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 Wednesday, July 30th, 2025.
All work and no play makes David a dull dude.
That’ll never do. So let’s have a bit of play.
But first of all, a word about the work I’m taking a break from.
All day I’ve been at it. And most of yesterday. The August 1st edition of the London Walks newsletter. We bring out two of them a month. A hefty version at the beginning of the month. And for tea time – i.e., the middle of the month – a lighter repast.
So this one’s been the big one for August. And I’ve not quite finished it yet. I’ll polish it off tomorrow morning and it’ll lift off the launch pad tomorrow evening.
Lots of things remarkable about it. But what’s stunned me – I’m lost in admiration, really – is the sheer number of “specials” – one-offs – the guides are doing in August.
You ready for this? 78 of them. There are – there were the last time I looked – 31 days in August. So 78 specials – that averages out to about five specials every two days. You can’t tell me that’s not impressive.
Anyway, yes, so that’s where I’ve been the last couple of days. That’s the pit face I’ve been hacking away at.
So, yes, let’s take a break. Let’s have some play.
First of all, a new word. Well, new to me. Epulation.
It’s a very old noun. Now rare, or so the Oxford English Dictionary says. And it means the act of feasting or indulging in dainty fare. And needless to say, I’ve landed on that word because it’s a pefect descriptor for the act of casting an eye over those 78 special walks. Sort of sampling them by reading about them. Dainty fare every last one of them.
Epulation. Comes from an old Latin word meaning to feast.
Moving on. I’m a little bit uneasy about putting this in a category headed up PLAY. Because it was a horrific personal tragedy for the individual in question. And his family and friends.
But looked at from a cold, objective journalist standpoint there’s no question but this one is going to be in the running for the Headline of the Year.
The headline for, yes, this tragic, horrible story reads:
Prince William’s Billionaire Buddy Dies After Swallowing Bee During Polo Match.
It’s pretty much got it all, doesn’t it. A future king. The sport of kings. Untold wealth. Privilege. Death. And not just any old death. Just about the most freakish death you can imagine.
How rare is it? It’s extremely rare. And how does it happen? Usually it’s a matter of the bee stinging the person inside the throat. If the person is allergic that internal sting can trigger life-threatening airway swelling. Causes rapid swelling and suffocation. Causes death.
Ok, epulation and death and a billionaire buddy of our future king dying from swallowing a bee…those are just our warm-up acts.
Now we get down to some serious play. We’re going to meet a 90-year-old Londoner who’s a skydiver. And not just a skydiver. This guy is a serious risk-taker.
I didn’t actually meet him. I met his son. Paul. Paul’s a Londoner through and through. An East Ender. He was part of the crew who today and yesterday were resurfacing West End Lane, just round the corner from London Walks GHQ. As is my wont – being a friendly American – I got into a chat with Paul. Like every Londoner Paul’s got a story or two to tell. Including this tale about his elderly, daredevil dad. Well, I wasn’t going to pass that up. I raced home, got the mic, went back up there and got Paul to tell the tale.
Here it is (and for those of you who are connoisseurs of these matters, this is the genuine article, as pure a London accent as you’ll ever hear).
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.