Our Guest Speaker Tonight

City guide Julian Romain is to entertain us with stories about the Lord Mayoralty of London. It's 7pm - time to begin....

'Good evening everyone and welcome to
St George's Talks. Schoen guten Abend meine
Damen und Herren und wilkommen in
Sanktgeorgsgespraeche. Before we start, it would
be best if we all mute. The camera's up
to you. In any case, I'll share my screen 
when we get started and you'll be a window 
at the side. My name's Rick Jones and I 
am proud to serve on the committee of 
St George's Lutheran Church which you can see
behind me. It's an image. I'm not really 
there. We're in Whitechapel, heart of what 
we call  the East End. If I move my head
you'll see the date of seventeen sixty-two.
Migrant German sugarbakers built 
the church and filled it with a congregation
numbering about three hundred - quite 
a large community. In the nineteenth
cent'ry, German was by far the most 
widely spoken second language in 
Great Britain. Not surprising maybe when
the royal family was deutsch. I notice 
on the continent they tended to refer to 
Philip Mountbatten, connecting him with 
Battenberg, a noble German clan
although of course, to us, the Brits, it's cake. 

Our guest tonight began his research into
London when he was a boy in Hackney
I won't say how many years ago.
He used to walk the City streets in shorts, 
he told me, taking relatives around 
and telling them the tales of the sights.
Spinning yarns is in his East End blood.
His grandad was interpreter on board
the SS Mauretania; his father
helped explore Antarctica.
Our guest became a lawyer which accounts
for his facility with words. He's been
a City guide for many years and is
acquainted with a number of Lord
Mayors. He was once officially
historian of the famous Wig and Pen
Club which connected journalists
with judges, story-tellers with the law.
Ladies and Gentlemen I give you Mister
.........!

Mike on the committee says, 'lord mayor
is latest Cockney rhyming slang for swear!'