
Streets Ahead is the column
from London Walks' Pen & Daily Constitutional David
Tucker…
It’s a strange business the business of getting from A to B. Can be, anyway.
On a train journey it’s the actual chug chugging away – the clickety
clack getting over the ground, the passing scenery – that satisfies.
The stops along the way – this station, that station, the
next station – feel like downtime. Sort of like what Americans call “TV
timeouts” in American football games. Everything stops, the players stand
around all but fiddling their thumbs while Papa John is flogging his pizzas on
100 million television screens from Boring, Oregon to Why, Arizona.
You get the idea. You’re going to Brighton from Blackfriars
the eight (or whatever it is) stops along the way are so many knots in a
thread. A series of Checkpoint Charlies that have to be if not endured at least
patiently put up with. Waited out.
Oh, there are exceptions. Perhaps a station name –
Whifflesplatter – that momentarily diverts. Or maybe a “scene” on the platform –
a throwback, a commuter in pin stripes with a bowler, brolly and monocle
cruising along the platform on a monocycle (I’d go to Whifflesplatter to see
that). Or a passionately hugging couple each of whom is multitasking – i.e.,
simultaneously gazing deep into the screen of his or her iphone.
To say nothing of “the Larkin moment”…
At
first, I didn’t notice what a noise
The weddings made
Each
station that we stopped at: sun destroys
The
interest of what’s happening in the shade,
And
down the long cool platforms whoops and skirls
I
took for porters larking with the mails,
And
went on reading. Once we started, though,
We
passed them, grinning and pomaded, girls
In
parodies of fashion, heels and veils,
All
posed irresolutely, watching us go,
As
if out on the end of an event
Waving goodbye
To
something that survived it. Struck, I leant
More
promptly out next time, more curiously,
And
saw it all again in different terms:
The
fathers with broad belts under their suits
And
seamy foreheads; mothers loud and fat;
An
uncle shouting smut; and then the perms,
The
nylon gloves and jewellery-substitutes,
The
lemons, mauves, and olive-ochres that
Marked
off the girls unreally from the rest.
Yes, from cafés
And
banquet-halls up yards, and bunting-dressed
Coach-party
annexes, the wedding-days
Were
coming to an end. All down the line
Fresh
couples climbed aboard: the rest stood round;
The
last confetti and advice were thrown,
And,
as we moved, each face seemed to define
Just
what it saw departing: children frowned
At
something dull; fathers had never known
Success
so huge and wholly farcical;
The women shared
The
secret like a happy funeral;
While
girls, gripping their handbags tighter, stared
At
a religious wounding. Free at last,
And
loaded with the sum of all they saw,
We
hurried towards London, shuffling gouts of steam.
Now
fields were building-plots, and poplars cast
Long
shadows over major roads, and for
Some
fifty minutes, that in time would seem
Just
long enough to settle hats and say
I nearly died,
A
dozen marriages got under way.
They
watched the landscape, sitting side by side
—An
Odeon went past, a cooling tower,
And
someone running up to bowl—and none
Thought
of the others they would never meet
Or
how their lives would all contain this hour.
I
thought of London spread out in the sun,
Its
postal districts packed like squares of wheat:
There
we were aimed…
The Whitsun Weddings
But the monocle on the monocycle and the
Whitsun Weddings are the exceptions that prove the rule. For the most part the
stops are downtime – after each one we all glance at the electronic scoreboard
overhead to see how many more stops before we get to our stop, get to where
we’re going.
Now on a walking tour it’s just the opposite.
The stops are what count. The guide stops the group because there’s something
interesting there to see, something to look at. It’s full-on sensory: we’re
seeing and we’re hearing what the guide’s got to say about what we’re looking
at.
The stops are the currants in the bun.
A precise reversal.
Or is it?
Yes, here it comes – the “turn.” This post
is in praise of “downtime” on a walking tour. The intervals, the “between
stops.” The unheralded, unsung and under appreciated. Let’s give them their due.
Here’s why they’re good.
1. They’re
an opportunity for short bursts of socialising. (And hey, what’s not to like
about short bursts of socialising? They open a door a crack. Cracks are good –
they let the light in.) If the burst is a beaut, well, it can be built on.* If
the burst is a bust, no big deal.
2. The
“between stops” on a walking tour are an opportunity for free range gazing.
Looking around on your own. What’s not to like about a bit of free range
gazing?
3. The
“between stops” on a walking tour are a chance for a 1-2-1 with the guide. Got
a question for him? Get up there on the point with him. Or her.
4. The
“between stops” are a chance for a burst of mental R & R. A chance to put
your mind in glide. Suck up a couple bursts of refresh and recharge.
5. The
“between stops” are a chance to do some notebook jotting or instagramming or
texting or step-counter checking.
6. The
“between stops” are a chance to mull. A guide’s just said, for example,
“Chamberlain got a piece of paper at Munich; Hitler got the Sudetenland” –
well, a chance to turn that one over in your mind and shake your head in assent
might well be called for.
7. The
“between stops” are a chance to take survey of what you’re doing and where you
are and who you’re with. Take survey, take stock and, chances are, feel pretty
satisfied, pretty beatific.
8. The
“between stops” are a chance to take the long view – to reflect that
“educationally” walking tours have the best pedigree going. That this was the
way Aristotle taught. His Peripatetic school at the Lyceum Temple in ancient
Athens. Peripatetic, which today means travelling from place to place, referred
originally to the colonnades in the temple and out into the garden. Like a
London Walks guide and a group of walkers Aristotle and his students would walk
a bit – “we’ll stop at that next colonnade” – whereupon he’d point something
out, explain something, then they’d walk some more. There’d be another stop.
More pointing out, more points taken in. You think about it there’s something
very fine, something companionable and agreeable about the architecture of the
set-up, be it a London Walk in 2016 or a peripatetic lecture in Athens in 335
BCE. Bears repeating: that’s a pretty good pedigree. I’ll take it. Take it and
feel pretty good about it. As will most of our walkers – the merry band of good
folk from Timbuktu to Tighnabruaich who’ve made the happy discovery of that
gentle, fun, civilised, companionable, stimulating, informative, good humoured
thing to do in London – a London Walk.
*As TravelMom269 from California put it in
a very recent Trip Advisor review (in the event, it was my, David’s, Belgravia
Pub Walk they’d been on): “London Walks changed the way we want to visit a
city!...We were about 15 in our evening walk with David, and enjoyed an
in-depth wander around the Belgravia area, stopping in at four classic
neighborhood pubs along the way. David is a pleasure, and this
thought-provoking walk gave us a chance to compare impressions and perspectives
with people from multiple countries (over a pint, of course!). This is
something you simply can't do if you are on a bus tour!”










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