Thursday 6 April 2017

Dear Charnowalkers,

I've done it again - another late blog entry! But not without cause - it's all been in the interests of work.

The project that has been dominating the last week or two has been a tour of the King's Cross regeneration, at the heart of the new Knowledge Quarter. The good people at the Oxford International Educational Group commissioned Footprints of London to provide a tour for school groups. The students are interested in business and regeneration, so we're giving them a tour around King's Cross.

The Proposed Knowledge Quarter

The tour is adapted from that given by my fellow Footprinter Rob Smith, and it explores many aspects of regeneration. We did two shifts yesterday - morning and afternoon - and there are two more tomorrow, so I'll fill you in on the next blog entry.

Talking of tour development, my friend and guiding colleague Alan Tucker (who took the photos for 'The Dark Side of East London') had a tryout for his new tour two evenings ago. 'The Social and Industrial History of Hackney Wick' does exactly that - it brings you the inside story of a major industrial area in East London which provided many innovations, including petrol and dry cleaning, as well as considering the impact on the local community.

Alan on Hackney Wick in 2015

Having created two new tours in the City, I'm now going back to the East End, as I had proposed to do earlier this year. I did mean to create a Whitechapel tour, but as is the way of such things the route snapped in the middle and curled up. It's become a tour from Aldgate to Bishopsgate via Whitechapel, and takes in a number of instances of Victorian philanthropy.

Women's Entrance -
Providence Row Shelter

It would be easy to do a general philanthropy tour - and indeed what will now be a Whitechapel and Mile End tour will do something similar - but I've decided to focus purely on Victorian philanthropy. This will give focus, and also explore issues which beset the East End in its earliest development.

Talking of the East End, this is the last call for 'Walkie Talkie: An Introduction to Guiding in Tower Hamlets'. It's scheduled to start on Wednesday 26 April. So far we're a bit short on numbers, which means that it may not go ahead. This would be a great shame, because the course will give its learners not only an insight into the story of the borough, but also the chance to experience guiding first-hand on the streets of Bow and Old Ford.

So, if you're intending to dip your toe into the magical world of guiding, you need to enrol quickly!

The Arms of LB Tower Hamlets

Enrolment details are here: http://www.ideastore.co.uk/course/view/C2535

You can find the course outline as a .pdf here:
http://www.ideastore.co.uk/assets/documents/Course%20Outlines%20Health/Walkie%20Talkie%20Pt%203.pdf

This Sunday sees the second of the Charnowalks 'Page and Stage Sundays'. 'A Dickens of a City' is a tour with readings, allowing you to experience how the London of Charles Dickens was changing from the Georgian to the Victorian periods.

Frontispiece from Little Dorrit 1857

Booking and other details are available here:
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/a-dickens-of-a-city-tickets-32988255761

There are no Charnowalks at the Easter weekend, but on the following weekend there'll be not one but two tours with readings. More details will be on the next blog, but you can get more information from my schedule, including May's 'Crime and the Law Sundays':
http://charnowalks.co.uk/charnowalks-tour-dates

On the subject of writing, you might want to take a look at two posts I put up to LinkedIn on the subject of guiding. One considers the usefulness of guided tours for language experience, the other the benefits of tours featuring site-specific readings:
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/language-streets-david-charnick
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/word-streets-david-charnick

Well, I think I've inflicted more than enough on you this fortnight. I will aim to be considerably more prompt in a fortnight's time!

Oh, by the way: have you subscribed to this blog yet? Why not? It takes just a moment ...

See you on the streets!

Love,

Dave Charnowalks

Photo of Alan Tucker by Andrew Parnell, and of the Providence Row Shelter by Fay Bennett, both from 2015.

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