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

HELLO-O-O-O!

At last, blogolites, I've made it through the grim undergraduate exam period. It's all money, but to be honest it's been a bit of a killer! Still, it's out of the way now, so here goes to catch up with the doings of Charno.

Of course, I suppose the biggest thing to have happened since my last offering is that I am now fifty: as of 24 April 2014. In the morning I met up with my crony Viv Schrager-Powell to work on our second business City tour, which looks at trade. I then gave old chum Herb Danner a go of my 'Tidemarks from the Pool' tour, as it impinges on his territory. Sadly Mrs Herb couldn't make it. We finished at the White Hart brew pub at Mile End Gate where some of the more discerning types arrived (Wes, Brad, Dan and Nick) and came back to the old doss house to sample two single malts, both distilled in 1964. Matt Tilbury turned up later to give his professional opinion.

Walkie Talkie, the adult education course giving an introduction to guiding in Tower Hamlets, has concluded its five-week run from 23 April to 21 May inclusive.

There were eighteen students at the first session. Not all stayed the course: fourteen passed by satisfying the 60% attendance rate. Sadly the last session, 21 May, was the night before the elections, so a number of people had to miss it because of dealing with postal votes. Still, there was a great deal of enthusiasm for the course and for the subject matter, and for the five Saturday morning walks devised as a complementary programme by some of last autumn's veterans: Judy Stephenson, Julian Walker, Andrew Parnell, Mary Best and I covered Limehouse (and its environs), Bow and Bromley, Poplar, Mile End Whitechapel and Aldgate, and St Katharine's, St George's and the Liberties of the Tower.

As there's no funding to run the second five-week course this summer, and there are people too keen to progress to wait for October, we've decided to devise a workshop - or walkshop - group to work on projects. More details will be forthcoming ...

I'm still working on building up my own guiding business.

I have two bookings for the engineering in the City tour 'Venture Capital' coming up, one with the Institute of Mechanical Engineers and one with Imperial College. I'm managing, by and large, to keep up a regular schedule of Saturday morning and Sunday afternoon tours, but though I seem to be generating interest in the stuff, this isn't really translating into numbers on the day. I had one person today for the 'A Helping Hand' tour. Still, it takes time to get this sort of thing bedded in and established.

 Thanks to Viv, I back-marked her on her 'In the Shadow of the Shard' tour for Walk London weekend, which was good fun. The only thing was that I got lost at London Bridge station. This wouldn't have mattered, but I got talking to a woman on the tube and her two friends. They were heading for our tour. Strangely enough they joined the other group that was doing the same tour.

I've managed to get a little further forward with the second collection of stories, but now that the exam hall stuff is (mainly) out of the way, there should be a bit more time to fit in writing so that I can get the second lot out. Possibly then I can get back to revising the novel about John Tawell:

He'll be featuring on my next City walk, on law and order. Again, more details later.

One thing about getting my days back is that the cats can get their routine re-established. Obviously I was leaving food and water out for them during the day, but leaving them for eleven hours every day seemed to be interfering with them. They couldn't go out while I was out in case anything happened to them, so they were gagging to get out in the evening.

A bonus from the impending cash injection from working at UCL is that I'll be able to get to the theatre more. Thankfully lovetheatre.com had a flash sale recently for the Jeeves and Wooster adaptation 'Perfect Nonsense' at the Duke of York's, and I managed to get tix for £19.50 for myself and my two close personals Kath 'Sweetcheeks' Pykett and Denise Kent.

During the exam period, I could do a bit of reading for pleasure on the tube, so I took 'Blandings Castle' with me:

I also took the opportunity to try some Nick Hornby:

I'm still not sure whether I liked it ...

Anyway, that'll do for now. I'm not sure what I've missed, but I'm starting to drift off now, so I'm going to leave the ironing for the morning and get my head down.

Goodnight!

Love,

Dave Charnowalks

Howdy Blogolites,

I hope you all had a superlative Easter. I did some red hot things like ironing, a bit of tidying, Zzzzz. Plus I've been putting together my materials for the wonder-course Walkie Talkie which starts this coming Wednesday, i.e. in two days' time!

Queen Adelaide's Dispensary, Pollard Row -

relevant to Session One

It promises to be an interesting course, if I do say so myself. Big thanks to those who took a punt on it last October-November; the experience has helped mould this repeat run. Sixteen people have signed up: a full house. The five-walk supplementary programme of tours has come together nicely, and I'll be doing mine on 3 May:

Where the tour kicks off

Courtesy of my old schoolfriend Brad Baxter, Viv Schrager-Powell and I have a booking for our organised finance tour on 10 May:

The Old Lady of Threadneedle Street

and I'm 'back-marking' her on a Southwark tour the following weekend.

I've done some odds and ends with the stories: it's the psycho story that's causing me a little difficulty, because I need to make the opening work, but I think I've got the answer now!

Otherwise it's been a head-down week, without much out-and-about. Some of the usual domestic stuff, but that's not my story, so no details!

We're getting close to May, which is when I get my teeth into the UCL exam halls, particularly the Garden Room, which is one of the venues where special needs candidates are accommodated. This means that for the whole of May I will be thinking only of invigilating/supervising, and of course the Walkie Talkie course, but not much else. Mind you, this gives me a perfect excuse to read some stuff for enjoyment's sake, particularly the last Jasper Fforde.

Anyway, time's winged chariot is doing its thing, so I'd better shift. Toodly-bye!

Mind how you go.

Love,

Dave Charnowalks

Howdy bloggarians,

So, what has happened since last we conversed? Well, the practice tours for the Walkie Talkie course are coming along well: we'll be offering the students an interesting and varied introduction to Tower Hamlets and its story. This week, Judy Stephenson previewed her tour 'Why Limehouse?', during which we managed to pop in to St Dunstan's Stepney for a poke around. Given its age, it's a remarkable survival.

Spandrel above the western entrance

showing St Dunstan's tongs and the devil

A gallimaufry of interesting sites, and sights. Judy will be beginning our programme of walks on 26 April, having kindly swapped dates with me to allow me to hit fifty without undue strain.

Yes indeed: I'm shortly to hit my half century. To prove how old I'm getting, I went along with Danny Warren and Richard Wood to join my nephew Wes, the real Pub Landlord, for his celebratory birthday booze-up around Islington, then to Kentish Town (I know, I know, but there was a reason - the Southampton Arms: www.thesouthamptonarms.co.uk).

Lots and lots of lovely beer

at the Southampton Arms

Dan and I had to call it a day when the group moved on to the Camden brewery. As I say: just to show how old I'm getting ...

On 8 April, m'colleague Viv Schrager-Powell organised a trip for us to St Peter Cornhill. The church isn't open usually, so this was a prime opportunity.

The screen in St Peter's, created supposedly by

Christopher Wren's daughter

On Friday 11th I went with Kath Pykett and Denise Kent to see Handbagged at the Vaudeville: an excellent comedy, nicely structured, and of course it was all our yesterdays.

Two Queens and two Mrs Ts

Well, that'll do for the moment. Not exactly a thrill a minute, but that's life when you're self-employed. Once things get firmly off the ground, things will get more exciting!

Anyway, I'm off now to get in some serious preparation for 'Walkie Talkie', which starts on 23 April.
http://www.ideastore.co.uk/idea-store-learning-health-walkie-talkie-course

Mind how you go.

Love,

Dave Charnowalks

Hello Blogophiles,

Dad's getting his hearing aids sorted out at last: the woman came round last Thursday, and she's booking him an appointment with the audiologist, because increasing the amplification doesn't seem to be the answer. Ho hum.

The Decent Homes people came round on Tuesday to inspect the flat: we're getting new kitchens, toilets and bathrooms. The downside is that, because of fire regulations, I'm going to lose my serving hatch. The kitchen will feel very closed in with that gone - I can see out into the back garden through it, and it makes a small kitchen airier.

The Walkie Talkie programme of supplementary tours is developing well. This time it was Andrew Parnell's look at urban renewal in Poplar, a fascinating tour looking at the way architecture has sought not only to accommodate (literally) the local community, but also to control and maintain a good living environment. He also showed us how styles and attitudes have behaved over the decades of the last century.

The Lansbury Estate

Its amazing how much this project has uncovered so far about the borough: and there are people who say there's nothing to see in Tower Hamlets!

I'm working with m'colleague Viv Schrager-Powell to develop our suite of tours examining the development of business in the City. We're working the second tour now, how trade placed the City in the global context.

The Custom House of 1715 - Pool of London

The Law and Order tour is still on the stocks, as is the London and the World tour - just working on that at the moment, looking at the career of Meinhardt Schomberg, whose late C17 house is on Pall Mall.

The man himself - what a dude

On Friday I took two discerning people - Nichola Oxley and Steve Motley - on my judicial punishment tour. Some gruesome stuff there, including just how bad the pillory can be. If you're only used to seeing them at fetes, where an upstanding member of the community is pelted with wet sponges, you ought to hear the story of John Waller's fate when he was pilloried in Seven Dials.

John Waller: shortly before he was pulled out

and beaten to death in a revenge attack

Steve and Nichola were also good enough to secure themselves a copy of 'Death and the City', such delightful bedtime reading.

As usual, I don't have much else to report, except that I've been working more on the stories, so that the second collection is a little closer. Oh yes, I managed to submit a proposal for a paper on Peter Ackroyd and the perpetual London for the Literary London Society's summer conference. Thankfully I've been able to give a paper for the last three conferences, so we'll see what they say about this one.

Ah well, I'd better make a drop of tea and head for bed. More in the next fun-packed edition.

Mind how you go.

Love,

Dave Charnowalks