I have a Masters in London’s Historical Geography and research London’s communities, government and built environment. I worked for over 30 years in London government, was an elected borough councillor for 8 years, volunteered on school boards and housing association committees and currently volunteer at Brixton’s 200-year-old Windmill. I sing in London’s largest amateur choir, love classical music and theatre and have travelled to over 60 countries.

I mainly guide walking tours of multi-cultural areas of London for universities and schools, and for groups with a particular interest in the history of London’s communities and the immigrants who have shaped them.

Brixton developed as a smart 19th C suburb, an important shopping and entertainment centre. A large Jamaican community arrived from the 1940s, faced discrimination, but believed in better for the next generation. Economic downturn shattered those dreams and insensitive policing in the 1970s led to riots in 1981 and 1985. On this walk we look at how the community and the area recovered. Now Brixton is buzzing, the fast-growing population is much more diverse, over 130 languages are spoken, the markets sell food from five continents, the town centre is alive with music, and world faiths preach peace. But as property values increase at an unprecedented rate so close to central London, and London’s housing crisis deepens, Brixton’s less affluent residents are being squeezed out by new waves of gentrification. Could one of London’s most successful multi-racial communities become a casualty of its own success? From the ‘Front Line’ to the award-winning regeneration of Angell Town, from one of London’s oldest cinemas to its first department store, from Black Cultural Archives to Maggi Hambling’s heron, come and see how the world has shaped Brixton and Brixton has welcomed the world.

Spitalfields, just to the east of the Roman/ Medieval City, now our financial district, has welcomed successive waves of migrants, including Protestant ‘Huguenot’ refugees from France in the late 17th C, Jewish refugees from the pogroms, and most recently a large community from Bangladesh. Each of these communities has left their imprint on the built environment and on London’s economy. We can see evidence of 17th and 18th C silk weaving, tailoring and ‘sweat shops’, churches, synagogues and mosques, the origins of trade unions and socialism, and the different ways that Jewish charities and University ‘settlements’ tackled poverty and brought art and culture to the East End. We look at conflict and tragedy, and at the growth of an established Bangladeshi community celebrating its own history and culture, but constantly under pressure from gentrification.

As well as guiding popular attractions such as Westminster Abbey, the Tower of London, and the V&A Museum, I can also guide walks in Westminster, Legal London, the City of London, along the South Bank, in Docklands, and in more neighbourhoods of south London such as Vauxhall, Kennington and Clapham.