Dear Charnowalkers,

Thank you for joining me for this fortnight's round-up of Charnowalks events. The dominant event of the fortnight was of course the first outing for 'The Unquiet City', an exploration of nearly two millennia of unrest in the City of London. The earliest story is Boudica's uprising in 61; the most recent is the Occupy London occupation of St Paul's Churchyard, from October 2011 to February 2012.

As usual with the first outing of a new Charnowalk, this was a reduced-price preview at a flat rate of £5 a head. I always find that the first outing will suffer from teething troubles, hence the special low rate. It's an idea that I lifted wholesale from the theatrical world, where there are preview performances at reduced prices so that the company can get the feel of the venue.

The tour is one of the Footprints of London miniseries of Revolutionary London tours, which are underway NOW! Do take a look at the Footprints site and keep your eyes open for the hammer-and-sickle logo: http://footprintsoflondon.com/walks

Footprints have various festivals during the course of the year, including the annual RiverFest and LitFest. The two annual festivals feature the inflation-busting offer of a season ticket which allows unlimited access to all of the festival's tours. So far the record is twenty-seven separate tours taken in one month by a season ticket-holder.

I had hoped to concentrate on the East End this year and to rein back the City stuff, but as you can see I've started the year with a new City tour. In connection with a commission, I will be bringing to light another tour which is, strictly speaking, a City tour, although the earlier stages will be in the Borough, an area which was part of the City until it was transferred to the Metropolitan Borough of Southwark in the 1920s.

The new tour has the working title 'A Dickens of a City': I know, I know, but what are you going to do? It's a Dickens tour in the City! I've been meaning to do one for some time, but it's quite an undertaking. The aim is that it is to be a tour with readings, my third such tour after 'Much Ado About Trading' and 'Bethnal Green in So Many Words', both of which appeared last year.

The problem about Dickens is that though what he wrote was excellent stuff and makes for great reading, he actually wrote a huge number of reflections on London in so many moods. To create a tour based on insights about London's story gained through Dickens' works, even if you limit it to a specific area, requires a deal of arbitrary selection. So I shall do what seems to work, and we'll see where we go from there!

So far we're talking Little Dorrit, The Pickwick Papers, Oliver Twist, David Copperfield, Martin Chuzzlewit and Our Mutual Friend. I suppose once the first one's done, I can progress to sort out more material and then perhaps split it - with one north of the River and one on the south. It'll take time.

To round up, February is steaming through 'City Sundays', with the final tour this coming Sunday. 'Engineering Change' explores the relationship between engineering and the City, and how mechanical, electrical and civil engineering changed and shaped the City. Next month features Bethnal Green Sundays, which celebrate my very own manor. I've lived here all of my life, and so I'm giving all four of my local tours.

We begin with seeing how the Hamlet of Bethnal Green coped with being absorbed into the metropolis of London. Then we lift a few stones to uncover stories of crime and wrongdoing in the area in the eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The following week sees the impact World War Two had on the area. We finish with a tour featuring site-specific readings which explore Bethnal Green through the writings of authors including Iain Sinclair and George Orwell. It also features a fight scene from King Dido at the very footbridge where it occurred.

Talking about literature, I'm planning April's Sundays to have a distinctly literary theme. Stage and Page Sundays are coming! Well, it's my birthday on 24 April and literature's my thing, so watch this space!

Please keep up to date with my various doings by subscribing to this blog. Also you can join my monthly mailing list by e-mailing me on charnowalks-bgn@yahoo.co.uk and I'll add you. This'll give you a monthly listing, plus notifications of extra goodies as and when they happen!

That'll do for the moment - more details about things to come will be in the next instalment! I hope to see you on the streets some time soon.

Love,

Dave Charnowalks

Charnopictures courtesy of Ana Figueiredo (Old Bailey 2015) and Alan Tucker (Fleet Street Hill Footbridge 2016)

Dear Charnowalkers,

The past fortnight has seen some interesting action. After East End Sundays, Charnowalks moved into February with City Sundays. The first was 'A Settlement Called Londinium', which explores the earliest stages of London's story. Beginning as a small settlement beside the Thames with no status, it became the capital of Roman Britannia within sixty years. The tour is illustrated with scans I took from the Museum of London's archaeological map. After all, we rely on archaeology for Londinium's story. There's very little written information.

City Sundays continue with 'Before the Make-Over', which tunes into echoes of Plantagenet and Tudor London in today's City, 'A Most Horrid Flame', an exploration of the Great Fire's causes and aftermath, and 'Engineering Change', a celebration of how engineering ventures have shaped today's City. You can find details here: http://charnowalks.co.uk/charnowalks-tour-dates

Later this month Footprints of London has a miniseries of tours exploring 'Revolutionary London', which runs into early March. This has been inspired by the centenary this year of the Russian Revolution. Many of London's associations with civil unrest will be explored. My contribution is 'The Unquiet City', a tour which explores nearly 2,000 years of uprisings aimed at the City of London.

As usual I shall be offering a reduced-priced preview for the tour's first outing, at £5 a head: please e-mail me at charnowalks-bgn@yahoo.co.uk if you'd like to come. For full Footprints listings, including the 'Revolutionary London' tours, please see the website: http://footprintsoflondon.com.

This focus on the City doesn't of course mean that I'm putting the East End stuff aside. In fact, currently I'm working on the new Walkie Talkie course, which is scheduled to start in April. It's Part Three, a development of the initial two courses, and while Parts One and Two are five weeks long each, Part Three will be ten weeks long. Also it will involve learners getting out onto the street, rather than the other two classroom-based courses.

It's envisaged that Part One will run annually in September, Part Two in November, and Part Three in April. This will give twenty weeks of tuition. Currently this won't lead to a qualification, but it will give the learner a thorough familiarity with the discipline of guiding, and with the Tower Hamlets. Enrolment is live for Part Three, and as it's the first outing it's being made available to those who haven't followed Parts One and Two. Please e-mail me for further details at this address: David.Charnick@towerhamletslls.ac.uk

Enrolment details are here:
http://www.ideastore.co.uk/course/view/C2535
The course outline is here:
http://www.ideastore.co.uk/assets/documents/Course%20Outlines%20Health/Walkie%20Talkie%20Pt%203.pdf

Well, that's enough to be getting along with for now, so I'll sign off with all good wishes.

Love,

Dave Charnowalks

Charnopicture courtesy of Ana Figueiredo (Old Bailey 2015)

Dear Charnowalkers,

Oops - a bit of a delay for this fortnight's blog. Apologies for that; it's been a busy start to the week. Still, I'm here now.

First, the written word. I've been privileged to have another item accepted for the prestigious Footprints of London blog. The blog features items written by members of the Footprints of London guiding co-operative, and thus gives a wealth of insight into a wide variety of London-related topics. You can find the blog here: http://footprintsoflondon.com/blog

My item is 'All the World's a Stage', and is an appreciation of the work of theatrical impresario Peter Daubeny in bringing World Theatre to the public attention. From 1945 until his death from a brain tumour thirty years later, Daubeny was a major figure behind the British stage. You can see how his career began to grow in Stage by Stage, his book of recollections published in 1952. His World Theatre Seasons at the Aldwych Theatre feature on my theatreland tour 'Behind the Magic Curtain', which is next up on Thursday 2 February:
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/behind-the-magic-curtain-tickets-31126704812

This month I've been featuring East End Sundays. We've explored the maritime trade that brought two centuries' worth of vivid life to the riverside East End ('Tidemarks from the Pool'), taken a balanced view of the Ripper murders ('The Ripper Enigma') and seen the impact on Bethnal Green of the Second World War ('Just You Wait and See'). One more to come: an exploration of the borderland between the City and the East End which is Aldgate ('In and Out of the Aldgate'). That's on Sunday 29 January, and places are available! Details here:
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/in-and-out-of-the-aldgate-tickets-30515594966

Next month sees City Sundays, with four tours exploring important aspects of the City of London's story. We begin with where London's story really starts ('A Settlement Called Londinium'), we tune in to the echoes of Medieval London in today's City ('Before the Make-Over'), follow the destruction caused by the Great Fire ('A Most Horrid Flame') and round off with an appreciation of how engineering has shaped the City we have today ('Engineering Change').

February promises to be an interesting month, with a new tour on the stocks to be previewed on 18 February. This will be my presentation of riots and rebellions in the City. It will feature more recent activism like the Stop the City and Occupy London movements (the latter I'm moving from my tour 'Law and Order EC') as well as older activity, going back to Roman times.

The idea of the reduced-price preview is something I’ve taken from the theatre. As the first professional outing for a new tour will involve an element of feeling your way, I offer these first outings as previews, charging only a £5 flat fee. After all, it’s as much a tryout for me as it is a performance for the audience. You can't book for these, but you can reserve your place by e-mailing me on charnowalks-bgn@yahoo.co.uk or by texting 07982 132231: don't forget to give your name in your text!.

 

There are some other interesting projects brewing, but I can’t say anything yet – just watch this space!

 

In the spirit of trying to keep it reasonably snappy, that's all for now. Laters!

 

Love,

 

Dave Charnowalks

 

Pictures courtesy of Ann Flowers ('Sanctuary' 2016) and Hazel Screen (London Bridge 2014)

 

Greetings, Charnowalkers!

Welcome to the first blog entry for 2017, which promises to be an interesting and inspiring year for Charnowalks. Media guru Hilary Kruger has been subjecting me to an overhaul, which is still ongoing, so look out for marked improvements in the service.
http://www.krugermedia.com

A new plan for Charnowalks is themed Sundays. I have decided to offer Sunday afternoon tours which share a connection. For someone working to develop a structured guiding culture in Tower Hamlets, the decision for January was obvious - East End Sundays. Each Sunday tour in January covers an important part of the East End's story.

The first Sunday was 'Tidemarks from the Pool', my exploration of the maritime trade that brought a vibrant life to the East End for some two centuries before the closure of the docks and the dismantling of the Port of London. I had an engaged and enthusiastic audience who were very interested in getting to grips with the richness of life in the riverside Tower Hamlets between the 1770s and the 1970s. This we explored as it was revealed by a wealth of heritage that has been left behind. Tower Hamlets has much to offer the visitor, but until we get a properly organised guiding base it won't be promoted anything like it should.

There are still three East End Sundays to come. Next Sunday (15th) is 'The Ripper Enigma', a grown-up look at the notorious murders of 1888 and their context. This is followed on the 22nd by 'Just You Wait and See', a tour which assesses the impact of World War Two on Bethnal Green, and then on the 29th comes 'In and Out of the Aldgate', an exploration of the borderland which is at once in the City and the East End.

Details are to be found on my website: http://charnowalks.co.uk/coming-up

February will see City Sundays; at the moment I'm pondering what March will be - watch this space. Or better still, join my mailing list! Just an e-mail to charnowalks-bgn@yahoo.co.uk will get you on the list for monthly updates.

In the midst of all this preparation I've been doing some background reading to enrich my theatrical tour 'Behind the Magic Curtain'. I've read an excellent biography of Joseph Grimaldi by Andrew McConnell Stott which sheds a good deal of light on the state of the stage in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Now I'm reading the reminiscences of Peter Daubeny, the man responsible for giving world theatre a serious platform in London, particularly with his World Theatre Seasons at the Aldwych Theatre.

Well, that's the state of play at the moment. There are other plans bubbling away which will need a little more simmering before I make them public. I shall return in a fortnight and reveal more ...

Until then, take good care of yourselves. I hope you've been able to avoid the colds doing the rounds, or that you've had one and it's now a thing of the past.

Love,

Dave Charnowalks

Photos courtesy of Alan Tucker, Ana Figueiredo and Nika Garrett

 

Dear Aficionados,

Herewith is the second part of my catching-up blog entry. Two weeks ago I gave a summary of my touring experiences this year. Today, I'll be reflecting on my writing experiences in 2016. Of course, the starting point has to be my latest book, The Dark Side of East London.

Based on my tour 'The Dark Side of the Green', The Dark Side of East London was published by Pen and Sword on 23 September 2016. It was in the autumn of 2014 that I was approached by journalist Kate Bohdanowicz to propose a book; in early 2015 the proposal was accepted and the contract was signed. The book explores the areas east of the City of London in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, essentially before the concept of the East End came into being.

Through stories of crime and other wrongdoing, the book evokes what life was like east of the City in the days when most of the area was still semi-rural, and how it changed when it was absorbed by the growing metropolis of London in the nineteenth century. Crime stories, like ghost stories, are valuable because they are anecdotal, giving you details of day-to-day life at moments of crisis. In this way it is hoped that the flavour of 'ordinary' lives and conditions come through in this book.

This is the only commercial work I've produced this year, but I have been putting it about a bit elsewhere. I've started using LinkedIn a lot more now; it's like Facebook for grown-ups. I've put up some posts which reflect on aspects of guiding. 'New York Medieval Times' considers the application of guiding as an adjunct to education, as I explained in the last blog entry. 'Gateway to the City' points out the natural relationship between hotels and tour guides.

I have put up other posts, such as a reflection on the unwarranted destruction by King's College London of the unique timber-framed entrance of the former Spur Inn on Borough High Street. We aren't so rich in such structures in Central London that we can afford to let them get destroyed in the interests of short-term development. The LinkedIn post is a good way of developing ideas in a way that's accessible to the reader. Plus, as far as I see you don't have to be registered with LinkedIn to read them.

Another area in which I've been extending myself is the blog for Footprints of London, where I've had items published which look at the portrayal of the goldsmith in Jacobethan City comedies ('All that Glisters is not Gold'), George Orwell's experiences in the cells at Bethnal Green Police Station and Old Street Police Court ('Orwell in the Clink') and the hop factors W.H. and H. Le May and their prominence in the Borough ('At the Heart of the Hop Trade').

These posts are born of tours I have created this year, and the Footprints blog is a good way to explore aspects of London's story through the eyes of guides. The entries are usually produced from material garnered in the planning of tours and thus give more scope for the guide to expand on the topic than is given by a few minutes out on the street. I would recommend you get to know it:
http://footprintsoflondon.com/blog

Guiding has of necessity taken a priority over writing, but I hope that more items will be forthcoming in the New Year, including a proposal for another book for Pen and Sword. I've got the germ of an idea fermenting away in the back of my mind, but there's a deal of reading to do first to ensure it's got legs. I'll let you know in due course.

This concludes my review of what I've been doing (professionally at least) in 2016. Future posts will be far less exhaustive than what you've had to date! I hope to bring you news of triumphs and achievements, but what they shall be time will unfold.

I hope that the festive season is bringing you fun, as well as time to reflect. Please accept my best wishes for health and happiness in 2017.

Love,

Dave Charnowalks

Cover picture for The Dark Side of East London courtesy of Pen and Sword; photo of Playhouse Yard courtesy of Fay Bennett; photo of Dark Side launch courtesy of Alan Tucker.

Dear Blogophiles,

Welcome to the new-look, revised Charnowalks blog – brought back out after nearly two years in the loft, dusted down and oiled where necessary. The new blog will be full of pep and ginger, and will energise your desire to experience the richness of London at street level and on the page.

I say this, but at present you find your author in reflective mood. It is December after all, and a good time to look back at 2016. Much has happened this year, both in terms of guiding and writing, so I’m going to split this reflection in two. This will be the guiding issue. Looking at what I’ve written, this is a rather wordy post – still, it is going back over nearly a year, so after this effusion the blog will calm down!

I’ve managed to get in a good deal of guiding this year, and the repertoire has grown – I’ve actually created seven brand new full-length tours, including ‘Booze and the Borough’, my first full tour south of the river. A number of scheduled tours have gone ahead with appreciative audiences, but more significant have been the bookings with specific clients. Too often people equate guiding with mere sightseeing, yet in so many contexts guiding is useful as a resource.

Education is a prime example of the benefits of guiding, giving students an added dimension to their studies by giving the experience of ‘being there’. Twice this year I have been engaged to take round first-year undergraduates from New York University, courtesy of Professor Brendan Hogan; we explored Medieval London in March and Roman London in November. Also this summer I was privileged to do a Great Fire tour for two Year Two classes from the local Gatehouse School, courtesy of Jon and Conti Moll.

A feature of this year is ‘Gateway to the City’, a special package worked out in association with the Grange City Hotel near Tower Hill. Benjamin Suster, Deputy Manager, and I worked out a package which comprises a one-hour tour of the area, starting and finishing at the hotel, followed by lunch in the hotel’s restaurant. It is offered in conjunction with the market held in the hotel’s grounds. So far we have offered the package twice; sadly there were no takers for the second outing, but it was late November!

Once again, through the offices of my good buddy Anna Tomlinson, I provided a tour for the Royal College of Surgeons. This is the fourth year I have been engaged, and it is always a pleasure to guide such appreciative people. It is also a challenge, because there are many people who do the tour every year, so it has to be a new one each time. As the tours have to begin and end at the RCS in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, this requires imagination to come up with ideas that are sufficiently interesting.

I have continued to get bookings from the UK Educational Development Agency, which provides facilities for school groups from Spain and Italy who are over here getting language experience. Only recently I found out that I feature in their promotional video! It was filmed last year.

This year I managed to get myself filmed again, by a Soho-based company called The Ark, for a six-part series called ‘Love London’. It’s for the export market, and features less obvious places for the tourist to visit. I’m in the Covent Garden episode, talking about Covent Garden’s theatres. We filmed in the Royal Opera House. I love being backstage in theatres – acting was the career I never had – so I enjoyed the whole thing hugely. As there was only one camera, after the two takes we had to do some silent nodding, smiling and so on so that it could be cut into the sequence!

I can’t leave out Footprints of London, the co-operative of which I am a member; I have been able to contribute to three of this year’s festivals. For April’s Shakespeare festival I devised two new tours – ‘A Question of Supremacy’, which looks at the politics of Henry VIII’s break with the Church of Rome, and ‘Much Ado About Trading’, my first tour with readings, showing how Shakespeare and his contemporaries used City trade as material for their plays. September was the River Festival, offered this year through Totally Thames, for which I did two trade-based tours.

At October’s annual Literary London Festival I ensured that the East End was represented with another new tour, ‘Bethnal Green in So Many Words’. This is my second tour with readings, exploring Bethnal Green through writings from 1896 (A Child of the Jago) to 2003 (Brick Lane), with the high-spot of George Orwell’s experience of the cells in Bethnal Green Police Station.

Well, I did warn you that this was a wordy issue, but that’s brought you up to date with the guiding. Next issue we focus on the written word.

Thanks for reading; I hope to see you on the streets some day (if you’ll pardon the expression).

Love,

Dave Charnowalks

Pictures courtesy of Malcolm Johnston and Alan Tucker

Hello the Blogophiles!

Some time ago a gracious lady said to me that blogging is addictive. That I've not found it so is apparent from the date of my last post: Sunday 1 June 2014! Well, it's not that I've not found it enjoyable to blog; it's more that I've been prevented by other things. So, what's been keeping me from blogging for more than seven months? So much ...

One important development has been that of the Walkie Talkie adult education course, giving an oh-so-low-level introduction to guiding in Tower Hamlets. Not only was there a second run of Part One in October 2014, but we had the first-ever run of Part Two in November. This has encouraged the enthusiasm for guiding of some talented people who will be coming together to establish the workshop initiative known as the Tower Hamlets Walkshop. We are now in a position to get the workshop off of the ground, and an initial meeting is planned for later this month.

The autumn run of the course has been supplemented by some other initiatives. August Bank Holiday weekend saw Tower Hamlets at Street Level, a weekend of free tours in the borough. One of these was 'What Is Heritage?', a tour devised by some of the folks from the April-May run of Walkie Talkie. Running from Bethnal Green to Mile End, it considers our understanding of the idea of heritage and what will constitute the heritage of the future.

Andrew Wilson addressing the eager

'What Is Heritage?' audience

(pic: Susie Clapham)

Another successful collaboration for Walkie Talkie students was the Old Ford History Trail, devised for the Roman Road Winter Festival. Looking at the rich heritage to be found along the unassuming Old Ford Road, it opened up many people's eyes to the important stories which go unregarded and neglected in London's traditional suburbs, particularly those to the east of the City.

On Old Ford Road - a bit of Alan!

(pic: Leigh Clothier)

We have been seeking to develop links with local groups who share our enthusiasm for the heritage of the East End, such as the East End Preservation Society, and others whose interests overlap with ours, such as Oxford House in Bethnal Green. The threat of indiscriminate development which hangs over the East End like the sword of Damocles is one reason why we need to promote the area's heritage and its importance, but just as important is that it teaches people about the richness of where they live, and helps increase their enjoyment of what they see around them.

At Lincoln's Inn with the RCS

(pic: Anna Tomlinson)

On a personal level, the touring is developing; last September I managed another gig with the Royal College of Surgeons, courtesy of Anna Tomlinson (above). Recently (last Saturday, in fact) I previewed a new City tour, 'Law and Order EC' (http://charnowalks.co.uk/law-and-order-ec) which looks at policing and the law. My distinguished colleague Viv Schrager-Powell and I have been expanding our suite of tours 'The Anatomy of the City', and last October we previewed 'The Sinews of Trade' (http://charnowalks.co.uk/the-sinews-of-trade) to match 'The Financial Heart'. Currently we are working on 'The Commercial Backbone'. I've also been added to the prestigious Footprints of London site, which features only qualified guides who are members of a recognised guiding agency. (http://footprintsoflondon.com/guides/david-charnick)

Viv and I at Billingsgate Market

(pic: Ann Flowers)

Now that the guiding has become more established, I've been catching up with the writing. At last, the second book of stories has been completed: 'Behind the Curtains' features an atmospheric cover picture by Ronald Chapman. I'm having a reading and signing session at the Old George pub in Bethnal Green Road (http://oldgeorge.co.uk) at 2:00 on 31 January. Also I'm working on a revised proposal for a non-fiction work looking at dark moments in the history of the East End. Not the Ripper nor the Krays, but less covered moments. Respectable crime for responsible people.

Ronald's pic for the cover of 'Behind the Curtains'

Since the last blog post, I've obtained a new kitchen, toilet and bathroom through the Decent Homes programme, though the concomitant nuisance meant I could make only one day of the Literary London Society's annual conference last July, because I didn't want the moggies disturbed by builders going in when I wasn't there. I had to have work halted for the Wednesday so that I could go in to give a paper on Peter Ackroyd's portrayal of an eternal London using the device of the subterranean city, and to chair a panel on Ackroyd afterwards. I've also discovered a site called Academia.edu which allows people to share things they've written, and I've uploaded various items to that: https://independent.academia.edu/DavidCharnick

Literary London Society banner

I think that by now I've probably exhausted your patience, so I'll sign off. I hope to be able to set aside more time in future to maintain the blog, but no promises (and thus no disappointments). But if you join up my blog (see right), you'll get updates as and when!

Thanks for supporting my curious efforts!

Love,

Dave Charnowalks