Tag: Westminster
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The Strongest Man on Earth
An old song drifts through Tower Hamlets Cemetery in October 2017. History is full of old tunes and for our Halloween tour, myself and Pauly Kendrick sang Alec Hurley’s hit ‘The Strongest Man on Earth’ at his graveside. You know the song, don’t you? It was the song everyone was humming in November 1889. But why…
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Scar of the Somme
One hundred years ago tomorrow, a terrible event happened that would change the face of British warfare, forever robbing the lives of men and boys, not to mention sons, daughters, nieces and nephews who would never get the chance to be born. This week, we invite Westminster Guide Charlie Foreman of London War Walks to give…
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The Life and Death of William Terriss
Frederick Lane had not slept well. As the understudy to one of the leading lights of the Victorian acting world, his mind was already fraught with nerves, but the dream he’d endured the night before had shaken him badly. In this dream he had seen: ‘…Mr Terriss, lying in the landing, surrounded by a crowd,…
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Death in Bayswater
A department store was perhaps the most fitting place for this man to die. But not in the way he actually did. I was supposed to be researching a tour along a canal the following day, yet there I was, making a bee-line for Kensal Green Cemetery, walking a mile off course to find the…
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Throughout the Sodden Streets
When it’s miserable outside, some of our trustiest friends end up as casualties as they do their best to keep us dry. Extraordinary gales finish off many of the weak or the elderly. Poignantly, they lie abandoned in the streets, many different generations left to decay amongst the slush of street life. I am of…
Cemetery Club 