London calling.
London Walks connecting.
This… is London.
This is London Walks.
Streets ahead.
Story time. History time.
—————————————
And a very good morning to you from London! And for that matter, from Cambridge. It’s August 27th, 2024.
Today’s pin… That’s right, I’m going to Cambridge today with Simon. On his Explorer Day. And you can be sure I’ll be gathering material for the London Calling Podcast. Make that the Cambridge Calling Podcast. Cambridge Calling patched through London.
But, yes, let’s get to our pin. Jonathan’s in the news. Which means London Walks guide and distinguished former diplomat Lisa Honan is up on the marquee as well. Jonathan is the oldest living animal on earth. He’s the tortoise on St Helena, the south Atlantic island where Napoleon breathed his last and where Lisa was the first and so far only woman governor. Jonathan has lived through 40 U.S. presidents and eight British monarchs. Yes, he’s at least 192 years old. Andrew Jackson – Old Hickory – was in the White House and King William IV was on the British throne when Jonathan was hatched. Queen Elizabeth paid him a visit when he was the merest stripling, just 115 years old. Anyway, yes, he’s in the papers. They’re saying he’s doing well. Spends his days taking mudbaths with pals, chomping on bananas and spectating tennis matches. I had a quick return match with Lisa about Jonathan when the story ran earlier today. We’d first talked about him a couple of years when we signed Lisa as London Walks guide. She saw him daily when she was the Governor. Lisa’s always quotable. She said, “Awwww, he certainly is a sweetie. His favourite food is actually pears. When the pears were ripe in the field at the back of the house, he frequently made a run for it.”
And here’s an unabashed plug. You can make a walk for it. Both of Lisa’s Walks are in our autumn programme. Her next outing for her East India Company Walk – Guided by a distinguished diplomat as we say – is on October 27th. And her Empire in a Cup: the history of tea will take place on September 8th. Be sure to ask her about Jonathan.
—————————-
Moving on, today’s Random – the other day I dropped that little bombshell that the late, lamented Queen Elizabeth II is descended from the Prophet Mohammad. Well, playing solitaire poker with myself I’m now muttering, I’ll see your prophet Mohammad and raise you the Queen’s Jewish ancestry. Here’s the tale. Lord Weinstock, out for a swim one day with his fellow peer Lord Wyatt, casually mentioned in passing that the Queen didn’t eat shellfish. Lord Wyatt shed some light on the matter. He said, “that is probably because of her Jewish ancestry, Prince Albert being the son of his mother and a Jewish music master.” Royal tittle tattle. Gotta love it.
And that brings us to today’s Ongoing.
Because I’m off to Cambridge in about ten minutes I’m just going to do a quick little number on the names of those streets that rope in Tottenham Court Road Underground Station. To start with, the big four at the intersection there: Oxford Street, New Oxford Street, Tottenham Court Road, and Charing Cross Road. Which as I said yesterday, was Hog Lane in the past. But keeping in mind that cardinal principle that to see London you have to hear it, let’s do some work on those names. We start by bearing in mind that a long time ago they drew a distinction between the words street and road. Streets were urban. Roads went through the countryside. So the name Tottenham Court Road, that’s telling us instantly that a long time ago it was a road running through the countryside. There was nothing urban about it. There was no London. Today of course Tottenham Court Road Underground Station is pretty much the centre of London. And you can shine that same light on the name Oxford Street. I have in my possession – as the saying goes – a very old map showing Oxford Street 250 years ago. But it’s not called Oxford Street. It’s called Oxford Road. Because London hasn’t got to it. It’s the road, through the countryside, to Oxford. And if you get your ear in – you hear those words, those names, the way a poet would hear them, you make some interesting discoveries. Put a definite article in front of them, for example, and see what happens. If you say, The Oxford Road. That’s clear enough. That means the road to Oxford. But The Oxford Street. The meaning changes, doesn’t it. What is the Oxford Street? Is it a street in Oxford? I submit to you that The Oxford Street and Oxford Street are not exactly congruent. They’re not one and the same entity. But Oxford Road and The Oxford Road, they mean the same thing. Language, names, place names, it’s fascinating to poke around in those regions. And for a final point, I mentioned Hog Lane yesterday. It’s a historical memory now. That street is called Charing Cross Road today. But do notice, in passing, it’s Charing Cross Road, not Charing Cross Street. So hundreds of years ago there was a hamlet down there. Just a few houses. It was called Charing. And then subsequently, Charing Cross. How it became Charing Cross is another good London story in its own right. One day. But up at our station, Tottenham Court Road Underground station, the little village – just a few houses and cottages initially that sprang up in the neighbourhood of the church St Giles in the Fields, that village was known as St Giles. So we can surmise that once upon a time farmers drove pigs to market down Hog Lane, drove them past the village of St Giles and on down to the village of Charing and parts beyond. You begin to hear London that way – and conceptualise it accordingly – it’s like driving through the countryside. You come to a little village. Just a few houses. Maybe a pub or a petrol station. And you drive a bit further. Through the countryside again. Fields on either side of you. And you come to another village. And so on. Well, that’s London. Or, that’s what London was. That’s what was there before London pitched up. Before it became central London. Maybe I’m just an incurable romantic but I really get off on this stuff. Walking down Charing Cross Road – the street of booksellers – and thinking hundreds of years ago I would have been walking along Hog Lane here, walking from the tiny village of St Giles, walking through the countryside, to the tiny village of Charing. Oh, and what have we got here? Foyles, the most famous bookstore on the planet. I better go in and see if there are any new books in on London.
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 Museum of London archaeologist, historians,
university professors (one of them a distinguished Cambridge University paleontologist); it includes
criminal defence lawyers,
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.