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 evening to you, London Walkers, wherever you are. It’s Tuesday, March 25th, 2025.
Loaded day, March 25th. For starters, it’s Lady Day. The day of the Annunciation. It’s nine months before a baby boy is born in Bethlehem. It’s called Lady Day because the angel Gabriel has come calling on a young lady – a young lady named Mary, who’s betrothed to a Jewish carpenter named Joseph. The angel Gabriel has stopped by to let the young lady, the young virgin, know that she’s pregnant with God’s child. Quite a day for the lady. Quite a day for mankind. The fancy, official name for today is the Annunciation. But I prefer Lady Day. Some ecclesiastical writers have also contended that March 25th was the first day of creation. Others have maintained that March 25th was the day of Crucifixion. Still others that it was the day of the Resurrection. Now if we can just keep all those important matters loosely in mind for a moment or two, I’m going to go hareing off to another time and another lady. Same day – March 25th – well, I was led to believe it was March 25th. But the year was 1752. I was led to believe that Elizabeth, the wife of the great lexicographer Dr Johnson, died on March 25th, 1752. In fact, she passed on March 17th. Scholars, historians, businessmen, hustlers, eyewitnesses, all of us, get things wrong from time to time. Incidentally, the year 1752 was a heady – and indeed dizzying – time to be alive. That was the year the British Empire, which included the 13 colonies, switched from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar, resulting in the ‘loss’ of 11 days in September. Dr Johnson was born on September 7, 1709 but after the calendar changed he celebrated his birthday on September 18th. Heady stuff. Were it to happen today, it would get my birthday into a different month. Now anything else? Yes, since America and Americans figure in the story that’s coming, we might as well note that March 25th is also Maryland Day. The first settlers, under Lord Baltimore, arrived in what would become Maryland on March 25th, 1634. But momentarily back to the Annunciation and the first day of creation and the crucifixion and the resurrection and all of those fairly significant events more or less swirling around March 25th – how do we account for it? Well, my guess is it has something to do with the coming of Spring. Now I’ve flushed out a fairly impressive covey of partridges here but the one I’m most interested in is Dr Johnson himself. And in particular, something he said. For the record, he did not say it on this or any other March 25th.
Dr. Johnson said, “To talk in public, to think in solitude, to read and hear, to inquire and answer inquiries, is the business of the scholar.” It’s also the business of a great guide. A guide like Richard Walker. We’ve got so much time for Richard Walker. As do his walkers. Richard does the small group guaranteed Jack the Ripper’s Whitechapel walk. The one that’s attracted well over 400 five-star reviews. And why do we have so much time for Richard? Here’s why: he’s principled, he’s a man of integrity and courage, he’s unfailingly honest, he’s got no truck with sharp practice or shabby carryings on. You get a true reading with Richard. I put it that way because I often think about him crossing the Pacific in that small, two-man sailing boat. Richard and his sailing had to be unerring, had to get at the truth in the matter of their bearings, where their vessel, where it was headed. Their lives depended on rigour and accuracy – depended on making accurate readings. I don’t know for sure but out there in the vast Pacific Richard will have had a lot of time to think. And he would known how important it was to get it right. As he once said to me, “had we got it wrong the next stop would have been Antarctica.” Anyway, my hunch is that voyage was formative for Richard. He’s the man he is in considerable part because of that voyage across the Pacific. Henceforth he wasn’t going to settle for shabby thinking or sharp practice. And that’s by way of an introduction to the main act of this podcast. It’s Richard taking down this latest Jack the Ripper chicanery. The claim – which has been a huge money spinner – that Jack the Ripper’s identity has been conclusively settled by a DNA test. The whole thing’s been an emperor’s dazzling parade to show off to the dumbstruck millions a new suit, the likes of which has never been seen before. But Richard’s stood off to one side, taken a good look, and spelt out what’s there to see if we’d look: “the Emperor’s got no clothes.” So what you’re going to hear is a brilliant cross-examination. Or if you prefer, you’re going to witness a matador taking command of El Toro Asesino. And come to think of it, it is a kind of Annunciation. Actually, they all apply, don’t they. Because you could say Richard’s slaying something here. It’s a crucifixion of sorts. But what he’s slaying isn’t going to resurrect. Or if you want to say it’s a resurrection, it’s Richard resurrecting the truth. It’s an impressive piece.
Here’s Richard.
[Richard Walker’s podcast 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 £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.