APTG GOES TO THE TOWER On 4 March over three dozen members of twenty different travel trade organisations came to see the Ceremony of the Keys as guests of APTG. They were hosted by a dozen guides, allowing us to share a very fine evening at the Tower and giving us a chance to show our special relationship with HRP and the Yeoman Warders. We funded drinks in the Yeoman Warders’ Club and each guide was given an up to date briefing before the event. This meant we could take the opportunity to explain the breadth of our knowledge, skills and languages combined with the ease of booking via the GuideLondon website. This is one of the ways your Branch Council is bringing work opportunities to APTG members. The evening was an uplifting experience and Yeoman Warder John Donald was a witty and knowledgeable host. The Ceremony was carried out by Gurkhas, commanded there for the first time by a female officer. The final, perfect ending came when the salute was taken by the Constable of the APTG Chair Nick Hancock and Yeoman Warder John Donald Tower General Sir Nicholas Houghton who, in his final words, made specific mention of guides being guests that night. Truly we have friends in high places! Over £300 was raised by the THE TOWER COMES TO APTG raffle for YW chosen charities and Nick Hancock gave an Yeoman Warder and Tower extra £250 from the Guild and APTG. Ravenmaster Chris Skaife (left) gave an entertaining presentation to APTG members MEMBERS OPEN MEETINGS before the March Members’ The next Members Open Meeting will be on Tuesday 9 Open Meeting at the Unite April at 6:30 pm in the Unite Office, WC1X 8TN. Office. Wearing a fetching red cravat and a waiscoat, he There will be a pre-meeting talk from speaker Matt Brown, described his working life, editor of the Londonist website. introduced us to the birds in his care and warned that ravens could be dangerous and should FUTURE MEETING DATES be treated with respect. This years meetings will be held on the following dates; 14 May, 9 July, 10 September and 8 October. Chris explained that a group of ravens is a ‘conspiracy’ (or an The Annual General Meeting will be on 10 December ‘unkindness’ - a phrase he avoids). He also claimed that the ravens picked him rather than the other way around. As a new yeoman warder he was sent to stand next to them and, as he did not collapse in fear, he soon found himself looking after the birds. He showed us the Ravenmaster badge (below) which he proudly wears on his Also in this issue: uniform and told us of some of the amusing events which have COLIN STREET OBITUARY - PAGE 3 happened to him, which can be read about in his book Ravenmaster. He also LANCASTER & MARLBOROUGH said that, like most Yeoman Warders, he HOUSES - PAGES 4 and 5 specialises in good stories and that, if you want to hear anything true about the JEWISH LONDON WALK - PAGE 7 Tower of London you should always ask a blue badge guide! BAZALGETTE 200 - PAGE 8 ASSOCIATION OF PROFESSIONAL TOURIST GUIDES www.guidelondon.org.uk April 2019 Union News LETTERLETTER FROM FROM THE THE CHAIR CHAIR Earlier this week I began to Chair our Members Open Meeting. The Diskus Suite was packed with scarcely a free seat to be had. Naturally I thought everyone had come to hear the minutes being read, hanging on my every word of thrilling amendments and corrections. I soon realised that the crowd had been drawn to hear the Ravenmaster tell of his life and very special role at the Tower. Sadly, no indoor flying raven display was possible but it was still a spellbinding talk. We have more lined up for the rest of the year - the editor of the Londonist (on Tuesday 9 April), a Mudlarker and many others. This is something we are offering to APTG members as part of our Thirtieth Anniversary. We are the association that is focussed on supporting London Blue Badge Guides and we want to offer a wide variety of events to appeal to everyone. After excellent cookies and biscuits provided by Lottie Thurlow, the meeting resumed. Blue Badge Guiding in Parliament came to an abrupt stop recently as Visitor Services decided to change the way they offered tours. Believing jaw-jaw is always better than war-war we have continued our dialogue, keeping the door open to future work for blue badge guides. It is a tribute to our thirty year history that we can gather to hear each other’s views and thoughts, being challenging but always dignified and respectful. The meeting ran on to let everyone have their say and be listened to attentively. We should be proud that we can do this, to hold a constructive discussion sharing information and views. Perhaps we could even act as a role model for Parliament? There are no easy answers and we must keep our eyes focussed on the future as we cannot rewrite the past, much as we would like to. Finally, please update your availability on GuideMatch. We are getting record numbers of work enquiries - all of them looking for an APTG Guide. We need to meet that demand so log on, fill in your diary and, if you need any help, just ask. Lastly, come to the next MOM on Tuesday 9 April and enjoy another free CPD. Nick Hancock GUIDE LONDON REPORT YOUR BRANCH COUNCIL There were 25 ,613 unique visitors In February, the fifth consecutive month with over 20,000. 26% are from the USA, our top country for leads. 241 leads were Nick Hancock (Chair) generated with most via individual tour pages. This is thirty fewer than in January but Ruth Polling (Secretary) I am not concerned as we had three days less and are not yet in peak season. Alfie Talman (Treasurer) Sue Hadley (CPD) Top tours requested via GuideMatch : Tower of London Tour (19 leads); Alex Hetherington (Marketing/FEG) Westminster Abbey Tour (10); Classic London (10); Churchill War Rooms (5); Edwin Lerner (Guidelines) Charles Dickens (4); Windsor Castle (4) and National Gallery (4). Danny Parlour (Site Liaison) New blog posts: Liz Rubenstein (Debt Recovery) Seven Sites in London Connected to David Bowie by Edwin Lerner Steve Szymanski (Vice Chair) A Tale of Three Paintings – Where to Start at the National Gallery by Anna Targett. Charlotte Thurlow (Social Events) Anne-Marie Walker (Membership) Anne Pollak has taken up the mantle of Blog Editor and will also do blog post Katie Wignall (Social Events) outreach. New blog posts are essential to increasing the website traffic and leads, and so I hope we can increase the number of new posts added each month. Anne-Marie Walker An Important message for foreign language guides! As we approach the tourist is responsible for season and also begin to work on the foreign language website project, we would membership matters encourage those foreign language guides who have not yet enabled their profiles to and hosted APTG’s do so! This will ensure that you are in the mix for foreign language GuideMatch leads reception for new and be discovered via Find A Guide searches. The website needs a majority of guides recently. guides to register to deliver accurate results via both search methods. CORRECTION Moving forward, I will be using the [email protected] email address for Apologies to Muriel Carre who was called communication about the Guide London /APTG website. Melanie in the article she wrote on David Thompson’s city walk in the March issue. Ursula Petula Barzey 2 Union News COLIN STREET My first meeting with Colin was NEW GUIDES RECEPTION when we both worked at We welcomed the year of Shakespeare’s Globe in the late 2019 trainees to our New ‘90s. Colin had just taken early Guides Reception on 13 retirement from teaching and was March. After a great walk ready for new challenges. His with Alfie Talman on ‘101 background as an English ways to do the Guard Literature teacher made him an Listening intently Change’ they then had an ideal guide for the Globe and, hour of ‘How to plan my soon after starting, he was first pano’ presented by Ruth Polling and Mike persuaded by those of us who Whalley, followed by an hour and a half of all sorts of had taken the City and Blue useful info. Badge courses to expand his guiding activities. Colin was Thank goodness we a popular group member on both guiding courses gaining rounded it all off with a his Blue Badge in 2004. Subsequently he was in demand good reception in true as a guide and became a respected examiner and lecturer APTG fashion with plenty on literature for the London Blue Badge course. of food and drink. Thanks to all those Our shared love of all things literary and theatrical meant involved, too many to that I worked with Colin on many occasions for groups mention, but especially to requesting Shakespeare, Dickens, Wilde and the Isabel Wrench for Owen Joseph socialising Bloomsbury Set walking tours. The groups loved him and organising the food and several requested I invited him back to co-lead future tours. drink side of things and to Anne-Marie Walker for They appreciated his knowledge, enthusiasm and good pulling it all together. We look forward to welcoming humour. Colin and his wife Louise became good friends the new guides to APTG once they get those results! and we often met socially away from the guiding environment.