London calling.
London Walks connecting.
This… is London.
This is London Walks.
Streets ahead.
Story time. History time.
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Something’s been around a long time there’s a tendency to take it for granted. It’s part of the furniture of our lives, always been there.
But of course the laws of physics excepted – gravity, the laws of thermodynamics, etc. – there’s almost nothing that’s always been around. There’s a before and after to just about everything. It’s shiver up the spine stuff to think about that moment – well over 400 years ago now – when the Elizabethan actor Richard Burbage walked downstage in the Globe Theatre, locked eyes with his audience, and then maybe looked up, looked far away, and then said those words, “To be. Or not to be.” The people in that audience that day were the first people to hear those words. That speech – so well known – is electrifying today. What must it have been like for that first audience, the people who heard those words new minted?
Similarly, imagine the first audience to hear Beethoven’s Fifth. Or the first people to witness manned flight? Or a telephone call. Or that first trip through the Chunnel. As familiar as it is today – taking a high-speed train under the English Channel to get from this island to France – it seems like a miracle. How much more of a miracle must it have been to the people who took the very first Eurostar?
Well, you get the idea. Anyway, today is one of those anniversaries. 101 years ago today – it was a Sunday – Sunday, February 17th, 1924 – the chimes of Big Ben were first used as a time signal by the BBC.
Everybody in this country will have known about Big Ben. But there would have been millions of Britons who’d never heard the bell, never heard the chimes. For the simple reason that they’d never been to London.
Broadcasting the time – at the time, 1924 – was cutting edge as the saying goes.
Time signals from Greenwich Observatory were first broadcast on Tuesday, February 5th, 1924. That was heralded in a Times story on Friday, February 1st. That same Times story, chimed in, so to speak, with the news that the British Broadcasting Corporation is also making arrangements to broadcast the chimes of Big Ben at times which are still to be fixed, but which will probably be 7 pm and the conclusion of the evening programme, and 3 pm and 8 pm on Sundays.
In the event, the chimes of Big Ben were first heard over the airwaves at 3 pm, on this day 101 years ago.
Interestingly enough, the newspapers of the day saw fit to highlight the fact that henceforth the time signal would be coming from Big Ben. In the broadcast schedules, which were part of the fare of the Times and other papers, they’d previously listed the time signal as just that: Time Signal. Come February 17th, that listing changes: it almost rings out: Time Signal (from Big Ben).
And a historical footnote to all of this, the very first time signal Brits heard over the wireless came from the Eiffel Tower. That was in 1913. Oooh la lah.
But it’s fun – and indeed poignant – to imagine Brits the length and breadth of this precious stone, set in the silver sea, crowding round their wireless at 3 pm on Sunday, February 17th, 1924, eagerly listening to the chimes of Big Ben. And in all probability looking at one another with a wild surmise. Almost couldn’t believe their ears. 1920s technology updating that other great Shakespearean line, Falstaff flattering Justice Shallow – getting him where he wants him, humouring him, setting him up – preparatory to fleecing him – “we have heard the chimes at midnight, Master Shallow.” Those chimes were London chimes. Chimes at the Inns of Court when the two of them were young men.
Those 1924 BBC listeners heard London chimes as well. The chimes of Big Ben. They could look at one another and say, “we have heard the chimes at 3 pm.”
Anyway, so much for the resonances of London sounds, London anniversaries. I’m going to wind this up with a London Walks announcement. As a lot of you will know, we’ve got a sensational new walk hoving into view. The Secrets of London’s Luxury Hotels. It’s guided by the resident historian at Brown’s, which of course is one of the luxury hotels that comes into the tale. Andy – we’ve dubbed him Andy Hotels – has written the definitive book on Browns. And for good measure, the definitive book on the Savoy.
Anyway, yes, it needs must be stressed, it’s a new walk. So in the way of these things, we were maybe a little cautious. It was a matter of testing the waters with it. Which translated into, ok, let’s run it twice, see whether it’s got legs. And, well, it took off like a rocket. Bowled over, we were, by the response. We should have scheduled ten outings for it, not two. But you can be sure, we got the message – we’ve now got there. We’ve taken the necessary steps to meet what’s been a tsunami of demand. Well, a tsunami of demand for a walking tour. Long and short of it is, between March 2nd and June 14th The Secrets of London’s Luxury Hotels will take place eleven times. So there you have it. That’s the rider – the London Walks news announcement for this edition of London Calling.
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.