One of the best jobs in London is surely that of the Blue Badge Guide. These 500-or-so highly trained professionals spend their days taking tourists visitors around the capital, pointing out sights of interest and recounting fascinating historical tales. Sometimes they stand at the front of coaches and tell Japanese holidaymakers that it's not far to Windsor Castle, honest. Sometimes they walk round Westminster holding an umbrella in the air and wishing that their schoolkid charges would pay attention to their amusing anecdotes. Sometimes they stand beside busy road junctions yelling out hilarious stories that absolutely nobody can hear. They get paid less than £200 a day for their troubles, they work unsociable hours, and even if the weather's rubbish they still have to go out anyway. No really, it's a great job.
Once a year London's Blue Badge Guides organise a special day of free walks. Anybody can turn up and wander around town under their expert tutelage for a couple of hours, and hopefully learn lots of fascinating stuff in the process. 2008's special day was yesterday, as part of British Tourism Week, and I went along to sample a couple of the walks on offer. In the morning I joined Margaret at London Bridge station for a two hour stroll through the City via the medium of "nursery rhymes". She was rather pleasantly surprised when as many as 85 punters turned up, and then attempted to lead her tortuous crocodile (including two walking sticks and one pushchair) down steps, along riverbanks and through narrow alleyways. Our apologies to the miseryguts rambler who tried forcing his way through our rather wide group in a subway beneath Southwark Bridge while we were singing Oranges and Lemons.
And then in the afternoon a completely different walk, this time around the back streets of the East End. The title of the tour was 'Great British Villains', on which Ian our guide promised to take us to the notorious haunts of the Kraybrothers. This time just over 50 people turned up - still more than enough to be a handful. We started outside the Blind Beggar pubon the Whitechapel Road - where else? But Ian knew his Krays (as I suspect he knows pretty much everything else) and whisked us off to far less familiar spots. Up a grim sideroad beneath a stark brick railway viaduct he pointed out the pub where the Krays had been drinking immediately before (and immediately after) Ronnie shot George Cornell in the Beggar. This rather bleak-looking ex-boozer had been called The Lion, but was more widely known locally as "Widows" or "Madge's" after the 60s landlady who ran it. It's since been converted to rather seedy-looking flats, of course. And it's not somewhere I'd have noticed otherwise, nor wanted to linger given the staring eyes of the mechanics in the car-fiddling yard nextdoor.
Elsewhere Ian showed us the church where Reggie got married in style (now more flats) and the church where all the family funerals were held (now a dog-walking ground for evil-looking Staffies). Yet another local pub, the Carpenters Arms, was owned by the nefarious twosome and used as the springboard for some right dodgy activities. If you were invited in here during the Sunday afternoon unlicensed intermission, you were almost certainly up to no good. On we walked, surely now a larger group than when we set out, past an unseen bullethole and the Kray's former boxing club.
And finally to the house at 178 Vallance Road where Ronnie and Reggie grew up, except that alas it no longer exists. A row of six smart 80s-built homes has replaced the previous terrace, so we can only imagine the cosy two-up two-down where the twins cosseted their mother and stashed their weapons. Ooh look, there's a special plaque outside number 178 unveiled by no less a personage than the Prince of Wales! It's nothing Kray-related though, just a housing cooperative coincidence. And then, after an appreciative flourish, Ian took his leave and wandered off.
It's not easy to become one of London'sBlue Badge guides (in much the same way that it's bloody difficult to become a London cabbie). You first need to pass a "pre-entry" test consisting of two hours of quick questions about Europe, London, art, architecture, geography, history and the like. If successful you then have to pass an interview - presumably to check that you have an outgoing personality - and then stump up nearly £4000 to study on a two year induction course. There are lectures every Tuesday and Thursday evening for six months, twice, plus a series of must-attend tours and visits most Saturdays. You weren't planning on having a social life, were you? The final exam is in six parts, including written papers and practical assessments, with extra tests if you want to qualify in more than one language. But the stringent admission policy must work because every single one of the Blue Badge guides I've heard, from the Palace of Westminster to the backstreets of Whitechapel, has been wonderfully informative and personable. Get your application in next January and maybe you could be stepping out onto the London streets at Easter 2011 with an appreciative audience of visitors hanging on your every word.
One of the best jobs in London is surely that of the Blue Badge Guide. These 500-or-so highly trained professionals spend their days taking
And then in the afternoon a completely different walk, this time around the back streets of the East End. The title of the tour was 'Great British Villains', on which Ian our guide promised to take us to the notorious haunts of the Kray brothers. This time just over 50 people turned up - still more than enough to be a handful. We started outside the Blind Beggar pub on the Whitechapel Road - where else? But Ian knew his Krays (as I suspect he knows pretty much everything else) and whisked us off to far less familiar spots. Up a grim sideroad beneath a stark brick railway viaduct he pointed out the pub where the Krays had been drinking immediately before (and immediately after) Ronnie shot George Cornell in the Beggar. This rather bleak-looking ex-boozer had been called The Lion, but was more widely known locally as "Widows" or "Madge's" after the 60s landlady who ran it. It's since been converted to rather seedy-looking flats, of course. And it's not somewhere I'd have noticed otherwise, nor wanted to linger given the staring eyes of the mechanics in the car-fiddling yard nextdoor.
And finally to the house at 178 Vallance Road where Ronnie and Reggie grew up, except that alas it no longer exists. A row of six smart 80s-built homes has replaced the previous terrace, so we can only imagine the cosy two-up two-down where the twins cosseted their mother and stashed their weapons. Ooh look, there's a special plaque outside number 178 unveiled by no less a personage than the Prince of Wales! It's nothing Kray-related though, just a housing cooperative coincidence. And then, after an appreciative flourish, Ian took his leave and wandered off.
