Travelling Through... London, the World and Life

“We’re here for you, whoever you are.” CANON GILES GODDARD is the Vicar of St John’s Waterloo and St Andrew's Church in London SE1. His challenge is one that many face while living and serving in a fast-paced multi-cultural, socially diverse, and gender diverse city such as London in the 21st century. “We’re quite famous for being inclusive.” Giles talks about his mission as Vicar responsible for...

"Stories Are Vehicles of Powerful Messages" CALVIN NILES is a Communication Coach and Mindful Storyteller. He is an author, poet and founder of SOAR Book Club. Calvin also hosts a number of podcasts including Stories of Awakening and Mindful Conversations. Calvin’s mission is to guide and inspire others along their own work and life path by empowering authentic and impactful communication through...

JOHN BOLD is an architectural historian who specialises in English architecture and European heritage management. He was Head of Architecture for the Royal Commission on Historical Monuments, as well as Reader in Architecture at the University of Westminster, and continues to be a consultant on heritage management to the Council of Europe. John is Honorary Editor of the Ancient Monuments Society,...

In 2009 Emma Carmichael (your podcast host) left her Council of Europe job as a conservation heritage professional in southeast Europe, and travelled across the Balkans in a vintage Zastava 750 classic car (a hugely respected rustic relic from the former Yugoslavia era). In 2019, Emma published DRIVING TITO: Through The Balkan Backroads With A Celebrity which recounts her journey, experiencing the...

"Why would you wait until you are seventy? Now’s the time to tell your story!" LEONORA MERIEL : author – entrepreneur – businesswoman – mother "I like to live very brightly. Life is full of excitement waiting to happen." LEONORA is a writer of literary fiction embracing a range of genres. She has two books published and two in the pipeline for publication this year. Leonora’s writing style is extr...

“When you’ve got a relationship with a writer who just gets what you’re up to… You just have the feeling that I can be really funny in this.” NIGEL PLANER is an actor, singer, songwriter, and author - amongst many other attributes - and is forever associated with his role as Neil in the 1980s cult comedy series The Young Ones. Today we are talking about Nigel’s latest book, Jeremiah Bourne In Time...

“Winter camps are deliciously empty. It’s kind of been my survival thing for this COVID year that never seems to end. It’s nice to just relax, And just sit in the outdoors.” HOLLY WORTON is an author, podcaster, publishing strategist, personal and business coach, long distance walker, ultra-marathon runner, lover of nature and trainee druid. Despite all these things going on in her life, I was abl...

EMMA, your podcast host, persuades her partner STEPHEN MARRIOTT (author, traveller and podcaster) to join her for a New Year's Eve walk on Wimbledon Common and reflect on what London, the world and life has meant to him in 2021. What has 2021 meant to you? Perhaps our chat will encourage you to consider what the year has meant to you wherever you are in the world. May 2022 bring you peace, laughte...

ANTJE KUNST is an International Lawyer, Childs’ Rights Advocate, and a Barrister (Lincoln’s Inn). She was born in Friesland near the Nordsee in Germany but her working life as a lawyer has nearly always been abroad. It began in India from where her love of the country flourished. She subsequently worked in the Gaza Strip from 1999 for over 5 years and then came to Kosovo with the United Nations. H...

“What Can I Find Out, What Does It Tell Me? I May Never Know, So I’m Okay With That”   ALICIA COLSON is an Archaeologist and Ethno-historian. Both disciplines have a huge role to play in protecting our environment as well as our human connections to the environment. Alicia’s PhD research involved a complete survey of the Lake of the Woods in Ontario, Canada’s section of the Boreal Forest – the res...

JENNIFER WALLACE is a literature academic and an author of fiction and non-fiction. Her most recent works are Digging The Dirt, Digging Up Milton (brilliantly imagined from minimal primary information, and set in London’s St Giles, Cripplegate in the heart of the Barbican, and Tragedy Since 9/11. Jennifer splits her time between writing in London and fulfilling her role as Director of Studies in E...

GERRY KING writes autobiographical fiction – commonly referred to as auto-fiction. Amongst other writings, he is the author of Lubin Tales and Smoke and Other Tales. His most recent book published by Tangent Books in September 2021 is entitled Come Back To Me, Then Go Away. Gerry was born in Battersea (south London) and spent his early years there, Surrey and then Torquay. His father is the famous...

VITORIA SANVICENTE is Italian, although born in Brazil. She was brought up in the Piedmont region of northern Italy, but now considers herself a “Water-pudlian” – a term she has created for those living in Waterloo, London. Vitoria loves this area and so it’s no wonder that she persuaded her family to bring their gelato business to Lower Marsh. I was lucky enough to catch up with her recently to f...

LOUISA HOOPER is a Londoner born and bred. She was a regular customer at Travelling Through bookshop not suprisingly as she studied literature at University and equally has a penchant for travel. In 2019 Louisa took a three month sabbatical from her work with the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation to travel across Russia, through Japan, China, Australia, New Zealand and the Philippines. During her tra...

TAYO JAIYESIMI is also known as The Five To Nine Traveller : because life is more than your 9 to 5. Tayo is first generation British/Nigerian and describes herself as a "Londoner by birth, a Jordie lass by nurture with Nigerian spice". She considers her five to nine life as precious in which she can explore, dance, travel and "do all the other bits away from work". Tayo believes that the black exp...

KULWINDER (KULI) SINGH is a Londoner. He studied at Cambridge and went down the traditional employment path into a corporate job in technology with the aim of earning a good living to do the things he wanted to do in life - this included travelling. Through his travels, Kuli's love of food and knowledge of different cultures across the continents has grown and with it his love to cook and experime...

PAUL KAYE is from Bolton in the UK. He studied for a year in France - his first pure language immersion experience. After University, Paul completed TEFL training with the idea of teaching English in Hungary but instead he ended up in Slovakia for three and a half years as a teacher, broadcaster and journalist. This was a seminal part in his life and set the stage for the many work, life and trave...

WILL DYSON is a born and bred Londoner. After a short spell away studying Geography at Manchester University, Will returned to London and has worked in several of the city's central businesss improvement districts (BIDS) including Waterloo, Baker Street and currently Bond Street/Oxford Street. Will acknowledges that London has many faces and he understands its strengths and vulnerabilities as well...

SARAH WOLFERSTAN trained as an archaelologist. She has worked for the United Nations, the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), and the Council of Europe (CoE) on various cultural heritage projects and is now affiliated to UCL in London in the Institute of Archaeology. Sarah lives with her Sicilian husband and children in Malmesbury, Wiltshire however they continue to have strong links w...

EMMA CARMICHAEL is normally the Travelling Through Podcast host but in this episode, she's swapped seats to be interviewed by her partner Stephen Marriott who is soon to launch his own podcast series, Marriott's Side Trips. Emma was brought up in Edinburgh and moved to London when she was 20 years old. In her own words she did "everything upside down and back to front" and believes that no choices...

CALI BIRD is the author of Don't Give Up Your Day Job and has recently self-published her first fiction story Tales of the Countess which will form part of a series of books about the 'Countess'. Cali was born in Bedfordshire and lived a considerable part of her early adulthood in the Waterloo and Kennington areas of London. Although now back in Bedfordshire, Cali always stays in Waterloo whenever...

JO THWAITES has been in London for over 40 years. Jo was born in Forfar and brought up in Aberdeen in the north of Scotland. She studied at Edinburgh University, spent six months in Australia before landing in London in the 1970s. She considers London home. Jo was keen to support many activist causes in London. She is a stalwart supporter of the Labour Party. She worked for Islington Council and s...

JORGE GARRIZ is from the Spanish region of Navarra, close to Pamplona. He studied Fine Arts in Valencia and Bilbao after which he ended up in Barcelona with the idea of studying an MA. Instead, he came to London on a two-month grant to learn English. Ten years later he has a number of key jobs under his belt working for architectural practices in hospitality and office management. London has becom...

SHACK BAKER was born in London and brought up on the Heathbrook Estate off the Wandsworth Road in south London. From the age of eight, he was determined to be rich. This is his inspiring story of becoming an entrepreneur in the clothing, design, music and now the property sector with his company The Property Shack, through sheer drive, self-belief and persistency. Shack has never been afraid to em...

CHRIS COLLINSON jacked in his job as a civil servant in London and set off to India with his city-loving (internationally-travelled) partner Shobha Das to build a home in the Ghats mountains of Kerala, a State in southern India where Shobha was born but had never lived until now. Two years on, I had the unexpected opportunity to catch up with Chris on a visit to London for a podcast chat and walk...