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 Monday, December 1st. And hot off the press, here it is, your daily London fix.
Treat for you today. But before we get to it, just a couple of matters. You know what this reminds me of. This reminds me of being a school boy a jazillion years ago. First thing in the morning. Announcements over the school’s public address system.
So, yes, I guess I’ve got a couple of announcements before I serve up the treat.
First of all, that standard but I hope warm welcome. A very good day to you, London Walkers. Wherever you are. Yesterday’s piece I touched on Tom Stoppard sitting at the back of rehearsals with a soft smile, as if grateful for the miracle of hearing his words spoken aloud. I’d add, the miracle of people dropping by to listen to what you’ve got to say. Taking the trouble to do so. Giving up some of their precious time to do so. I think about that every day. My walkers, I’m face to face with them. I get to know them a bit. Find out a bit about them. But that ain’t so for London Calling. I know a few hundred of you are out there. I know because I look at the analytics every day. Look at where you’re listening from. And I’d so like to meet you, hear your story. The single largest national group who listen in here – this won’t come as any surprise –American. If nothing else, the Yanks aren’t going to have any problem with my accent. The second largest contingent. British. Third largest Canadian. And then it really spreads out.
A representative example: that piece on Fortnums I did a week ago or so, that was listened to – this is in addition to the Big Three – it was listened to by people in Japan. Sometimes as many as ten people a day are listening to London Calling in Japan. That’s a source of wonderment to me. I keep wondering who they are – who you are in Japan. And where you are. But back to our London Calling United Nations General Assembly, that Fortnum piece was also listened to in Iran, France, South Korea, Israel, China, Greece, the Netherlands, Chile, Ireland, Taiwan, Egypt, Sweden, Hong Kong, India, Italy, the UAE, Belgium, Sweden, Denmark, Australia, Singapore, Germany, Mexico and Austria.
Well, you are all most welcome. And here’s an invitation. Please RSVP. I’d so like to hear from any – or all – of you. Please write in and tell me about yourself. This little London Walks podcast, it always makes me think of Wordsworth’s great poem, She Dwelt among the untrodden ways…
There are podcasts that are listened to by millions of people. London Calling – this little London Walks offering… well, like the maid in the Wordsworth poem, it’s just a violet by a mossy stone. A humble little flower beside an untrodden way. But a few hundred of you have got here. I’d so like to know something about you.
So consider this a message in a bottle flung into the ocean. A little London Walks whisper sent out to sea. And if any of you are inclined to respond, well, the email address is [email protected]
Ok, two other announcements.
Down and dusted and on its way. The London Walks December newsletter went out a couple of hours ago. Went out with some festive fanfare. We’ve smashed a record. Broken the 100 barrier. Normally we run about 60 Specials a month. This month there are 105 London Walks. 64 of them shimmering with Christmas spirit. They’re Christmas related walks. What else? Well, I featured Margarita’s London and the Nutcracker Walk – the Ballet that Changed Christmas. Margarita’s our Russian guide. Russian but speaks Kings English. And that walk, well, it’s about the ballet that changed Christmas. And in particular the Nutcracker’s London premier – nearly a century ago now – the way the Nutcracker cast its first spell over London and indeed, the other side of that coin, the way London embraced that magical ballet and set it on its path to immortality. As I said in the Newsletter, the Russians came, they saw, they Nutcrackered (danced), and conquered.
The other two elements of the newsletter couldn’t have been more London.
Another fanfare here. The biggest, baddest, most ambitious music series any London tour guide has ever rolled out – A History of Rock & Pop in London is coming our way. Six walks. Six neighbourhoods. One phenomenal story.
Compliments of Adam. As Morgan from Texas said about his guiding, “it’s like having your own personal rock star for a tour guide.”
And the last item: our Tower of London Tour is back. It was sidelined by the pandemic. But at long last it’s come roaring back. Come roaring back in spades. How’s this sound?
The Tower of London isn’t a building. It’s a proclamation. A thousand years of power set in stone. Step inside and the centuries practically curtsey. The Crown Jewels blaze like bottled lightning. The armour gleams with the swagger of kings. Ravens strut like they own the monarchy. Traitor’s Gate whispers of doomed queens drifting toward their fate. Every courtyard is a stage. Every turret a witness. Every shadow knows a secret it refuses to share until the right storyteller comes along.
Which brings us neatly to you.
Anyone can visit the Tower. But to experience the Tower – to feel its pulse, to hear its heartbeat, to taste the iron and incense of history in the air – you go First Class. You go with a guide who can make the Beefeaters blink, a guide who can pluck the past out of the stones and set it flaming in the winter air. First Class is not a tour. It’s an audience with history.
And the proof? (Guides Tom and Brian? Judge for yourself.)
A Rick Steves client said about guide Tom, “Wish you had a category beyond Outstanding. Tom is amazing.” And walker Casey H. said about guide Brian, “It was mind-blowing how much Brian knew.”
Peroration: “This is not a walk. This is the Tower of London putting on a Command Performance. And you’re in the Royal Box.”
And finally – well, not finally because the treat’s waiting in the wings – I’ve been described as a logophile. Someone who loves words. Well, today’s December 1st. So let’s just give a moment’s thought to the word winter. Hoary with age, it’s of Old English origin. Its etymology. Well, three candidates and none of them will come as a surprise: wind, wet, and white. White as in the white season. With the word white you can drill down still further. Its proto IndoEuropean root is weid – spelled weid – which means to see. I like the thought that in the sharp winter air – sharp winter air that brings some frost and maybe on the wind – some of the white stuff – you can see better. And come to think of it, you better see better, because it ain’t summer time and the living ain’t easy.
Ok, that’s enough warm-up act. Here’s the treat. And I wouldn’t be surprised at all if some of you at any rate have guessed: yes, it’s a guest piece by Ann. Ex BBC Radio Journalist, elite guide, terrific character, Ann always finds the stories…and tells them with unmatched flair. One of Ann’s specialties is that tasty series of Foodies London Walks. And this month she’s rolling out her walk called Eating Christmas.
Delightfully, it’s about a couple of much loved Christmas dishes: turkey and goose. But Ann being Ann – and I suspect being au fait with my proclivities – there’s a little side dish about how the word goose has enriched the English language. My favourite line: ‘There’s a Mother Goose…no one mentions a Mother Turkey.”
Over to Ann and her tales of our festive birds – the feathered folk of foggy London town, and their plumper relations who, amid carols and candlelight, take their honoured place at the Yuletide table.
[Ann’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.