Historian, author and popular prize-winning Blue Badge Guide, Rachel Kolsky has one of the widest range of walking tours and visits in London. BOOK YOUR OWN PRIVATE GROUP TOUR for as many people as you want or BOOK INDIVIDUAL TICKETS for the pre-arranged PUBLIC TOURS.

Autumn is here ... and hurtling by already

Autumn is whizzing by … but what has been going in the land of Rachel?
Not too much actually!! But I was so lucky to see two super plays this month – Giant with John Lithgow playing Roald Dahl and now you cannot imagine anyone else playing that part. 
That said, if it does transfer to another theatre or NY do try and see it … it was excellent. The second play was a short one-hander written and performed by Kara Wilson (actress wife of Tom Conti) who portrayed the very publicity shy Beryl Cook. Do catch that if it transfers. In the audience was the lady who ‘discovered’ Beryl’s work when she was staying at Beryl’s BnB. If you are interested in emigre artists and sculptors then pop to The Wiener Library to see the Fred Kormis exhibition – it is small but packed with pieces by him – many symbolising capture and release. The sun shone just when I needed it to when I explored Chelsea (speccing out a new tour for you!!) to see the Chihuly glass – just gorgeous and then inside the Garrison Chapel the King’s Foundation’s exhibition showcased his initiative at Dumfries House in Scotland encouraging the very best of training and work in textiles. I found not only the Frances Segelman busts of QEII, Prince Phillip and KC3 but also the most delightful embroidered frog (and curiously had found a cute stained glass frog only a week before – at St Thomas’s Hospital)  … wait for it … the Knitted Birthday Cake that was presented to KC3 for his 75th birthday – see here!
We are truly blessed in London to see so much artwork, sculpture and creativity all for free and often when we are least expecting it. 
There were not many tours in October but all were super- some of my favourites and a new one too. Stuart was a bit taken aback in Stamford Hill when he saw the new paintwork on his childhood home, I had to shout out ‘He’s behind you’ when we visited the dinos at Crystal Palace and at Turnham Green and Ealing, there were lots of locals in the groups – past and present – keeping me on my toes ensuring I got everything right!
Anyway, enough of the past, let’s look to the future … the February to April 2025 programme has been finalised and hopefully there is something that’ sounds appealing.
The full list is on the Public Tours page and I have tried to cover all your requests for Sundays, afternoons and repeat dates for Sold Out tours … and for those who have been everywhere with me there
are NEW routes too!
Next year will be a special one as 2025 commemorates my GUIDING SILVER JUBILEE! Can you believe it (I can’t), I will have been a qualified guide for 25 years and so next year some of the tours will be those that are special for me. The first one is in March but there will be more!
There are so many fabulous exhibitions on in London at the moment but this one is a joy … Replica Food at The Japan House in Kensington. This vertical beef burger is just one of the most amazing selections of resin moulded foods which look good enough to eat. Such things began as educational tools and then explained ‘western’ foods to potential diners in Japan and are now used also for such things as diet advice and portion control.


Paddington is everywhere in London at the moment when he is supposed to be on holiday in Peru. Here he is greeting everyone as they walk towards the South Bank at Waterloo

ART … more wonderful art exhibitions to discover in London. We are so lucky. The Marie Louise von Motesiczky at Burgh House was small but fascinating. This 1960s painting took my fancy as it called Two Women on a Ship and could be my sister and I!! The filing cabinet overlaid with a memory stick is a detail from a brilliant Michael Craig-Martin piece at the Royal Academy. Called Then and Now, he has overlaid different dinosaur things with the new technical versions eg a big TV with flat screen, a book with a kindle, a cassette with wifi for streaming. Very simple but very effective. 

MORE FASHION! MORE ART! I managed to get to the BIBA exhibition before it closed. It was small but filled with memories. This green dress has lots of BUTTONS and you all know how buttons were part of my childhood as Pa made them! Biba was a client of his and I remember him sighing over how fiddly the small buttons were to make. Onto another B … Bournemouth and at at the Russell-Cotes Museum there was an exhibition of de Belleroche who I am ashamed to say I had never heard of. Gosh, his works were amazing and just had Rachel written all over them … he did lots of lithographs too. This is Leone from 1910.

Funny the things that people notice and I do not. Thank you Jeremy for noticing the street sign I was standing alongside near  Barnes Bridge station while the group was assembling for the new tour of Barnes village

Another favourite place is Beamish. I visit every two years but this year was special as the 1913  Grand Cinema from Ryhope has been rebuilt there brick by brick and opened in the new 1950s town just ten days before my visit. It is fabulous and they show the most delightful pastiche 1950s ads, trailers and a short about Alan the glove puppet going to the dolls hospital. Do go!! For anyone who loves cinema it is a must!

Could Fortnum & Mason have named a chocolate bar any better for me? Thank you Fortnum’s and thank you Deborah for finding it. I love the way it uses an * in M*lk as it is a vegan version so not really milk!! I am going to use that as my tagline from now on – IN HER FOOTSTEPS WE FOLLOW

OUT AND ABOUT and TOUR NEWS

A NEW BOOK BY RACHEL AND LOUIS
ARRIVED IN THE SHOPS ON 15th NOVEMBER 2024
£10.00 will be your special discounted price when ordered directly via Rachel, instead of the rrp of £15.99 

London’s North Bank in 50 Buildings was published in mid-November! Complementing South Bank in 50 Buildings the new book profiles our favourite buildings along the north side of the Thames between Vauxhall Bridge and Tower Bridge. Interspersed with instantly recognisable landmarks we hope to reveal many overlooked or under-known architectural treasures including ICI and Unilever HQs, Millbank Tower, ‘Big Benzene’, Trinity House, a Christian Mission, Carmelite House and Sion Hall.

Eagle Eats is one of my new eatable finds. Duncan Eagles is a musician from south London who bakes in his spare time and I found his wares at the weekend food market outside the Royal Festival Hall. His brownies are fabulous but his peanut butter sandwich cookies were divine. You cannot just buy one, trust me!! 

Westgate was my childhood holiday home from 1963 to 1971 and it was glorious to revisit this summer with my sister and cousins for a trip down memory lane. The beach huts are all brightly decorated now and a bistro on the promenade plus one of the best bakeries – Staple – but basically Westgate is exactly the same as we left it – the Carlton Cinema, the shops, the awnings, the perfect beach and even our self-catering holiday flat which is now a care home. 

I was treated to a day out in and around Overton where the first stop at 11.00am in the morning was a gin neat on the rocks followed by a tour of the Sapphire Gin distillery housed in the ex- Portals paper mill and printing works. It is a super visit and the glass houses were designed by the genius Thomas Heatherwick to look like distilling stills.

A HIGHLIGHT FROM THE ZOOMING WHICH I JUST DO NOT WANT TO DELETE FROM THE SITENB50 – COVER! Check out these yellow arrows! One points to Sidney Ruback as an 18 year old watching the Beatles last live concert on the top of the Apple offices on the 30th January 1969 and the other points to the Zooming version of Sidney as he told his story to everyone at Beatles’ London on 21st May 2020. Thank you so much for coming along Sidney.  BEATLES’S LONDON  was the Zoom presented most often … both for my public Zooms and also for  private groups too. 

Louis and I kept busy during Lock-Down preparing our new LONDON GUIDE BOOK. But very frustratingly the publication date has been put on hold – indefinitely –  but that will not stop us trying to make it  happen – we just do not know when it will be in bookshops. It is called London Stations: Tours Behind the Termini. I met so many of you on my Behind the Termini tours when I first devised them ten years ago and now, just like my Jewish-themed and Women-themed walks, they were to be put into print. My co-author is photographer Louis Berk whom you know through our series of Whitechapel books. Look out for more news as and when we have it. 

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and the public walk schedule.

BOOKS BY RACHEL

Women’s London continues to sell well – thank you so much!  I always keep some stock too for those who who would like a signed copy for someone. Please email me to order copies.
IMPORTANT NEWS: It has come to my notice that many shops, even well known and respected bookshops are selling the old version of Women’s London. If you buy from a bookshop please check that the edition is the Reprinted and Updated version of 2019.You know it is the right version if it has the wonderful soundbite review in the bottom left hand corner (see image). If that is not there … the bookshop is selling the old version and advise them of this and contact me with the name of the shop so that the publishers can rectify this. I can assure you that the publisher is not distributing the old version but that bookshops have obtained them from a different source. Apparently this happens a lot in the book selling trade. If you need a copy urgently then please email me as I keep some in stock

 

Many of you have written to me saying how much you are enjoying reading this book. Thank you …  and if you can find a moment or two do please pop a review on Amazon. It really does help spread the word.

There were such wonderful Meet the Author events linked to Women’s London. You came and heard me speak several times for  International Women’s Day / Month soon after the launch at the LSE. Since then events have been held by Camden Historical Society, Guildhall Library, Jewish Book Week, In Conversation with Inspirational Women, Limmud After Darkand even on Cunard’s Queen Victoria! Book themed tours include – Suffragette City Routemaster Bus Tour, Women of Worth, Hampstead Ladies, Westminster Women, Hackney Heroines … and MORE!!!

Jewish London, my first book continues to sell and is now in its Third Edition! It has proved a real success for the publisher so thank you everyone for continuing to buy copies. It is available in all good bookshops … and in the libraries on all the Cunard Queens too,  QM2, Queen Victoria and Queen Elizabeth! Click on the book cover left for reviews and book events.