London has been a smokeless zone for over sixty years. The city used to be famous for its ‘London fogs.’ They were described by the novelist Charles Dickens and even led to the creation of a type of American rainwear called London Fog. Then the Clean Air Acts were passed in the late 1950s and 1960s, largely as a reaction to the ‘great smog’ of 1952 and London Fogs gradually became a thing of the past that will hopefully never be seen again.

It is not known to many people, but William Shakespeare began his theatrical career in the East End of London rather the place most often associated with him – Southwark, the area to the south of London Bridge. Sam Wannamaker, the American actor and director, felt that Shakespeare deserved a monument in London, the city where he made his fame and fortune. Wannamaker decided to rebuild the Globe Theatre in Southwark near the Tate Modern Museum and raised the money from donors to do so.

Blue Badge Tourist Guides on a tour of London will probably go through Trafalgar Square in the centre of the city. One of its most striking features is the sculpture on display on the northwest side of the Square. Known simply as ‘The Fourth Plinth,’ it remained empty until 1999. It was consistently rumoured that a statue of the late Queen Elizabeth II was planned for this space but she had a very long life and died at the age of 96 in 2022.