Halloween. My friend Ms Lucy Madison organises a spooky walking tour of the Middle Temple, Fleet Street and environs. Why? Because she likes doing it. Appropriately, she’s come straight from the set of Most Haunted Live, the popular TV show on which her boyfriend works. Some 30 odd people turn up, and it’s all great fun. She tells us dozens of local ghost stories, and points out locations like The Blackfriar pub – an outrageously ornate Art Nouveau hostelry. I later discover this was saved from demolition by Mr Betjeman.
Other tour highlights: the oldest working clock in London. A cavernous pub intact since 1666. Dr Johnson’s House. The banqueting hall in the Temple which the Harry Potter films use for the school hall. Temple Church, where we hear choirboys practising into the night. Actually, the whole Temple area of London is far more like Oxford than the capital. A different world. People ‘ssssh!’ each other as they pass in the lanes. The Sweeney Todd barber and pie shop locations, which she reassures us are fictional. I did know this, yet still need reminding. A clear indication of the strength of the tale. And a LOT of Dickens locations as featured in his novels. I do like fictional guided tours. They always seem more real than any actual history.
“This is the flat where, in Great Expectations, Pip discovers that his mysterious benefactor is –”
“Oh no, I’m in the middle of reading that!” complains David B. He’s not joking. So I’ve edited out the end of Ms Madison’s inadvertent spoiler, just in case you too have yet to finish Great Expectations in any form, Dear Reader. In which case, what are you waiting for?
I return home to find my front door refreshingly free of egg splatters. Happy Halloween.
