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 morning to you, London Walkers. Wherever you are.
It’s Thursday, May 8th, 2025.
Going to see if I can get this one down and dusted before I head off to W8 to take 15 lovely people on my Kensington Walk.
That’s this afternoon. The main order of business for this ‘cast is 1) do you have any plans for this weekend? and 2) ok if I make a suggestion?
A suggestion that’s – how shall I put this – gift wrapped. Gift wrapped in pretty paper that shows a big eye tipping you a wink and sports, in handsome cursive script the legends, “Nudge nudge” and “There’s a lot to be said for efficiency.”
That’s maybe getting a bit cute so let me gloss it.
“Nudge nudge” of course means here’s a hint, here’s a tip.
And as for efficiency coming highly recommended, well, time is of the essence. As is timing.
Time. Nobody’s got enough of it these days. And timing, well, given how time-poor we all are it’s important to get it – timing – right. Get it right whenever we can.
The word for getting it right is of course, efficiency. So if you’re thinking about going on a walking tour there’s a lot to be said for – slamming on the brakes here because I refuse to say there’s a lot to be said for killing two birds with one stone. No, I’m not going to say that. I’m going to rephrase that idea to: there’s a lot to be said for making the acquaintance of two birds with one admiring glance.
For that matter, you can recast that idea in Spanish culinary terms. Why in the world wouldn’t you go for two or three different tapas dishes. Rather than just one.
If you’ve got your wits about you – if you do some planning – you can often make that happen.
By way of example, instead of going to, say, Chiswick, just to go on Alison’s Chiswick Walk, end of story, you pick a day when the walk’s on when there are other good things, special things, going on in Chiswick and hey presto just like that you’ve made your time in Chiswick that much more rewarding. To put it very crudely, you go to Chiswick just to do the walk – as good as it is, and it’s a gem, if you’re in any doubt take a look at the rave reviews that have cascaded in since Alison brought it back into the London Walks programme – anyway, as fine as it is, if you go to Chiswick just to go on the walk that’s a little bit like going to a fun fair and there only being one ride. You get the timing right – you go on the walk when Chiswick’s laying on some extra goodies, well, that’s like going to a fun fair that’s got more than one ride.
Ok, that’s the thinking, that’s the rationale, that’s the theory. It’s high time we move from theory to practice. The hour’s come round, it’s time to get properly stuck in. Alison is running her Chiswick Walk this weekend. It goes at 10.45 am from Ravenscourt Park Tube Station. And timing is everything. Chiswick’s good news whenever you can get there. But this time of the year – Chiswick decked out in its Spring finery – well, you’re on to a winner. And it gets better because this Sunday there’s a special Sculpture at the Brewery Exhibition on at the Fuller’s Griffin Brewery there in Chiswick. If I were going on Alison’s Chiswick walk this Sunday I would definitely dovetail it with a visit to that Exhibition. In fact, the Exhibition being on this weekend is a lot of extra incentive for going on the walk. Not least because it’s a catch it while you can exhibition. It’s passing, it’s temporary. Three more weeks and it’s no more.
One of the sculptors being exhibited is Gillian Brett. Of particular interest is her sculpture of Fanny Wilkinson. Most of us haven’t heard of Fanny Wilkinson. We should have done.
Fanny Wilkinson was the first female professional landscape designer. And OMG was she a difference maker. She was a Victorian visionary who wanted to create green spaces all across London so the city’s poor could have somewhere to go outdoors and appreciate natural beauty. She was responsible for the design and the layout of more than 75 public parks across London.
And there’s more. No ifs ands or buts about it. This Sunday’s Chiswick Walk is an embarrassment of riches. In addition to the Spring finery and the Brewery Sculpture Exhibition, the Chiswick Antiques and Vintage Market will be going full throttle. It’s only held once a month. And sure enough, it’s where Alison ends the walk. Come to think of it, timing timing timing isn’t the whole story. You’ve got to fit the timing up with location location location.
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.