London calling.
London Walks connecting.
This… is London.
This is London Walks.
Streets ahead.
Story time. History time.
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A very good afternoon to you, London Walkers, one and all. It’s Ash Wednesday, March 5th, 2025.
Drum roll. Fanfare. Curtain up.
Curtain up on quotidian London.
Quotidian. Great word.
Latin originally. Well, originally originally proto-European.
The first part of the word – Quo – is from a proto-indo-European root, the stem of relative and interrogative pronouns. In other words the ancient stems of words like who, which, where, what. And the other part of the word quotidian is dee – from the Latin dies, meaning day. And what do you know, its proto-IndoEuropean root means “to shine”. Some of its derivatives are sky, heaven, god.
The wonder of that word, putting those two ancient roots together: you’ve got our ancestors – our ancestors 6,500 years ago – looking in wonderment, looking with astonishment at the sky and the day and seeing that it shines and asking who or what is it that makes all this, where does this shine come from.
And the miracle of it is, it’s every day. Every day is a miracle. And quotidian means every day. Or daily.
So, quotidian London. Ordinary, everyday London. And here’s the thing – for ninety-five percent of the visitors to London, quotidian London is the dark side of the moon. They don’t get there. They don’t see it. Unless they’re lucky enough to have a good friend who’s a Londoner. Who will take them back there, show them the dark side of the moon. If I were a visitor to London I’d want to see that London. I’d want to go there.
So I thought today, for the first part of today’s London Calling podcast, I thought I’d take you there. Come run an errand with me in quotidian London. The London tourists don’t see, don’t experience.
Let’s start by zooming in. To West Hampstead, where I live. And to Kilburn High Road, which is down the hill, a short walk from Chez London Walks.
First a word about West Hampstead. Names in London are super important. West Hampstead could just as easily be called East Kilburn. But West Hampsteadites would be mortified if you described their neighbourhood as East Kilburn. It’s all in the name. Hampstead is much more prestigious than Kilburn. Kilburn’s downhill and down market. Hampstead’s posh. Kilburn’s rough-edged. West Hampstead’s somewhere in between. Literally and figuratively.
Personal story, when we moved up here, me, being an American, I wanted to live in Hampstead. But we couldn’t afford. Mary – being a native and having much more nous, being a lot more savvy than the laid back, slow, fairly dim-witted unmade bed of a midwesterner she’s married to (for her sins) – Mary – it’s not for nothing that her nickname at the Royal Academy of Dance was Waspy – Mary said, ‘no, West Hampstead’s better. It’s got far better transport links. Hampstead has to put up with the “misery line” (the Northern Line) and West Hampstead’s got real shops – a hardware store, a butcher’s, a fish monger’s – whereas Hampstead’s got boutiques. That female mind, it’s so practical. So discerning. So sharp. The story behind the nickname Waspy was that she wore a black and yellow striped rugby jersey and she was always buzzing about. High voltage, high energy. The rugby jersey’s gone, but her mates still call her Waspy. Rightly so because she’s still always buzzing about. Doesn’t miss a trick.
Anyway, so it was West Hampstead. Now of course what’s happened in the last 45 years is that West Hampstead has now become trendy. It’s all coffee bars and cafes and estate agents. Our much loved old hardware store – it was literally called The Boring Old Hardware Store – is now a thing of the past.
Anyway, what sent me haring off to Kilburn High Road? A text. A text purportedly from my mobile network operator came in saying my credit card had to be updated.
My default position with everything that comes in like that is it’s probably a hustle, probably a scam. And frankly, it enrages me. Somewhere, someone – thousands of them – are sitting there dreaming up wheezes that they can use to rob people. In almost every case, it’ll be the credulous, the gullible who are duped. Who are robbed. One of our guides was. Lost about £4,000. My default position – assuming that every single one of those communications is a scam – my default position being what it is, they don’t empty my pocket. Or my bank balance. But they steal something even more valuable. Something irreplaceable. My time. Well, one day, when I’m in full Lucifer form, I’ll lift the curtain on my rage, ‘fess up to what I’d like to see happen to those shysters.
Anyway, the text came in, and some of my time went gurgling down the tubes. I walked down to Kilburn High Road, to one of my mobile network operator’s shops. Routine errand. Quotidian London. Here’s what I observed. What I met up with. Several middle-aged women with black crosses on their forehead. It’s Ash Wednesday. But striking all the same because this is probably the most secular country in the world. For the most part, there’s not a lot of churchgoing here. Kilburn used to be predominantly Irish. Interesting reason for that. Might get into that in a future podcast. Now it’s a mini-United Nations. Maybe the most cosmopolitan neighbourhood in London. But anyway, naturally enough, I wondered, were those ladies Irish? And my thought – ungallant, this – it’s not attractive – not that it’s meant to be attractive – that black cross is not as attractive as the bindi, the mark some Indian women wear on their forehead.
But speaking of churches and church-going, my route to Kilburn wasn’t as the crow flies. Before heading to Kilburn I went to the post office in West Hampstead. It’s in a big 19th century church. Shares the space with a coffee bar. And a toddlers’ play area. It’s a bit of a community centre. It’s a quite splendid example of repurposing. The deep-dyed secularisation of this country means that churches are emptying out as places of worship. Congregations thinning out. But here’s the rub, these churches are sitting on pieces of prime real estate. The developers would love to get their hands on those locations and put blocks of flats on them. And of course make millions for their effort. End result: huge private gain, huge public loss. Just take stock for a moment. Think of the places you can go into, sit down, get warm, shoot the breeze and not be asked to pay for the privilege of doing so. Those places are increasingly rare. Libraries and churches are the two hold-outs. And they’re all under threat. Something really important is going to be lost if those public spaces get into private hands.
So, yes, that was my first stop. Posted my letter. Had a coffee in that ever so fine, handsome, inviting, community centre.
Now let’s fast forward. I’ve run my errand. I’m being lazy. I’m on Quex Road. Going to catch a bus home. As usual, London place names are playing hide and seek in the tumble dryer of my mind. Kilburn may be a bit downmarket but how do you go wrong with a place name that derives from the Saxon word for cattle stream. And Grange Park – the park at the end of my road – how do you go wrong with that word grange, which dates back to 1300, and meant a country house with farm buildings attached. Shakespeare uses the word in his great tragedy Othello. One day perhaps we can take a look at Shakespeare’s telling use of that word at a critically important moment in the play.
As for Quex Road, apparently named after a family. Landowners of course.
Anyway, there I am in Quex Road, at the bus stop, and a young woman admonishes an older man for dumping the cardboard wrapping of his six-pack right there in the street. “Pick it up,” she says, put it the trash bin, it’s right there.” He doesn’t. So I did. And then I asked her – because of her accent – “are you Polish?” She said, “no, Hungarian.” I said, “and are you aware of how London is like Budapest?” She wasn’t. So I told her. London and Budapest, they’re both two cities separated by a river.
I ‘fess up, we, London Walks guides, can be pretty insufferable sometimes. It’s always there, the hold this place has on us, our fascination for it. And sometimes it just bubbles over. We share it round. But you know something, I’ll bet you anything she’ll share that nugget with some of her friends, especially if they’re Hungarian.
And having got Budapest and London aligned for the young Hungarian woman I then happened to glance over the way. A dentist’s office. Labelled Maida Vale Dentist. Now for some reason those three words were pushed together on that sign to make one word. And just for a second, I read it as Medieval Dentist. Maida Vale – medieval. Easy mistake to make if you just casually glance at a sign.
My first thought, “oh, yeah, that’s London. Another example of name inflation. Quex Road isn’t Maida Vale. It’s Kilburn. But Maida Vale is smarter than Kilburn. It’s the same kind of burnishing that you get in that preference for West Hampstead as the name of my neighbourhood rather than Kilburn.
That was the first thought. My second thought was, “my god, if I was that dentist, I’d go with the name, Medieval Dentist. Unforgettable of course. It would get people talking. It would steal a march on all the competition. I’d love to say, “my dentist, yeah, I go to the medieval dentist in Kilburn.”
Well, I was going to do a bit on the Captain’s House in Hampstead’s finest street. But I think I’ll save that for tomorrow.
And given that this one has pretty much been about words, here’s a verbal petit four for you. A small bite-sized confectionery to put paid to this episode of London Calling.
The word tackle. 330 years ago it didn’t mean what it means today. In 1699 tackle was a slang word that meant mistress. And it did double duty as slang for clothes. Easy to imagine one young buck leering to another, “ooh, I wouldn’t mind tackling his tackle in that tackle.”
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.