What a  great, though snowy, week I spent in Edinburgh! But now it’s back to London and my regular Walks.

The Haunted Britain trips have been turning up some real gems and the book is set to meet the deadlines in time for its publication on Halloween. I’m off down to Somerset this week ( I couldn’t make it there the other week because I got turned back by the snow) and will be trying to count the stones at Stanton Drew Stone Circle.

The recent snow played havoc with our London ghost walks, but we soldiered on and many of our walkers chose not to take up our offer to transfer to another night. I have to say London was really atmospheric in the snow and, although sub zero, virtually all those who chose to soldier on said how atmospheric it made the old streets of London. Those who we did transfer were very impressed, not to say grateful, that we offered the transfer service. We even phoned people up and actually offered them the option to transfer, and those who had transport problems on the night were also transferred. This is something we’ve been doing ever since we started taking bookings back in 2005. Unlike other London walks we like to limit the number of people on our tours to a sensible and manageable number, which is why we ask people to book in advance. But we also understand that things can go wrong (the recent snow being a great example of this) so we always ask that people call us should they encounter any problems.

In addition we now  have  twelve top flight Blue Badge Guides conducting our tours, several of whom have done tours for other London walks, and they all say how much they prefer our system because it is far simpler and much more guide/client friendly.

A Little Sherlock Holmes Information

I was joined in Edinburgh Mark Ubsdell because part of the reason for being up there, in addition to researching my new Haunted Britain book, was to film the great new documentary we’re working on about Sherlock Holmes and his creator Arthur Conan Doyle. Did you know that when Conan Doyle wrote the first Sherlock Holmes stories he’d spent very little time in London? In fact it was the streets of Edinburgh he was  picturing when he wrote the first stories. I have to say that Edinburgh looked truly magical in the snow and we got some great location shots. We also conducted interviews with several Surgeons at the Royal College of Surgeons; filmed at  the site  of Conan Doyle’s birthplace, from which the statue of Sherlock Holmes is currently missing because of the work on the trams in Edinburgh, and even filmed Dr Joseph Bell’s grave (the man upon the character of Holmes was part based). We also looked at Conan Doyle’s friendships with J. M Barrie and Oscar Wilde.

We’ll be filming in London next week and then the documentary will be all but complete. We’ll post details of when its ready on the website.

In the meantime it’s back to the haunted London walks at weekends and, of course, our nightly Jack the Ripper tour of London.

All the best.

Richard