London calling.
London Walks connecting.
This… is London.
This is London Walks.
Streets ahead.
Story time. History time.
—————————————
Top of the morning to you, London Walkers. London Walkers here in Blighty, in the United States, in Canada, in Germany, in Australia, in Denmark, in Malaysia, in the Netherlands, in Ireland, in Luxembourg, in the United Arab Emirates, in Italy, in Japan, in Israel, in France and in Spain. That’s the company you’re keeping.
We’re quite chuffed about that. We’re just a little walking tour company. So to have people checking in here from all over the world, that’s a bit of all right. Especially bearing in mind that this podcast is pretty much a one-man show – except when I interview a Londoner, among said Londoners of course, my fellow guides – or interview the occasional visitor, almost all of them people who’ve been on a London Walk and have an interesting tale or two to tell. So, yes, pretty much a one-man show. And I do it on the side, as it were. I try to whip something up every day that interests me, in the belief, I hope it’s not mistaken, that if it interests me it’ll be of interest to other people.
So today, it’s mostly going to be about Napoleon. With something of a special emphasis on Napoleon and Kensington. Now there’s an extraordinary pairing for you. And if you’re being a good native American and tracking me down – reading the footprints in the grass and the broken twigs and checking to see if the ashes in the campfire are still warm – your main clue that I’m heading toward Napoleon and St Helena – his prison island, his death island – is our superstar guide, Lisa Honan CBE, the eminent, the distinguished former diplomat. And here’s the kicker, Lisa was the Governor of St. Helena, where Napoleon finally went belly up. I say “belly up” instead of croaked or checked out or cashed in his chips or turned up his toes because in the last 20 years of his life Napoleon was something of a porker. Let’s tell it like it was. His body had a pale, pink, fatty appearance, so much so that people compared him to a china pig. Apparently he had blackouts when he made love, so that can’t have been much fun for the lady the Emperor was pleasuring. Pink and blubbery and those black teeth from chewing licorice all day. And still tracking – like a skilled Comanche scout – I was thinking about Lisa, our distinguished diplomat guide, because her walk, her tea party, Empire in a Cup – the History of Tea – is coming up a week from tomorrow. Next Wednesday, June 18th. And I was thinking, I must ask Lisa – almost certainly she knows but what a treat it’s going to be if she doesn’t know – I was thinking, Lisa will certainly know about Hudson Lowe, the Governor General and Jailer in Chief of Napoleon during his final act there on St Helena, but I wonder if Lisa is au fait with the Governor General who replaced Hudson Lowe when Napoleon died.
Drum roll here, wait for it, when the long goodbye was over Hudson Lowe was succeeded by the lugubrious Brigadier John Pine Coffin. Well, I guess you would be lugubrious if you went through life with the name Pine Coffin.
And the other Napoleon on St Helena matter I’m going to take up with Lisa is Betsy Briars. That’s not a bad name either. Betsy Briars was the 14-year-old daughter of the East India Company agent on St Helena. She befriended the China Pig. They hit it off famously. Though Betsy did accuse him of cheating at cards. She wasn’t the only person who leveled that charge against the Emperor. And of course Betsy Briar comes into focus because of her father being the East India Company agent on St Helena. The connection being Lisa’s fascinating and deservedly popular East India Company walk. Which, for the record, will next take place on June 27th.
Now let’s get to Kensington and Napoleon. Incredibly, four connections. One of the first things I do on my Kensington Walk is get my walkers squared away as to which is the very best pub in Kensington and where can they find it. It’s the Scarsdale. And it’s located in the southeastern corner of Edwards Square. Edwards Square is a very beautiful and little-known Napoleonic era square about 400 yards from High Street Kensington Underground Station.
And in the event, Napoleon had his eye on it. The square, not the pub. Edwards Square was where he was going to quarter a lot of his officers when he got over here and settled perfidious Albion once and for all. I.E., when he conquered this country.
The second Kensington connection is easily overlooked. It’s the plaque marking the Kensington stage of the Trafalgar Way. Napoleon wasn’t going to get his way with perfidious Albion because of what happened off Cape Trafalgar on October 21st, 1805. Yes, the Battle of Trafalgar. And the death of Admiral Nelson.
The news of that momentous, world-changing victory was the most important news since 1776. It was imperative that it, the news, reach London as soon as possible. The British warship, the H.M. Schooner Pickle was tapped to get the Trafalgar dispatches to England haste poste haste. Captained by Lieutenant John Richards Lapenotiere, the Pickle landed at Falmouth on Monday, November 4th, 1805.
Lt. Lapenotiere immediately set out express by post-chaise for London. For the Admiralty. Falmouth to London is a 271-mile journey. It took Lt Lapenotiere 37 hours to cover those 271 miles. He changed horses 21 times. The last leg of the journey before reaching London was Kensington. As it happened Kensington and London were shrouded in a dense fog that night. Lt Lapenotiere reached the Admiralty in Whitehall just before 1 am on November 6th, 1805.
Twenty years ago, to mark the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Trafalgar, the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea put up a plaque to inaugurate Lt. Lapenotiere’s 37-hour burning up the road from Falmouth to the Admiralty. A journey immortalised as The Trafalgar Way. The plaque’s a delight. It shows a sailing ship and a carriage. And then further down a map showing the route of the Trafalgar Way. You’ll find it at the entrance to Holland Park, not far from Edwards Square and the Scarsdale pub. And a nice touch, the plaque’s doing double duty. It also honours the men of Kensington and Chelsea who were there, at Trafalgar, fighting and in some cases dying for their country.
Moving on, incredibly there’s a Thackeray connection – and thus another Kensington connection – with Napoleon and St Helena. Thackeray looms large in that Kensington Walk, which among other delights is a ramble through an important part of London’s literary history. We see the house where Thackeray died.
And, there on Young Street, the house where he penned the greatest novel in the English language, the War and Peace of English Literature, his masterpiece, Vanity Fair.
It turns out that Thackeray, who was born in India, as a five-year-old was sent to England for school. The ship that brought him that great journey from India to England put in at St Helena. Thackeray and the black servant who was looking after him went ashore. Years later, Thackeray recalled, “he [Lawrence Barlow, the black servant] took me a long walk over rocks and hills until we reached a garden where we saw a man walking.’ “That is he” said Lawrence Barlow, “that is Bonaparte! he eats three sheep every day and as many little children as he can lay his hands on!”
The final connection is with Holland House and that powerful, ever so elite and exclusive group of aristocrats, Lords and Ladies, Whigs to a man and a woman who gathered there, thought alike, exerted influence, sought to have their way in the big issues of the day. They sympathised with Bonaparte. Because he was an opponent of herditary, absolute monarchy. They were hell-bent on his escaping. Or being released. The most exclusive circle in England, the court perhaps excepted, they invited Hudson Lowe, the Governor General and Napoleon’s jailer in chief to Holland House and turned on their considerable charm. Hudson Lowe was thrown, to say the least. Holland House, that was the most exclusive society in Europe, and suddenly they were wining and dining him. The penny dropped in due course, though. He realised what they were up to. They wanted him to give Napoleon the softest of rides. Hudson Lowe said no thanks, he had every intention of carrying out his orders exactly as instructed. Holland House wasn’t best pleased. The Hollands rounded on him. Became dedicated enemies.
Well, Hudson Lowe would have got my vote. Napoleon was responsible for the death of millions of people. He was the architect of wars that ravaged the continent for many years.
Whatever it is, he certainly had that gene – or maybe it’s something missing, something out of kilter. He saw red. Battle was his thing. His biographers have tallied it up. They say he was there, at more military engagements – in the thick of it – within cannon and rifle fire than any other human being of that day. Glom on this statistic. Napoleon had at least sixteen horses killed under him in battle. And he spurred many more horses to death. And yes, he was wounded many times, including a bayonet thrust into his inner left thigh. Knowing some of that – or at least some of it – has to change the way you his mighty tomb at the Invalides in Paris. Or for that matter, the rather sad little death mask, in a place of little or no importance, in the British Museum.
I said this one was mostly about Napoleon. So far, it’s all been about Napoleon. So here’s a sprig of green across the red. A counterweight to Napoleon blacking out – like his teeth – when he ejaculated. A breath of life to set against those millions of deaths and all those wars.
Aristotle, bless his heart, believed that babies are healthier if conceived when the wind is in the north. So now you know. Cometh the hour wet that finger and use it as a weather vane.
And on that sexy, happy, life-affirming note…
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.