Unseen Tours

Brixton has now been added to the list of "Unseen Tours" you can take in London. These unique walks are led by guides who are or have been homeless.
Each Unseen Tour has its own personality, uncovering a city’s hidden history and present-day reality from their perspectives. These are tours with a social conscience, appealing to city-dwellers and visitors alike, and anyone who wants to connect with people from different walks of life.

Hazel knows a lot about Brixton and its history that you wont find in the guide books. The squats, the history of the prison, the famous women's march against the drug culture, the Caribbean culture and history are just a few of the things you will be introduced to.

The tours run every Friday at 7pm, and Saturday and Sunday at 3pm.

Tourist Thrills

No we don't intentionally drown tourists, this is something they pay for. Drive around the streets of London then into the river for a quick whip around and back on land again.

Black Cab Tours

What a perfect way to see the best of London in the ultimate London icon, a black cab. Graham is your driver and a trained guide who has a history degree. Black cab drivers have to know every street within a 6 mile radius of the centre of London as part of the "knowledge". More important than any of that Graham is passionate about the London he knows so very well and his enthusiasm is infectious. I now know that the centre of London is not really Trafalgar Square but is actually the statue of Charles I in Whitehall. To be absolutely correct it is the raised hoof of the horse he is riding and all distances are measured from here. Want to know anything about the Beatles? Hendrix? maybe Dickens or Shakespeare? Architecture? Graham's your man. Check out his web site for information on all his tours.

p.s. if you ask him really really nicely he just might let you sit for a moment in the front seat of his cab. If he does make sure you have your camera for a photo you can show off back home.

London's Best Tour

Meet Mark and Viv, my tour guides last Sunday. Unseen Tours will change the way you see London. We left from temple and finished at Gray's Inn Fields. This tour is different as you take in the famous and historic landmarks your guides also weave in the stories of the street. Personal stories of life on the street. You'll have nooks and crannies pointed out to you that are bedrooms and living rooms. Places you might otherwise overlook.

Mark and Viv are homeless as are all the guides with unseen tours.

They are lots of fun, they had me singing a little ditty in Drury Lane and astounded me with their positive and caring outlook on life.

Their stories will make you laugh and cry but more than that you will never feel the same way about the street again.

Make sure you include an Unseen Tour soon.

The brainchild of an organisation sockmob who describe themselves as

" a group of friends engaging with the homeless in London by cutting through the misconceptions, prejudice and fear that often accompany stereotypes of rough sleepers and other vulnerable groups in the city."

Unseen Tours directly contribute to improving the quality of life of some of London's most marginalised people, as the lions share of ticket sales goes to the guides themselves. All profits are reinvested back into Sock Mob Events, a social enterprise, to train more guides and continue to build their skills and creativity.

Behind the Scenes: Outreach and events

Our Behind the Scenes topic this month is cross-departmental, focusing on the outreach and events programme. Although many staff in the Library have duties that involve public-facing work, there are a handful who spend a large proportion of their time planning, managing and carrying out the organised outreach activities.

Tours, Insights talks, and Library Workshops are held on a regular basis at the Library, and these can be booked in advance. Ross Macfarlane (Research Officer) manages tours specifically centred around the Special Collections, and Danny Rees (Assistant Librarian) focuses on the library User Services tours. Strongly focused around our academic audiences, these tours are tailored to meet the interests of each tour group and to ensure that we are giving people a good sense of how the Library’s holdings and services are relevant to them.

Insights talks are managed by Eleanor Lanyon (Library Outreach Officer) currently on secondment to the Wellcome Trust Events Team. The Insights talks are held on a weekly basis (usually on a Thursday), focusing on specific topics relevant to the Library and its holdings such as “The Occult”, “Fascinating Faces” and “Madness”.

Workshops are held a couple times a week and provide a forum for our users to learn more about how to use the Library’s resources more efficiently, to highlight the services that we provide, and to provide more information on research topics. These are managed by Lalita Kaplish (Assistant Librarian) and draw on expertise across the Library staff. Examples include “Wellcome Images” and “Plants and Medicine” among others.

Library also runs one-off or annual events that are geared toward particular audiences and help to raise the profile of the Library in the History of Medicine world and beyond. Phoebe Harkins (Assistant Librarian) is involved in the planning of these including the Medicine in Literature series, where authors who have used the Library collections for their working talk about their research processes. Authors including Phillip Hoare and Mike Jay took part in the launch of the series last year, and Michelle Lovric will be presenting her latest work “The Book of Human Skin” (Bloomsbury 2010) in July.

In order to coordinate all these internal events, a committee including key staff as well as Tracy Tillotson (Library Administrator) meet on a weekly basis. This ensures that there is good cross-departmental communication on all aspects of the events, and assures a high level of quality and relevance for the Library’s users. Tracy is the hub of much of this activity, liaising with the Trust Events team to make sure that Library events are coordinated with the rest of Wellcome Collection and the wider Trust as appropriate.

The Library is not, however, limited to its own four walls – externally-located events are also part of its outreach agenda. Events such as the Midsummer Picnics, activities in schools around medical humanities, and others are planned and managed by Eleanor, targeting a more general audience and younger groups.

The Library’s holdings are also displayed for public consumption in exhibitions. Wellcome Collection exhibitions usually incorporate a number of items, and items are loaned to external museums, galleries and libraries. Rowan De Saulles (Library Exhibition Liaison), manages all aspects of these loans, and is currently working on material to be used in the “Skin” exhibition coming up in Wellcome Collection in June.

Although it is impossible in the space of a blog post to detail all the work that goes into the Library’s outreach activities, it can be seen that there is a dedicated programme, and staff with time dedicated to supporting, promoting and contributing to them. These events add great value to the service the Library provides to its users, allowing our holdings to be used and understood creatively, and leading to a broader and deeper understanding of the subject of the History of Medicine across a wide range of audiences.

Hogwarts Express

The other day I boarded Hogwarts Express, squeezed by the night bus, visited the third hand book shop, dodged the death eaters and more.
Who said 'it was the food'. What was the context and where was he?

Harry Potter fans, Dr Who fans, maybe 007 is more your style. So many movies are made right here in London filmed on location that you can visit and get the inside story.

My voyage with Britmovie Tours was fabulous. Val was incredibly knowledgeable and enthusiastic. The small groups make the tours more intimate and give you a chance to ask loads of questions.