I have lived in Cambridge for 30 years. My career was in journalism and my degree was in history – which is actually the journalism of the past. It’s only the good stories that still get told.
I want my tours to be fun. I like visitors, especially children, to take part. For example, I might get seven people to “Be” Henry VIII and his six wives when I tell their story. I might ask two young people to act out the Cambridge degree ceremony – wearing the appropriate hats. I might give them a piece of pavement chalk to draw two metres on the ground and see if they can jump the distance from the roof of Caius College onto the roof of the Senate House – as our secret society The Night Climbers do – for what we call “The Senate House Leap.” A lot of jokes are told as we go along. But my tours have a grim start because actually the story of Cambridge University starts with a murder. But don’t worry. It was over 800 years ago and the murder took place in Oxford.