This is me at the age of around four in the year nineteen-mumblety-mumble…
That's my dad beside me, Lt Col Terence Pierce-Goulding, although he himself never bothered much with titles and formality.
Whenever I asked him, "What did you do in the war, daddy?" (he was quite a bit older than my mother) he used to reply, "I cooked the sausages for all the other soldiers."
It wasn't until years later that I found out that he was involved in the Canadian army operation for D-Day and went on to serve on Montgomery's staff and later yet at the Nuremberg Trials.
Until I was two, we lived in Grosvenor Square. Grosvenor Square is where I learned to walk. And where I learned to guide. My mother always told the tale of how I would totter through Grosvenor Square, point at this statue of Roosevelt…
… and utter the word:
"Daddy!"
The pic at the top of this post was taken in the garden of the house in which I was brought up on Meadway in Hampstead Garden Suburb. We be pass by the old place on my Hampstead Garden Suburb tour this Sunday 12th May. Meet me at 10:45a.m Golders Green tube
About Your Guide…
Karen
Karen comes trailing clouds of glory. Travel & Leisure crowned her "the world's greatest tour guide."
She hosts the Canadian television travel show "London Next Stop."
She won the London Tourist Board's Guide of the Year award.
She is, quite simply, a star turn – which is why she's the "go to" London guide for every major media concern. A reformed actress and occasional journalist, her gold standard walks are, needless to say, vivid and entertaining.
She's the author of Royal London.
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