Dear Charnowalkers,

The past fortnight has seen some interesting action. After East End Sundays, Charnowalks moved into February with City Sundays. The first was 'A Settlement Called Londinium', which explores the earliest stages of London's story. Beginning as a small settlement beside the Thames with no status, it became the capital of Roman Britannia within sixty years. The tour is illustrated with scans I took from the Museum of London's archaeological map. After all, we rely on archaeology for Londinium's story. There's very little written information.

City Sundays continue with 'Before the Make-Over', which tunes into echoes of Plantagenet and Tudor London in today's City, 'A Most Horrid Flame', an exploration of the Great Fire's causes and aftermath, and 'Engineering Change', a celebration of how engineering ventures have shaped today's City. You can find details here: http://charnowalks.co.uk/charnowalks-tour-dates

Later this month Footprints of London has a miniseries of tours exploring 'Revolutionary London', which runs into early March. This has been inspired by the centenary this year of the Russian Revolution. Many of London's associations with civil unrest will be explored. My contribution is 'The Unquiet City', a tour which explores nearly 2,000 years of uprisings aimed at the City of London.

As usual I shall be offering a reduced-priced preview for the tour's first outing, at £5 a head: please e-mail me at charnowalks-bgn@yahoo.co.uk if you'd like to come. For full Footprints listings, including the 'Revolutionary London' tours, please see the website: http://footprintsoflondon.com.

This focus on the City doesn't of course mean that I'm putting the East End stuff aside. In fact, currently I'm working on the new Walkie Talkie course, which is scheduled to start in April. It's Part Three, a development of the initial two courses, and while Parts One and Two are five weeks long each, Part Three will be ten weeks long. Also it will involve learners getting out onto the street, rather than the other two classroom-based courses.

It's envisaged that Part One will run annually in September, Part Two in November, and Part Three in April. This will give twenty weeks of tuition. Currently this won't lead to a qualification, but it will give the learner a thorough familiarity with the discipline of guiding, and with the Tower Hamlets. Enrolment is live for Part Three, and as it's the first outing it's being made available to those who haven't followed Parts One and Two. Please e-mail me for further details at this address: David.Charnick@towerhamletslls.ac.uk

Enrolment details are here:
http://www.ideastore.co.uk/course/view/C2535
The course outline is here:
http://www.ideastore.co.uk/assets/documents/Course%20Outlines%20Health/Walkie%20Talkie%20Pt%203.pdf

Well, that's enough to be getting along with for now, so I'll sign off with all good wishes.

Love,

Dave Charnowalks

Charnopicture courtesy of Ana Figueiredo (Old Bailey 2015)