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.
Spring has arrived ... and with lots of tours to enjoy
R200 is underway with lots of events planned throughout the UK celebrating 200 years of train travel since 1825. I am thrilled to have been invited by Network Rail Southern Region to lead tours at three of their iconic stations – Wonderful Waterloo, Underneath the Arches: London Bridge and Victoria: Gateway to the Continent. Tickets are going FAST so book NOW via Eventbrite:
Wonderful Waterloo
Underneath the Arches: London Bridge
Victoria: Gateway to the Continent
DATES and booking links are also the Public Tours page.
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 BOOK NEWS
£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 has been published! 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.
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.