We hear from Golden Key Academy graduate Alison Rae on completing the course in 2021

Why did you apply for the Golden Key Academy and what were you hoping to achieve in terms of personal and professional development?

After being made redundant in 2020 from the National Theatre, I saw this as a way to give my brain a workout, while also building on tours I had previously given at the NT as part of Open House Festival and the London Festival of Architecture.

The length of the course felt like the right duration in which to decompress from my last full time job and to learn new things while assessing my next steps.

In what ways has the academy transformed your confidence and ability to lead unique and informative tours of urban environments?

I already had some experience of leading and running tours in my past job. But that was just a single building and a single story, so Golden Key Academy offered an insight into how to present varied and on-going narratives across much wider areas. The Golden Key Academy training was not just about making a walk, but really considering how the route and sequence of what you are presenting builds examples of the themes of an urban exploration.

Part of the course is developing your own unique tour, exploring a neighbourhood or theme of your choice, to feature in the Open House Festival. What inspired the focus of your special Golden Key Academy tour?

I had worked for many years in performance and venue management and could see the crisis facing entertainment and hospitality in 2020 – and, likely, into 2021. I wanted to bring attention to that impending crisis and set the threat of culture being shut down in an historical context, showing when we had lost, or nearly lost, performance venues in the past. The area between Blackfriars and Covent Garden was the cradle of 15th and 16th century drama (it wasn’t all on Bankside!) and also the epicentre of its rebirth during the Restoration when theatres reopened following the English Civil War. I wanted to look at how and why some playhouses survived, and others didn’t. It was perfect timing as the Royal Opera House and Theatre Royal, Drury Lane were both awakening from their ‘deep sleep’ of redevelopment.

The academy offers aspiring tour guides everything they need to deliver successful, insightful and engaging events exploring the built environment. What parts of the course did you find most useful in preparing your tour?

I very much valued Open City’s vision that walking tours could play a central role in engagement around not just urban environments but also the ideas and context behind what we see now. I also valued exposure to the expertise of Open City staff and other guides. Even while we were all on Zoom due to lockdown at the start of the course, online maps were a great way to explore without leaving home. I found the discipline of ‘fantasy tour planning’ in the assignments set a really good way to test a tour theme. I also found the Open City podcasts a great way to hear how current urban issues were presented.

Tour guiding is sometimes seen as a bit fuddy-duddy, and just about things that happened in the past. I really appreciated the Open City view that its as interesting to look at what’s happening now – or soon – and encourage other people to have a view.

Tour guiding involves lots of highly transferable skills including public speaking, research, analytical judgement and customer service. Where else have your Golden Key Academy skills proved useful since completing the course?

Remembering that what the guide researches and presents is only half the experience – its what the people with you contribute and how you learn and discover together that makes the whole thing memorable. You might have a fabulous nugget of architectural history but if it doesn’t serve the narrative or, frankly, make sense or is of interest to your audience, you have to learn to edit and leave that out. A transferable skill of editing and humility.

If you can find how to pin-point where customer focus, presenting and research all come together to make more than the sum of the parts that you, as a guide, have assembled that’s a great thing to take forward for professional presentations, to use as a volunteer in heritage or just to feel the satisfaction in expressing yourself, when many of us have missed the previously taken-for-granted in person opportunities to connect.

A key part of is learning together and socialising with like-minded cohort of fellow course participants. As someone who took part in our inaugural year, what are your words of wisdom for all those signing up for the 2022 course?

Use all the opportunities and tools on offer – the virtual walks, Pocket London printed maps, as well as going on as many tours as possible. Be curious. Listen to other people’s stories: what they say, how they say it. Don’t worry if you have an ‘expert’ on your tour, learn from them – you can’t have every single bit of knowledge about a site or area in your head and its delightful to have other voices on a tour.

Triangulate sources – use primary as much as possible and don’t rely on the Internet. Old OS maps are brilliant for getting a real ‘picture’ of the environment. Make contacts with your fellow students (online as well in real life) and there is a brilliant book about the Social History of London pubs, even if you can’t get there in person!

Alison Rae now guides the monthly Open City Architecture of Westminster cultural landmarks walking tour