or one-two punch if you prefer.
To get us started, Dr Ann introducing us to Gandhi.
It’s an extract – a taster – from Dr Ann’s new Walk, What’s the Big Idea?
[Aside here – yes, c’est moi, David. I thought I “knew” Gandhi. Talk about labouring under a massive misapprehension. This is just a short extract from Dr Ann’s walk but it’s revelatory. Dr Ann guides like a gifted novelist. Her selection of biographical particulars couldn’t be more telling. Let alone fascinating. The scales fell from my eyes when I heard this piece. And “meeting Gandhi” here, in Tavistock Square. He’s right there before us – he’s with us – (the statue). With us in stereo as it were because he’s also “right there before us” in Dr Ann’s words. I loved it. Here’s a thought for you. A Big Idea if you prefer. The Proto-Indo European root of the word “learn” is “find” or “follow the track.” Goes back aeons to the hunter-gatherer era. Bottom line: thanks to the “guidance” of this brilliant guide, Dr Ann, we were able to “find” or “follow the track” and we “found” Gandhi. We “learned.” Learned in the best possible way in the best possible setting.]
Ok, that’s enough intro. Here’s Dr Ann:
[Dr Ann’s piece follows]
Different register, but for another pretty good ‘big idea’, how’s about a nightcap? And it couldn’t be more timely. Because it’s Thanksgiving season – Canadian Thanksgiving in two days and the U.S.A.’s Thanksgiving in just over a month. Anyway because it’s that time of the year Adam’s come through with the perfect seasonal book recommendation. It’s the Savoy Cocktail Book. Best ever recipe for egg nog. Just the ticket for Thanksgiving. And indeed for Christmas. So we’ll segue from Tavistock Square, from Dr Ann introducing us to Mahatma Gandhi on her new What’s the Big Idea? Walk – segue from Dr Ann to another just about perfect big idea: how to make the best egg nog ever.
[Cue Adam. Cue The Savoy Cocktail Book and its treasure of treasures – The Recipe for the Dreamiest, Creamiest, Most Indecently Good Eggnog Ever]
Here’s Adam:
[Adam’s piece follows]
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.