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 Sunday, November 9th, 2025.
Ok, here we go, here’s your daily London fix.
Different – entirely delightful – register today.
The niche walk of London Walks niche walks is hoving into view.
I’m talking – needless to say – about Ann’s utterly beguiling walk, Cat Tails – A Feline Take on London History. As walks go, it’s gloriously offbeat – purrfectly charming. Catnip for those of us in thrall to whiskers and stealth. Let alone history.
Cat Tails – A Feline Take on London History normally runs about once a month. And it’s about to make its November appearance. It pads back into town next Sunday, November 16th.
Now at no little risk of belabouring the obvious, cats aren’t dogs. Call a dog, it comes bounding. Call a cat, it sends its regrets.
So while this particular Cat Tail takes its time – a slow stretch, a regal arch of the spin, a graceful approach – allow me a brief warm-up act to set the scene.
Little cat fact to begin with. Britain’s home to around twelve million cats – that’s about 1.5 cats per household. And that’s before you even start counting the feral free spirits. Add them in and the numbers go stratospheric.
Moral of the story? We’re not just a nation of shopkeepers – we’re a nation of cat-keepers.
Last week I did a private London in Poetry Walk. To get that one underway I always roll out what in my estimation are the three greatest London poems ever written. One of them’s by a poet who’s quietly faded into the half-light of literary history. A. S. J. Tessimond. Turns out A.S.J. Tessimond turned out a purringly good poem about cats. Which I’m going to treat you to, right now.
It’s called, it’ll come as no surprise, Cats.
Goes like this.
Cats no less liquid than their shadows
Offer no angles to the wind.
They slip, diminished, neat through loopholes
Less than themselves; will not be pinned
To rules or routes for journeys; counter
Attack with non-resistance; twist
Enticing through the curving fingers
And leave an angered empty fist.
They wait obsequious as darkness
Quick to retire, quick to return;
Admit no aim or ethics; flatter
With reservations; will not learn
To answer to their names; are seldom
Truly owned till shot or skinned.
Cats no less liquid than their shadows
Offer no angles to the wind.
Think you Arthur Seymour John Tessimond.
And look who’s waiting in the wings there. It’s Ann, with her cats talk. Just to get you purring contentedly away about her upcoming walk.
Here’s Ann…
[Ann’s “cat’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 £25 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 Jack the 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.