LOCKDOWN LOOSENS Cinemas and shops start to reopen but museums, theatres have to wait SHOPPING RESTARTS POST-COVID TASKFORCE SET UP Familiar yellow and green bags can be seen in Oxford Street Culture secretary Oliver Dowden has and Knightsbridge as Selfridges and Harrods have reopened. announced that the Oriel College Provost Neil Social distancing will be enforced in most shops. Mendoza (right) will advise the government THE TOWER GETS READY on how Britain’s culture and heritage sectors can rebound from the impact of the The Tower of London is planning to coronavirus lockdown. £200 million will be re-open this month. Initially tickets made available to help small non-profit will be available with time-slots organisations. managed through their website: hrp.org.uk/tower-of-london. There THEATRES AND CINEMAS will be a one way route around the While some cinemas are planning to open this month, many outside areas of the Tower and theatres will not be able to do so this year. Producer Bill social distancing will be maintained for visitors and staff. No Kenwright has said that the need to recast and rehearse plays guiding, including Yeoman Warder tours, will be allowed. means that most theatres will not open until 2021. All London STONEHENGE RESTARTS theatres will definitely remain closed until 2 August. Visitors to Stonehenge, which normally has 1.5 million visitors a year, will have to book timed tickets in advance through english-heritage.org.uk/stonehenge when it reopens on 4 July. English Heritage, which has lost £70 million in revenue, plans to reopen all its sites by August. ROYAL PALACES Buckingham Palace will not be open to the public this year. Windsor Castle remains closed until further notice. Hampton Court and Kensington Palace hope to open their gardens this month. The interiors will have timed tickets and Dark for the first time since 1952 - The Mousetrap no guiding to be allowed inside when Hampton Court reopens. MUSEUMS AND GALLERIES CHURCHES AND CATHEDRALS Hartwig Fischer, Director of the British Museum, says they Westminster Abbey and Saint Paul’s Cathedral remain will ‘listen to government advice’ on reopening. The BM and closed except for private prayer but both offer online tours and National Gallery both offer online tours and shopping. The shopping. The Abbey has a podcast and Saint Paul’s has a Tate Galleries and Florence Nightingale Museum ‘hope’ to virtual Book of Remembrance called Remember Me listing reopen in August. Meanwhile London Zoo and Kew those who have died from Covid-19. Churches can run Gardens have now now reopened. socially distanced services from 4 July.

Thanks to Tricia Ellis and the Site Liaison team for information, which was correct at time of going to press. Further updates will come next month.

BRANCH COUNCIL Also in this issue: Danny Parlour - Chair Aaron Hunter - CPD CHAIR’S LETTER - PAGE 2 Alex Hetherington - Secretary Craig Kao - Technology COVID CODE OF CONDUCT - PAGE 3 Alfie Talman - Treasurer Edwin Lerner - Guidelines LOOKING EAST & WEST - PAGES 4/5 Tricia Ellis - Sie Liaison Nan Mousley - Membership SORCERY SECRETS - PAGE 6 Maria Gartner - CPD Nick Salmond – Marketing RICH PICKINGS - PAGE 7 Victoria Herriott - PR Amy Wang - Mandarin THE LAW ON TRADE MARKS - PAGE 8

ASSOCIATION OFASSOCIATION PROFESSIONAL OF PROFESSIONALTOURIST GUIDES TOURIST GUIDES www.guidelondon.org.ukwww.guidelondon.org.uk September 2019 July 2020 Union news LETTER FROM THE CHAIR

Brilliant and forward thinking project ideas are still coming in from members thick and fast. First the brilliant Lockdown Learning Joint CPD Programme, then the Guide London Live Broadcasts and now the Virtual Tours (VT) CPD. I would like to say a special thank you to APTG members Pepe Martinez and Simon Whitehouse and everyone on the VT CPD Committee and, of course, Ursula Petula Barzey from Moxee Marketing for all of their hard work and wonderful efforts with this. I think it is fair to say that virtual tours are pretty much the only way we can deliver tours with the market as it is now and various UK Government guidelines in place as a result of the coronavirus. Having this CPD means that everyone taking part is now well equipped to deliver excellent, professional, outstanding and incredibly fun virtual tours. Before this CPD none of us received any training as to how to deliver them as they were not a thing before this pandemic, so this training is very much needed and appreciated. Thanks to Simon and Pepe it is being offered at the very accessible price of just £30 - an absolute bargain I am sure you will agree for a CPD that includes a half day workshop and a week of support afterwards! If you are thinking about signing up I would urge you to do so and give it a try. If you have already completed the course (or just want to boost your profile) please ensure you update your availability calendar at least once a month. If you do not do this your Guide London profile will not appear in the FindAGuide and or GuideMatch search tools used by tour operators and/or direct clients alike. Best wishes to everyone delivering virtual tours and, if you receive an enquiry for one but are unsure as to how they found you, please ask them. Fingers crossed they will tell you it was through the Guide London website!

Danny Parlour

VIRTUAL TOURS LAUNCHED SOCIAL MEDIA BROADCASTS Building on the success of the live broadcast These popular live broadcasts have attracted series Guide London has now launched a series over 100,000 views on Facebook and of virtual tours which are advertised and sold continue to promote the blue badge and through the site. Clients who wish to book a virtual Guide London. Guides conducted a virtual guided tour can do so by going to: tour of Trafalgar Square, Whitehall and guidelondon.org.uk/tours/london-virtual-tour Westminster Abbey on 8 June. Do not worry if you miss a talk as each is uploaded onto NEW BLOG POSTS YouTube. Watch them by going to youtube.com and Animal Sculptures in London by David Drury searching for ‘Guide London’. The View from My Roof by Steve Fallon The View from My Window by Steve Fallon VIRTUAL TOURS TRAINING Hampstead Garden Suburb by Alex Hetherington Guides who wish to offer virtual tours via Guide London will Selfridges Reopens by Edwin Lerner need to complete a short CPD course (cost £30). They will The Dark Side of Chelsea by Clarissa Skinner need a decent computer or laptop (very few tablets can host Surprising Suburbia by Steve Szymanski virtual tours); be comfortable and confident IT trouble- Jane Austen in London by Ingrid Wallenborg. shooting; have a strong and stable internet connection and Blog posts help to bring traffic to Guide London. If you would be familiar with software such as PowerPoint or KeyNote. like to write a post for the site, please email it to: Tickets for the last courses in July can be booked at: [email protected]. buytickets.at/aptg

2 Union news COVID CODE OF CONDUCT The Institute of Tourist Guiding, the British Guild of Tourist Guides, the Association of Professional Tourist Guides and the Driver- EARNING VIA VIRTUAL TOURISM Guides Association have created the Covid-19 Guidance for As the scale of the dangers and Tourist Guides. Guides who are members of these organisations restrictions surrounding Covid-19 are expected to abide by this guidance during the Covid-19 crisis. became more evident I, in common with 1 Guides will ensure they are familiar with the most up-to-date everyone working in tourism, was struck public health guidelines and will adhere to these for the duration with panic when minute by minute all of of the tour. this year’s work vanished. Anxiety took 2 Guides will maintain government-recommended social over. How will I pay the rent? When will distancing between themselves and clients at all times. On tours we work again? Have I a temperature? However, despite not physically showing a group around wherePhoto the groupPaul Metcalfe includes different households, guides will encourage and help clients to adopt appropriate social since 9 March, I am now nearly as busy as I would have distancing between each other too. been during the normal peak season. 3 When guiding groups from different households, guides will It is true that the work is different. I now dedicate my time follow government guidance to determine the maximum possible to growing my online presence via social media. I take group size. Zoom tutorials, speak at virtual tours run by agencies and 4 Guides will avoid shaking hands or any other physical contact search the market for the best technology for delivering with clients. my own virtual tours. It has been an eye opening 5 Guides will apply rigorous hygiene practices, including experience and has taught me a lot about our new world thoroughly cleaning and waiting for hands to dry before guiding, and how we can continue our chosen career within it. and use a personal hand sanitiser when this is not possible. I have also realised that this is not going to be a short 6 If requested, guides will consider wearing a mask or visor. term situation. Travel bans are likely to be in place for 7 Badged guides will know where public toilets/hand-washing some time and, even when they are lifted, those that are facilities/hand sanitiser points are available. shielding will still feel the worry about going out again. It 8 Remote audio devices (such as Whisper, Vox and various is so important to offer these people a chance of escape apps) can be effective for social distancing on guided tours. and, for those who are alone, an opportunity to keep Guides will happily work with tour companies using these meeting new people. systems. 9 Badged guides are experts in the tourist sites they visit with Most importantly, it has shown me that the desire to travel clients. Guides will ensure they are fully aware of sites' specific has absolutely not disappeared. If anything, the fact that Covid-19 requirements and comply with them. we cannot travel is making people even more hungry to 10 Badged guides know the towns and cities where they lead explore somewhere that is not their home or local shops. tours intricately. Guides will be familiar with more crowded areas The market is there and it is strong. We just need to and will make best efforts to negotiate them or, if appropriate, ensure that we can deliver virtual tours that match our avoid them. usual guiding standards. It is time to launch ourselves 11 Where appropriate, guides will liaise with coach companies into this brave new world. and private vehicle companies and drivers to ensure vehicles Charlotte Thurlow have been thoroughly sanitised. See the Guide London report on page two for details of 12 Driver guides will ensure their vehicle is thoroughly cleaned the virtual guiding course for blue badge tourist guides. inside after previous use. They will follow licensing authority and national Covid-19 regulations for cleaning their vehicles and APTG’S FIRST VIRTUAL MEETING maintaining air-conditioning systems. Driver guides will carry disinfecting wipes, hand sanitisers and paper towels in their cars, I just wanted to say what an inspiring and will use face masks if appropriate. meeting that was. Well done to all on the team for organising it. Now for that glass of wine, er… I mean cup of tea!

FEES ARE FROZEN Vicki Bick For the first time ever APTG members voted to freeze fees for the season from 1 April 2021 up to 31 March 2022. APTG’s Enjoy your beverage, Vicki - whatever it is. recommended minimum fees for that period will remain at: Half Day (English) £176 Full Day (English) £203 Half Day (Language) £288 Full Day (Language) £322 546 members were sent the vote email and 319 votes were cast NEW MEMBER (58%). 310 votes were in favour of freezing fees (97%). Eight Karen Pierce-Goulding votes were against (3%) with one abstention. Tel: 07984 209830 Branch Council would like to thank all members who voted and Mother tongue: English will now begin work on producing the Fee Sheet for 2021/22. BC Website: kpgtourguide.com is happy for members to share these fees with tour operators. Email: [email protected]

ASSOCIATION OF PROFESSIONAL TOURIST GUIDES 3 www.guidelondon.org.uk July 2020 guiding news

THE VIEW FROM MY WINDOW Steve Fallon continues his exploration of where he lives in East London

I am looking out the back window through the Victoria Park counts more than 4,500 exotic chartreuse-coloured cascade that is the weeping trees - arboriculture was a Victorian passion. willow at the bottom of our garden and across the And when I discovered trees were my passion to Victoria Park. It is ‘just spring, when the too while training as a Blue Badge Tourist world is puddle wonderful’ (as the poet e.e. Guide, the park became my study hall when cummings put it) and when our best girlfriend we were learning to identify them. Gingko, Vicky puts on her finest performance. But spring false acacia, honey locust, Turkish hazel… I feels different somehow with ‘All This’ going on. never looked back. Victoria Park was the East End’s first public park High up the trunk of a gnarled and knobby old when it opened in 1845 and came about after a fig tree on the park’s east side is a clay mask local MP presented Queen Victoria with a petition of 30,000 of a young woman. It is thought to be the likeness of Margaret signatures. The Crown Estate purchased eighty-eight Muller, a twenty seven year old American woman studying at hectares, which were laid out by London architect Sir James the Slade School of Fine Art who was murdered in a knife Pennethorne over four years. The park soon became an attack as she was doing her morning run on 3 February 2003. amenity for the working classes; for many poor local children She was found on a path between a rose garden and a this would be the only large stretch of greenery they ever playground after fellow joggers heard her screams. At the encountered. And Victoria Park's reputation as the 'People's time, police said two men were seen fleeing from the scene. Park' grew as it became a centre for political meetings and I may have seen one of them. rallies – the Speaker's Corner of East London. I had been walking our dog Whitey as I did every morning at 7am. As I was about to exit, I saw a man running toward me. Not in a jogging outfit and trainers but in street clothes. I looked at him directly and he gave me a somewhat embarrassed look. I assumed he was going to catch the bus, but he went the opposite way to the stop. I did not think much about it then but when Chinese Pagoda in Victoria Park police notices went up, I called to say I had been in the area. Two The park is divided by Grove Road. The larger east side has PCs came and interviewed me for Margaret Muller’s Mask football fields, a cricket pitch, a model-boat lake and two six hours, making me repeat treasures. The first is a monumental drinking fountain to myself over and over again. I had prepared a list of the dozen provide the poor with clean drinking water financed by the or so people I passed and/or greeted each morning while social reformer and philanthropist Angela Burdett-Coutts in walking Whitey. But the PCs seemed less interested in them 1862. The second is a pair of pedestrian alcoves taken from than they did in me. I even sensed they knew of most of the the old strangers already. Margaret Muller’s killing remains one of demolished in 1831. In the Britain’s most notorious unsolved murders. more manicured west side The clay mask is being subsumed by the tree trunk these there’s a boating lake with a seventeen years on. One day it will disappear or – more likely fountain and flocks of exotic – be dislodged and fall to the ground, breaking into a million waterfowl, flower beds and a fragile little pieces. As the French like to put it, ‘Tout lasse, delightful Chinese pagoda on tout casse, tout passe’, which is just a fancy way of saying the lake’s small island. It is a `This too will pass.’ And it will, friends and comrades, it will. copy of one brought here in This is London from my window. Look out of yours from time 1842 from the Chinese London Bridge Arch to time. You will be astonished at what you see. Exhibition in Hyde Park. Steve Fallon (who also provided the photographs)

4 guiding news

FIVE FASCINATING FINDS While one Steve looks East another continues his exploration of West London

As you know from my previous article about Northolt, I have was not impressed, been walking around suburban Middlesex. I will share my writing “Hayes . . . is five favourites with you, all of which are publicly accessible, one of the most some admittedly a little harder to reach than others. godforsaken places I John Rennie Bridge in Ruislip have ever struck. The population seems to be I make no apologies for having a entirely made up of bridge as my top find. To the clerks who frequent tin- north of the town is the reservoir roofed chapels on Sundays and for the rest bolt themselves known as Ruislip Lido. It had within doors” Not sure what he would make of it now! been created in the early nineteenth century as a feeder Horatia Nelson’s Grave in Pinner for the Grand Union Canal. The Horatia Nelson was Lord Nelsons chief engineer was none other only child with Emma Hamilton and than John Rennie the Elder and, as well as the reservoir, was born in 1801 as Nelson he was also responsible for engineering a seven mile long prepared to sail for the Battle of conduit aqueduct to the canal. Ultimately the reservoir never Copenhagen. How did she end up saw use in that purpose and the aqueduct fell into disuse. buried in a churchyard in the Much was covered over but hidden in the undergrowth in a village of Pinner? She married the field behind a new housing estate a bridge that crosses the Reverend Philip Ward in 1822 In River Pinn by John Rennie still exists in Ruislip, albeit Norfolk and with him had ten heavily renovated in the 1930s. children and lived at various Arcadi Monastery parishes in Norfolk and then Coal Tax Post in Northwood Tenterden in , where her The boundaries of London have always husband is buried. After his death she moved to Pinner to be interested me. It was a problem in the near her son Nelson. Pinner was also where her daughter nineteenth century especially when the was knocked down by a bolting horse and died in 1872 but city of London first imposed a duty on Horatia herself lived another nine years before being buried coal. As this came via the Thames into in the Old Parish Cemetery with two of her children. the Port of London it was easy to Protestant Martyrs Memorial in Uxbridge enforce. However, with the coming of , and later railways, the duties were extended to coal brought to London by any means of transport. Although the duty was not enforced on site, boundary markers were placed to indicateScene the from duty The area Crown alongside roads, railways, and footpaths. About 280 in total were erected and just over 200 remain. This one was in woodland just north of Mount Vernon Hospital and I walked past it three times before I finally located it about twenty metres off the path. As London Blue Badge Guides, we are probably all familiar with the Martyrs Memorials in Oxford, Smithfield and George Orwell in Hayes Salisbury so I was interested to find one in Uxbridge. The Not all my walks have involved crashing through engraving is not easy to decipher but it reads ‘This stone undergrowth in search of Victoriana. Attached to a hotel in was erected in 1955 in memory of Robert Smith, John Hayes is a plaque marking George Orwell’s connection with Denley and Patrick Packingham, who were burnt at the the building when it was Hawthorns High School for Boys. stake on Lynch Green opposite this spot in August 1555 and Orwell took the job due to lack of finances and, in a small also of all those men and women of Uxbridge who have school of just fifteen boys, he was effectively headmaster. suffered persecution in their Christian faith.’ None of the Orwell was born Eric Blair and it would appear he adopted three men came from Uxbridge but the location was a large his famous pen name whilst in Hayes and used his town and therefore their execution would be seen by a observations of the town and its people in both A greater number of people. Clergyman’s Daughter and Keep the Aspidistra Flying. He Steve Szymanski (who also took the photographs)

ASSOCIATION OF PROFESSIONAL TOURIST GUIDES 5 www.guidelondon.org.uk July 2020 guiding news

SORCERY SECRETS Clariss Skinner examines withcraft in Tudor and Stewart times Attitudes towards witches Dee lived in Mortlake, where and sorcerers in the Queen Elizabeth consulted him on Elizabethan period were an auspicious day for her confusing and often coronation. In 1595 she made him contradictory. While warden of Christ's College in Bloody Mary was vicious Manchester. However, when in her treatment of James I came to power, he witches, Elizabeth had a abhorred magic and divination and more ambivalent Dee was not favoured. Most of relationship. Her mother Dee's family were lost to the Anne Boleyn had been plague in 1605, and he returned to accusedSubway of atbeing Crystdal a witch Mortlake withYork University his surviving Campus for having an extra finger daughter who looked after him in Elizabeth the First Mary the First on the left hand. (The Rainbow Portrait) (National Portrait Gallery) his old age, spent in poverty, his Elizabeth, as a strong library divided up, his possessions female ruler, may not have been happy about hunting sold. James's relentless pursuit of witches went on. down the fair sex and accusing those who may be When he was due to marry Anne of Denmark a storm innocent of a crime. prevented her from getting to . Six supposed Despite this, Mary and Elizabeth found reason to call Danish witches were tried and executed on charges on the services of sorcerer Dr John Dee. Dee was a of witchcraft and treason. James also faced terrible fascinating character, a mathematician, navigator, storms trying to bring his bride back to Scotland, and astrologer and magician/showman. During Mary's Agnes Sampson was tried. After torture she reign he served as consultant and astrologer, but this confessed that she had bound bits of a dead body to role ended with him being thrown into jail on charges a cat and thrown it into the to brew up tempests. of being a conjurer - although he was soon released. Some such torture might involve the "pilne-winks" Dee became a scientific and medical advisor to (thumb screws) or the "caspie-claws" (a form of leg Queen Elizabeth. To understand the world, people irons, heated over a brazier). In 1542 witchcraft was such as Dee resorted to sorcery and divination when prohibited and another act was brought in against things could not be explained by science. He used a conjuring and witchcraft in 1562, but generally they man called Edward Kelly as a medium. Kelly was a were punished by being put in prison or in the pillory, showman and charlatan, who was later imprisoned for executed only if they killed someone. Reginald Scot fraud and counterfeit. disagreed with these punishments and wrote The At the British Museum there are a number Discoverie of Witchcraft in 1584, a direct of objects associated with Dee including attack on witchcraft persecutions. James had his ‘Shew Stones’, translucent objects this book banned and wrote Daemonologie through which his divinations could be against it. seen. The crystal sphere in the museum If you go to the Salt Tower at the Tower of was claimed to be the one given to Dee by London, you will come across some God through a medium in 1582. It is now incredible graffiti. There is a detailed zodiacal thought this is not the original stone, but diagram on the wall with the words "Hew another. There is also an obsidian mirror Draper of Brystow made this spheere the 30 used by Dee. To get the deep black day of May anno 1561". Hew was an translucent sheen they would rub bat innkeeper in Bristol who had dabbled in the droppings on it. The bats ate insects that John Dee dark arts. A simple man, he had taken it on Sorcerer supreme were only partially digested, so that the himself to study astronomy and carved an skeletons in their faeces were abrasive enough to use astrological globe on the wall. He claimed to have as a fabulous polish! In Mexico the mirrors were also given up sorcery when he was imprisoned but used for divination and were associated with their god plastering evidence of his love of the occult on the Tezcatlipoca, which means "Smoking Mirror". It was walls cannot have helped his cause. The mystery one of the many objects brought to Europe after the remains, as we have no idea what happened to Hew. conquest of Mexico by the Spanish under Cortes, Maybe it is best to leave on the magical thought that between 1527 and 1530. he spirited himself away.

6 guiding news RICH PICKINGS THE RICH GET POORER SELFRIDGES - A SHORT HISTORY Guides may find it difficult to shed tears for In 1906 Harry Gordon Selfridge arrived in billionaires during these hard times but the London and, thinking the capital’s wealth of the thousand richest people in the UK department stores were not very has been reduced by over fifty billion pounds welcoming, spent £400,000 creating as the corona crisis takes its toll. This is the first Selfridge’s at the then unfashionable time the wealth of Britain’s richest people has western end of Oxford Street, believing that been reduced since 2008. Sir James Dyson the new Central Line would bring customers (right) came top in 2020 with a fortune estimated at £16.2 there. Selfridge, who had started as a clerk billion. The Queen, who headed the list when it was started in Selfridge at Marshall Fields in Chicago, knew the 1989, was not among the top 300 wealthiest this year, even and his value of publicity and persuaded John Logie though there are a record twenty five women on the list, which store Baird, to demonstrate his new television at is published by the Sunday Times. his shop in 1925. The richest musicians listed were: “Everyone is welcome” was Selfridge’s catchphrase and his 1 Andrew Lloyd-Webber and Sir Paul McCartney (£800m) philosophy was that, if your store was welcoming, people would 3 Rihanna (£468m) 4 Elton John (£360m) spend money. Other phrases associated with Selfridge are 5 Mick Jagger (£285m) “The customer is always right’ and “There is no fun like work”. 6 Olivia/Dhani Harrison and Keith Richards (both £270m) Even suffragettes were welcomed in the store, which was the 8 Ringo Starr (£260m) and Michael Flatley (both £206m) first to sell lipstick, powder and rouge to lady customers. 10 Ed Sheeran, Rod Stewart and Sting (all £200m). Emmeline Pankhurst had encouraged her followers not to look “dowdy” and Selfridge supported their cause, refusing to press THE QUEEN’S CARS charges against one who had broken one of the shop’s famous Even if she is not at the top of the Rich List any more, the windows, which were always a source of great pride for him. Queen still travels in style. She owns twenty five vehicles, During the Second World War Selfridges housed a vital including two Bentleys valued at £10 million each - although communications headquarters. Members of the Women’s neither is for sale. Designs for these custom built cars were Army Corps who worked there were encouraged to come in based on the Bentley Arnage, but they are nearly a yard longer looking like shoppers and then slip down into the basement for and a foot taller than the standard design. The doors open at their important war work. a ninety degree angle to make it easier to exit and the normal One of London’s most ‘Flying B’ emblem is replaced by a statue of Saint George or famous bears was also the royal coat of arms when the car is used for official duties. conceived in the Toy Department. When the writer Michael Bond The Queen’s came there on a snowy Bentley day just before outside Christmas he noticed a Manchester bear all on his own who railway station. Paddington Bear and Michael Bond seemed, in the author’s words, “so forlorn” and Paddington was born not long afterwards. Younger visitors to Selfridges today can enjoy a free indoor skateboard park where they can practice their skills. Selfridges is owned today by the Galen Weston family and has just reopened for busines so you can see their famous yellow bags (which are made from recycled coffee cups) in Oxford Her Majesty Street once more. To adjust to post-Covid health requirements, leaving all staff have their temperatures taken before coming into work the royal and social distancing will be observed for customers. In the Bentley. words of its founder Harry Gordon Selfridge, however, they still believe that “Everyone is welcome”. If you wish to bring your clients to Selfridges, please contact our colleague and fellow blude badge guide John Sheahan who will be happy to help you. You can email John at: [email protected]. (Thanks to John for info.)

ASSOCIATION OF PROFESSIONAL TOURIST GUIDES 7 www.guidelondon.org July 2020 THE LAW ON TRADE MARKS Former lawyer Rowan Freeland on a tricky area for blue badge guides

Before qualifying as a There is one important exception. It comes from section Blue Badge Guide, 11(2)(c) of the Trade Marks Act 1994 (relevant extract set out Rowan Freeland spent at the end of this note). If you use the registered trade mark to identify the goods or services of the owner of the mark, you will over thirty seven years not infringe. So you can legitimately do a “Tour of locations as a solicitor specialising used in Paddington/Mary Poppins/Harry Potter films”. You do in intellectual property. have to follow “honest practices in industrial or commercial Since he no longer has matters”, so you should not be too clever in how you do this, insurance, you should and you should make sure that there is no possibility that follow his advice at your people might think that your tour is in any way authorised by the trade mark owner. own risk! He is happy to answer further queries. Registered trade marks are a valuable part of a company’s brand. However, if lots of people use the mark so that the word You can email him at: becomes generic, the registration can become invalid, so that [email protected]. when a major competitor comes along and rips off the mark, the owner cannot do anything about it. That is what happened A number of guides are giving walking or other tours of places to Hoover, Linoleum, Escaltor, Heroin and Aspirin (in Europe). relevant to films or books, for example, locations where scenes This is why you read about big brands like McDonalds or from films such as Paddington, Mary Poppins or Harry Potter Harrods threatening small traders who use similar-sounding were filmed. The question has arisen as to how a guide may names. If you are a small business and you are not taking any promote such tours where the name of the film or book is a business away from the trade mark owner, that owner will registered trade mark. usually be more concerned to make sure that you stop using No-one can stop you doing tours of locations used in these the mark than in collecting any damages. As long as you films but they can legitimately object to your using the name of respond to a warning letter sensibly and responsibly, you the film if it is a registered trade mark (which is usually the should be safe. case) as the name of your tour or generally in your blurb. They Trade mark law is full of technicalities, and what I say in this cannot, however, legitimately object to your using the name to piece is a great simplification. There are other ways in which refer to the film, for example: “Tours of locations used in Mary you could resist a claim by the trade mark owner; but since Poppins films”. fighting a claim could set you back a six figure sum, and you Trade marks are registered in respect of specific categories of may not win, you may prefer to stick to the broad picture. goods or services. If someone has a registered trade mark, you Section 11(2)(c) of the Trade Marks Act 1994 says: would infringe it if you use it (or a similar mark) in the course of trade, in relation to the same category of goods or services. “A registered trade mark is not infringed by (c) the use of the There are lots of technicalities, but what this means, on the trade mark for the purpose of identifying or referring to goods 3 Savile Row assumption that they are registered as trade marks for the or services as those of the proprietor of that trade mark, in relevant services, is that you would probably infringe if you do particular where that use is necessary to indicate the intended “Paddington Tours”, “Mary Poppins Tours” or “Harry Potter purpose of a product or service … provided the use is in Tours”. You also need to be careful about using film names as accordance with honest practices in industrial or commercial meta-tags or internet keywords. The law here is tricky and matters.” complicated. Rowan Freeland

This article is about the names of tours offered by guides not the use of images on virtual tours, which will be covered at a later date.

Thanks to Vicki Bick, Augusta Harris, Steve Fallon, Rowan Freeland, John Sheahan, Clariss Skinner, Steve Szymanski, Charlotte Thurlow and all other contributors.

We LOVE getting material from members. Guidelines is your monthly magazine and APTG, 128 Theobald's Road, London WC1X 8TN it is the way we communicate with each other through the medium of hard copy. We Switchboard: 020 7611 2500 welcome articles and photos from members but contributions may be held over and Direct line: 020 7611 2545 we reserve the right to edit them. Images should be high resolution – 300 ppi. [email protected] Editor: Edwin Lerner Please submit all copy and images for the next edition by email to [email protected] by 15 July for inclusion in the next issue. (JN8627) HB131218