This winter, Danny Bee is starting a new kind of radical walk in the EC1 area
By Oliver Bennett
There are plenty of walks which cover this area, and other parts of London, but Danny Bee’s ‘Radical Walks’ aim to dig a little deeper into progressive history. Starting this winter, he has two ‘Radical Walks’ coming up that will cover the EC1 area – the first on Sunday 11 December from the Barbican to Farringdon, the second walk. in the new year, exploring the radical history of Clerkenwell.
Other walks cover the sites of radical Clerkenwell, such as the Marx Memorial Library and the Crown in Clerkenwell Green, where Lenin liked to drink. While of great interest it’s fair to say they’re quite well known.
But Danny Bee’s radical walk in Clerkenwell and Smithfield, from the Barbican tube station to Farringdon station which. starts on 11 December, aims to dig a little deeper into progressive history, taking in the gamut of social movement from social housing, schools, pioneering health care spaces, LGBT spaces and trades unions history – anything that shines a light on the march of history.
“It started in September 2021 as an informal way to bring people together after lockdown,” says Danny, who works in IT. Since then it has blossomed and Danny has taken radical walks in areas as far-flung as Battersea, Bermondsey, Dover, Fitzrovia, Pimlico, Ramsgate, St Pancras, Stratford and West Ham. Numbers have ranged from eight to over 60, with a typical group of around 20, and readers are invited to join him (see link below). It’s free, although a hat is passed round – “Like a busker,” he says – and the tour lasts about two hours. As part of his ethos, Danny is keen that those without money should also be able to attend, and he also wants to get the walks online so that the house- bound can enjoy them. At the time of writing the exact route of his Farringdon walk is being worked upon, but will take in a wide reach from the Barbican to Smithfield and Clerkenwell.
Given that EC1 is so instrumental in the radical tradition, why has Danny not done a walk here until now? “Partly because Clerkenwell the area has been well covered by walks,” he says.
“But it is such a rich fascinating area with many themes that are still rich in potential.” So as well as covering history’s big hitters such as the Peasant’s Revolt, which culminated in Smithfield in July 1381, it will look at board schools, hospitals and council housing, libraries and swimming pools: anything designed to improve the conditions of the working classes.
Indeed, Danny’s speciality is the modern period from the 1880s to the present day. “That was the beginning of mass production and consumerism when mass trade unions, the women’s movement, national liberation movements and socialist parties all developed,” he says. “Also, part of the fun is in discovering things that might otherwise be overlooked. Some radical tours might not look at schools, for example, but the London School Board was created in 1870 to bring light into newly built schools, and was one of the first institutions which women could be elected to. Powerful and influential women stood in these elections, including Elizabeth Garret Anderson [who lent her name to EGA school in Islington].”
There is also social housing to discuss. As Danny says, “It now seems incredible that Britain had a proud and excellent tradition of building good quality low-cost council housing.” One of his missions is to get the pioneering work of the London County Council and the London Metropolitan Boroughs to become better known – as well as to mine hidden histories.
For example, in a recent walk of his called ‘Gods, Monsters and Gothic Marxism’, Danny explored the Fleet Street of the Suffragettes. “The Suffragettes had their own newspaper publishing offices in Red Lion Court which was raided by the police” he says. “As part of their campaign they would stick posters the length of Fleet Street and even attacked letterboxes, while also publishing.”
On the walk, one should expect discussion about contemporary issues. “If you walk around parts of EC1 today there are many empty buildings,” he says. “And there’s a real, live question – what do people want to happen in empty and underused properties? What do the people of the city want the city to be?”
Book onto Danny’s walk through his blog at commodityfetishism.com or just turn up on the day-Sunday 11 December, 11am, Barbican Underground station.
