A Dickens of a Podcast

January 10, 2022 Comments Off

David Charnick was recently asked to help historian Dan Snow with an episode of History Hit podcast, based around David’s walk A Dickens of a City.

It was on 8 December, a cold but clear Wednesday morning, that I met a genuine giant of history called Dan Snow. I had the honour of giving my tour A Dickens of a City to Dan and his people, to be recorded for inclusion on his History Hit podcast. Brandishing the recording equipment was Mariana Des Forges, a Senior Producer with History Hit and the overseer of Dan’s podcast.

We began in the shadow of the parish church of St George the Martyr on Borough High Street and made our way northwards. As I took the group to the sites on the tour associated with London’s emergence from Georgian times to Victorian, Dan and his team were an ideal audience. It was easy to forget that we were recording the item for transmission. Instead we discussed ideas and enjoyed the visual details around us.

Of course, the practicalities of recording intruded from time to time. Thankfully most of the tour’s route is off of the main roads, but there were places where background noise was too intrusive. This meant using our ingenuity to find places where we could get enough ambient sound to maintain the outdoor feeling, but not so much of it that we wouldn’t be heard.

Much of the pleasure of being with Dan and the team was their enthusiasm. The inscribed paving stones on the site of the Marshalsea Prison were popular with them, and Dan picked up on the prison-like feeling you get there on Angel Place with the Brutalist post-war buildings hemming you in on the northern side.

And of course the George Inn on Borough High Street was received very well, being decked out in its festive finery for Christmas. As we were chatting, a delivery man obliged us by running his trolley around the inn’s cobbled yard so it could be recorded as a sound effect.

Of course there were challenges, most particularly when we got to the north side of Southwark Cathedral. We intended to record by the riverside, but a fire alarm was ripping through the air. As it happened we were able to record in a small corner right by the river. Inevitably, just as we finished we noticed that the alarm had stopped and everyone had gone back inside! Curiously enough, among the people milling around in the cold was a fellow Footprints of London guide, Daniella King.

The tour features moments in A Christmas Carol, and given the time of year, this was quite appropriate. We reflected in the narrow Bengal Court on the loneliness of Ebenezer Scrooge in his rooms when Jacob Marley comes to call, in a time before office blocks. In the churchyard of St Peter Cornhill we thought of the unhealthily crowded churchyard where Scrooge is taken by the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come. And we finished on a positive note by the statue of George Peabody on Threadneedle Street, an example of the many philanthropists addressing crises in Victorian London, just as the reformed Scrooge goes on to address those wrongs Jacob Marley sees but cannot help to alleviate.

My morning with Dan, Mariana and the team was hugely enjoyable. The atmosphere was relaxed and it felt like strolling around with friends, pointing out items of interest such as the timber-framed building next to the Blue Eyed Maid pub on Borough High Street, and the arms of George III on the King’s Arms pub on Newcomen Street. Incidents like a procession of women pushing children in pushchairs through the confines of Bengal Court reminded us of the variety of experience to be had whilst out and about in the City.

I had a great time, and I’m very grateful to Dan for agreeing to feature my tour on his podcast: it was added on 23 December. Also I’m exceedingly grateful to Mariana for arranging everything, and to the rest of the team, who were a thoroughly engaged and enthusiastic audience.

You can join David on his Dickens of a City Walk on 29th January. There’s also an online Virtual Tour version of A Dickens of a City on 18th January.

You can hear History Hit Podcast here.