I always like to go exploring around London and am always on the lookout to make my tours better and just learn more in general. Over the years I have been afforded several opportunities to visit where no-one else goes, deep into church crypts that are only open once very few centuries, the homes of… Continue reading Locked in an empty building with some Roman ruins at the Vine Street Wall
Category: Life
Coronavirus Diary 85: Living by example.
It is surprising how often in life how often synchronicity happens. Last Saturday I set off for the East End of London to take some photos and do a little research for the new book that I am writing on every day Victorian era people who lost their lives whilst saving the lives of others.… Continue reading Coronavirus Diary 85: Living by example.
Oakham Stocks – A quirky remnant of punishments from the Middle-Ages.
A few days ago I went to see a dear friend of mine in Oakham, a little market town in the once abolished and now restored count of Oakham. There are lots of good reasons to visit Oakham and its nearby Rutland Water lake but one of the things I enjoyed seeing the most apart… Continue reading Oakham Stocks – A quirky remnant of punishments from the Middle-Ages.
A wintery walk around Waltham Abbey
It’s often the case that one doesn’t visit the places on your doorstep and even as a guide in London, I sometimes only visited the most famous of places because I was being paid to. Just over a week ago in one of those freezing winter days where the weather doesn’t change for weeks on… Continue reading A wintery walk around Waltham Abbey
Standing in the footsteps of Walt Disney
In some quarters it is almost sacrilgeous to say so but I’ve never watched a classic Walt Disney animated film. When other children were doing so, I was much more interested in live action and often rather bloody history and war films. In fact the only Disney production I saw was Black Hole which is… Continue reading Standing in the footsteps of Walt Disney
The Statue of King Alfred The Great that isn’t all it might appear.
Every where you go in London, it is hard to move without bumping into statues and the politics behind who is worthy of a statue, where it should be and how high a status it has in comparison to other figures especially in statue-dense areas are things that get the proponents and opponents quite worked… Continue reading The Statue of King Alfred The Great that isn’t all it might appear.
Coronavirus Diary 84 – Deserted icons of London in Winter
A few days ago I took two lovely people around some of the most famous sights in London. Normally even in January there would be crowds of people everywhere but as you can see out of millions of people, we use about had the whole place to ourselves. If you’ve never thought how people are… Continue reading Coronavirus Diary 84 – Deserted icons of London in Winter
Lady Florence Norman – The Scooter riding Suffragette
In London and many other cities, they are the either a much needed liberating ‘last-mile’ mode of transport or the latest bane on urban life. Scooters, particularly those standing e-scooters are loved by riders and seemingly hated by many others in equal measures. They seemed to appear almost overnight in 2019 or 2020 as if… Continue reading Lady Florence Norman – The Scooter riding Suffragette
The redemption of King Richard III and a new lead on the ‘Princes in the tower’
For a few centuries, King Richard III has been largely denigrated as perhaps the monarch without any merit whatsoever, even more so than bad King John… and that is saying something. He was ugly, he was deformed, he murdered his nephews. Even when we go to the toilet, some of us have a Richard III… Continue reading The redemption of King Richard III and a new lead on the ‘Princes in the tower’
New Year, New Rainforest
When people think of rainforests they tend to think of tropical ones such as the Amazon Rainforest in Brazil. Not many people realise that that you can have temperate rainforests and that just as the tropical varieties are currently being cleared by unscrupulous governments and commercial organisations, so to did most of the temperate rainforests… Continue reading New Year, New Rainforest
Stephen Liddell 