London calling.
London Walks connecting.
This… is London.
This is London Walks.
Streets ahead.
Story time. History time.
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Good morning London Walkers, one and all. It’s February 22nd – George Washington’s birthday.
And it’s somebody else’s birthday. A London eccentric’s birthday. George Washington is 293 years old today.
Our London eccentric – Stanley Owen Green – better known as “the protein man” would have been 110 today.
So this is a fond memory trigger for all of you Londoners who were around back in the early 90s. Or for that matter, before that, all the way back to 1968. Remember him? Stanley Green was that funny little man who paraded along Oxford Street six days a week, eight to ten hours a day, carrying a big wooden crudely hand-painted sign that read: LESS PASSION FROM LESS PROTEIN: LESS FISH, MEAT, BIRD, CHEESE, EGGS, PEAS, BEANS, NUTS and SITTING. With the exception of the word and it was all in capital letters.
And then hanging from the big sign – sort of like a kangaroo’s pouch – was a tiny sign that read: ASK FOR A BOOKLET.
You couldn’t miss Stanley. He was always there with his signage.
And he always dressed the same. An unchanging uniform of cap, overalls, satchel, and wire-rimmed glasses.
He was arguably the best known, the most famous non-celebrity Londoner. He was raw meat – so to speak – for the British and foreign press. He appeared on television and radio. He even featured on a tourist postcard as an “Oxford Street character.”
And in a very real sense he lives on. His famous message board, some of his pamphlets and some other papers are now part of the London Museum Collection.
And yes he was a Londoner through and through. He was born on February 22, 1915 in Harringay. The youngest of the four sons of a bottle stopper maker’s clerk. Had a series of dead end jobs. Ended up making a living as a self-employed gardener.
He’d served in the Royal Navy in World War II. That was formative. He was shocked at the ‘bawdiness’ or ‘passion’ of his fellow sailors.
All of that percolated away for over 20 years. And then in 1968, he decided to do something about lust, about passion. He knew what the culprits were. Those eight proteins. And sitting. And he was away. Twenty-five years of walking up and down Oxford Street enjoining Londoners and tourists on the peas, beans, nuts, sitting, etc.
Moving on, and look I’ve instantly taken to this Commonplace Book format, this is Day Two of that formula.
And since Stanley Green was born in Haringey, let’s mention here that the six London Overground Lines have been renamed, rebranded. And, yes, Haringey has an Overground Station. It’s called Haringey Green Lanes. And the line it’s on has been rebranded the Suffragette Line. The claim Transport for London is making for the rebranding of the six Overground Lines is that the changes will make it easier customers to navigate the transport network while also acknowledging the city’s diverse culture and history.
And as long as we’ve touched down, however briefly, in Haringey, it’s surely incumbent upon us to mention that directly opposite the station is Railway Fields. It’s one of those unexpected hidden treasures that London specialises in. It’s a two acre nature reserve. It’s bursting with biodiversity – home to all kinds of wildlife, including more 60 bird species and 21 types of butterflies. And anything else about Stanley Green’s home pitch. Yes, cuisine. Turkish cuisine in particular. Green Lanes features any number of Turkish restaurants. Indeed, the area is known as Little Turkey.
And I suppose the other plug I have to make – the connection is the new name for the Overground Line, the Suffragette Line – the other plug is Isobel’s March 9th Suffragists and Suffragettes walk that she’s putting on to mark International Women’s Month. And indeed, March 9th is of course International Women’s Day plus one.
Commonplace Book entry number three for February 22, 2025 is what happened – not in London – on February 22nd, 1797. Yes, I’m talking about the Battle of Fishguard. Fishguard is in Wales. It was the last invasion of Britain. The invaders were French. I’ll make that connection this afternoon on my Kensington Walk. When we’re looking at the statue of William of Orange I make the point that on Guy Fawkes Day, 1688 Europe invaded England. 20,000 Dutch, Danes, Swedes, Finns, Germans, Poles, Greeks, Swiss and French landed at Torbay in 500 ships. It was the largest marine invasion in Europe until the one in 1944. 500 ships was more than twice the number of ships in the Spanish Armada that failed to get ashore exactly one hundred years earlier. To the very day. That’s one of those extraordinary historical chronological coincidences. That invasion – the 1688 invasion – was transformative. It led to what’s been called the second Hundred Years War. Six wars between 1689 and 1815. Six wars fought principally between France and England. France was the superpower of the day. Little England was the laughingstock of Europe. But what do you know – and nobody would have predicted this – Little England emerged not just victorious but triumphant. The laughing stock of Europe emerged from that second Hundred Years War as a Global Superpower. Whereas France, well, it had its wings clipped. Anyway, it’ll be fun this afternoon to make the connection – today being the anniversary – with the last invasion of Britain.
And let’s have a dealer hit us with another card. I’m thinking about our most distinguished guide, former ITN Editor Stewart Purvis’s new Spies of Hampstead Walk. Doing some reading myself on that subject, I was delighted to discover that Stewart’s fellow espionage expert, Anthony Cave Brown, once described Kim Philby as “the greatest unhanged scoundrel in modern British history.” I’m sitting just a stone’s throw away from the house Kim Philby grew up in. And of course he looms large on Stewart’s walk.
And a further entry for today’s commonplace book, at this very moment Judith is meeting her Camden Town Walkers. The second stop on that walk will be the street Judith lives on Inverness Street, the first market Judith will take her walkers to. Judith will certainly point out that vital Camden institution, Mega City Comics. And some good news on that front. The future of Mega City Comics – a longstanding comic institution in one of the coolest neighbourhoods in the world – has just been guaranteed because it’s been taken over by the huge comic and cult entertainment chain, Forbidden Planet. And Forbidden Planet haven’t wasted any time in beating the drum. Camden Town, they say, is the focal point of the UK music industry, the cradle of Britpop and the epicentre of Japanese anime culture in London and Mega City Comics – with its huge range of graphic novels, comics and books – is a favourite landmark of supremely cool Camden Town.”
There it is, spelled out for you.
And finally, in yesterday’s podcast, I said a commonplace book is a depository for “ideas, quotes, anecdotes, and information you come across in your reading.”
So let’s end with a quote that rolls all of that up together. I came across it in this morning’s reading. It’s idea, information and an anecdote of sorts all rolled up into one commonplace book entry.
It’s how Andrew Leigh opens his fine little book on Economics. And I loved it.
Here’s what he says, “In prehistoric times, the only source of artificial light was a wood fire. To produce as much light as a regular household lightbulb now gives off in an hour would have taken our prehistoric ancestors 58 hours of foraging for timber. By Babylonian times, the best lighting technology was a lamp that burned sesame oil. To produce the same amount of light, a Babylonian worker in around 1750 BCE would have had to work for 41 hours.” Fascinating. And, yes, must remember to switch off my reading lamp when I head off to Kensington this afternoon.
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.