Discover North East England with Alex Iles: From Roman Ruins to Coastal Castles

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Thinking about exploring North East England.
In this episode I'm joined byAlex Owls of Owls Tours to share
why this beautiful and historicregion, including the stunning
Northumberland coast where Igrew up, is such a fantastic
place to visit.
And don't miss the specialannouncement for podcast
listeners at the very end.

Speaker 2 (00:17):
Welcome to the UK Travel Planning Podcast.
Your host is the founder of theUK travel planning website,
Tracy Collins.
In this podcast, Tracy sharesdestination guides, travel tips
and itinerary ideas, as well asinterviews with a variety of

(00:37):
guests who share their knowledgeand experience of UK travel to
help you plan your perfect UKvacation.
Join us as we explore the UKfrom cosmopolitan cities to
quaint villages, from historiccastles to beautiful islands,
and from the picturesquecountryside to seaside towns.

Speaker 1 (00:57):
Hi and welcome back to the UK Travel Planner Podcast
.
This week's episode is allabout a region that is
especially close to my heartNorth East England, where I grew
up in a small village on thebeautiful Northumberland coast.
Now it's a part of the countryfilled with a dramatic scenery,
centuries of history, friendlylocals for example myself and so
many special places to explore.

(01:19):
I love sharing this area withour listeners, and today's guest
is just as passionate abouthelping people discover what
makes it so unique.
If you listen to our recentepisode with Deb Harsin, you
might recall her fantastic daytour to Bamburgh and Lindisfarne
, where she said this tour was atrue highlight of her trip, and
that tour was led by Alex Iles,founder of Iles Tours.

(01:42):
Now, with a lifelong love ofstorytelling, alex brings the
Northeast past to life, fromRoman forts, medieval
monasteries to coastal castlesand cultural legends.
His tours cover Newcastle,durham, northumberland,
hadrian's Wall, holy Island, andthey offer rich and immersive
experience for purist travelers.
Now in this conversation,you'll hear how Alex got started

(02:04):
, what makes his tours differentand why North East England
should absolutely be on youritinerary.
And be sure to listen to theend, because Alex has a special
announcement just for UK travelplanning, podcast listeners.
So let's get started.
Let's start with your story,alex.
Where are you from originallyand what brought you to the
North East of England?

Speaker 3 (02:25):
So my story actually starts and it's funny that you
say this I'm actually a BritishScot, so I was born just outside
Edinburgh in a place calledLivingston, but from a young age
my family traveled a lot, sothen we went to Canada, then
back to Edinburgh, thenLiverpool, then Cambridge, went
to school in Scotland at aninternational school from the
age of nine and then at 17 movedto Newcastle.

(02:45):
My mum's family is from thenortheast of England, from an
area called Teesside, which isjust it was a part of North
Yorkshire but then it's sort ofalso its own independent area
within the northeast of England,whereas my father's family he
was born down near London.
So then from there we wetraveled a lot, but I always
sort of grew up in Scotland andin the north and so that for me

(03:08):
always felt more like home.
When I went to university I waslooking around a number of
universities, thought I wasgoing to go to a Scottish one
and ended up at Newcastle, andwhen I ended up there I was
really lucky, because a lot ofstudents in Newcastle end up and
if anyone from your podcast islistening and has gone to school
, sorry to.
Well, for American audiencesschool or European and British

(03:29):
audiences, obviously universityin the northeast of England.
They'll know that a lot ofstudents in Newcastle end up in
an area called Jesmond student.
Some people would maybedescribe it as a student ghetto,
but let's just say it's likeit's its own, like region within

(03:51):
a region, and it becomes a lotof students who are all around
each other.
I was, I would say, fortunate ina way that I didn't end up
there, and when I wasn't therelots of my friends were locals
and so with that they werealways like I was immersed in
the Northeast culture, I saw thethe northeast.
I got to do that without havingthis of like the student
experience, if that makes sense,and that really helped because
I fell in love with the area andI fell in love with its history

(04:13):
, its people and I wanted tomake this area home.
So that's that was where mylove for the northeast really
started to develop was when Icame here for university and it
felt like my extended family.
In many ways it was familiar,it was that sort of thing but
like for me, for instance, likesometimes you know I'll go in a
taxi and I'll get asked whereare you actually from, and stuff

(04:34):
like that, and I used tojokingly sort of say, oh, I'm a
plastic Geordie, until one taxidriver turned around and he
turned to me and he went.
Does that mean you're harmfulfor the environment?
That's so funny I changedbecause I was just like no, no,
I'm an adopted Geordie BecauseI'm definitely not harmful to
the environment.
But that was an interesting onethere.

Speaker 1 (04:55):
Definitely.
Well, to be honest, I can heara little Northeastern twang, so
you have picked it up andobviously you know I'm from
Northumberland.
I was born in Hexham and I wasbrought up in in the northeast
until I was 14.
I have actually lived backthere as well for parts of my
life, but I get told when I goback that I sound like a very
posh Geordie.
So there you go.
You're a plastic Geordie andI'm just saying I'm a posh

(05:17):
Geordie but we still act thatway, definitely adopted.

Speaker 3 (05:20):
Yeah, I thought about that afterwards and I was like
oh gosh, but that was justobviously because there was a
changeover with climate and allof that stuff.
But it's really interesting andit's good fun.

Speaker 1 (05:30):
So now you mentioned that you've got love for history
and you mentioned on yourwebsite which we will link to in
the show notes, so we'll talkabout that in a bit that you
have a passion for storytellingand I think that's really
important.
So I just mentioned before Iwas a history teacher and I
taught history through storiesto the kids.
That's the best way for me toget through.
Some things can be quite boringif you don't teach it in a kind

(05:51):
of you know, in a storytellingway.
So how has that, plus your loveof history, impacted what you
do now?

Speaker 3 (05:58):
Yeah, no, that's a really good way of sort of
introducing it, because Isometimes struggle because a lot
of my customers, a lot ofpeople I talk to at school had a
very hard time with history andthat's often to do with a lot
of the cracks within oureducation system where, you know
, it's unfortunately a lot ofthe time focused on exams rather

(06:18):
than learning or getting agrounding.
And the way I sort of thinkabout human history is that it
is all stories, it's what's beenpassed down to us, memorized,
recorded, all of that sort ofthing like that.
And so with what I like to doand I think many good tour
guides this is, you know,obviously a lot of your other
tour guides will do this as wellis that we learn these stories

(06:42):
so that we can then pass andhelp people to understand where
you fit into the human story,because all of us are looking to
connect ourselves into thisstory and to understand, all
right, where do we belong?
And as I learned the northeasthistory, you know, obviously I
could see my own familialconnections.
I looked at my family tree.
I'd done that when I was um inschool.
I'd sat down and I paid for anancestry membership and gone

(07:04):
back through my family tree andfound out what all the different
branches my family came from.
And then when I was starting toresearch, I was like, oh, that
that's actually where one of myancestors is from, that's you
know.
For instance, there's a placein Northumberland called
Chillingham and I could trace abranch of my family to there.
Another branch of my family wasfrom the Scottish borders.
Another branch of my family wasfrom Ireland.
Another branch of my familylived down in the southeast of

(07:26):
England and so I was looking atit.
I was just like, wow, this is.
I can connect myself to theseareas and understand it.
And that's why I want to bringacross in the tours, because so
often it's like you can have,let's say, a tour where you're
walking along and someone goeswell, in 1842, such and such
happened in this building.
Well, where's the emotion inthat?
What were they feeling?

(07:47):
What happened?
What were all the otherdominoes that occurred all
around that?
To understand and how itconnects to today, because I
think that's what's reallyimportant.
A lot of people want to connecttheir stories back to where we
are today, and when I wasgrowing up, one of the things I
obviously came into historythrough sort of a lot of the

(08:08):
mythology.
So I loved stuff like the Norsemyths.
I loved stuff like Roman andGreek myths.
I loved Egyptian myths andwithin ancient Europe, amongst
the native Britons and in thewider some people call it Celtic
, but the wider sort of world ofGaul and Britain and Ireland
and all of those locations therewere a group of people called

(08:30):
bards and the bards.
They would memorize stories, butthey were also almost, they had
a larger function, which wasalso that they were the legal.
They remember the law, theyremember the law of by heart,
they remember the stories.
They had a slight religiouselement to them as well and they
would travel around.
So similar in ways to thedruids, but druids and bards

(08:52):
were quite similar and I alwayssaid, oh, I want to be a bard
when I grow up.
And, funny enough, I kind offeel, in a way, with my tour
guiding, there's that overlap aswell where, like, what I'm
actually doing is I'm memorizingthis history and I'm sharing it
with other people so that youget that connection, you get
your understanding and you get alittle bit more of a puzzle

(09:13):
piece on where you fit into thehuman story now that's brilliant
and we do often speak to peoplewho are tracing their family
roots and background into thenortheast.

Speaker 1 (09:26):
Um, and I know being able to, you know you can, you
can do that research and findout about your ancestors and
maybe you've got the names andthe places.
But when you actually go andvisit and you see those places
where they lived, you can, youknow, you see the places that
they they actually you know astreet they're potentially walk
down.
You know, even just seeing theview of the sea that you places,

(09:47):
that they actually you know astreet they potentially walk
down.
You know, even just seeing theview of the sea, that you know
that they would have stood, forexample, at sea houses at
Bamburgh and saw the castle theywent to Holy Island.
So you have the sameexperiences.
So you can walk kind of in thefootsteps of your ancestors as
well.
And being able to kind of learnabout the stories of what it was
like to live in the Northeast,whether it was 50 years ago, 100
years ago, 200 years ago,however far back you can trace

(10:11):
your ancestry, I think that's afantastic thing to do and I know
your love of history kind ofgoes further back because you're
into archaeology as well,aren't you?
Because you've got your love ofhistory, you've got your
ability to storytell, but you'vealso got an academic background
in this stuff as well, aren'tyou?
Because you've got your love ofhistory, you've got your
ability to storytell, but you'vealso got an academic background
in this stuff as well.
So you know your history, youknow this information, and

(10:31):
you've mentioned I think wetalked about this last week that
you're studying archaeology oryou're hoping to do some studies
in archaeology as well.

Speaker 3 (10:38):
Yes, that's right.
So sort of going back a littlebit further to give some context
.
So sort of going back a littlebit further to give some context
.
I started Isles Tours back in2013.
So I started doing guidedwalking tours in and around
Newcastle.
I was doing two-hour historicalwalking tours, then half-day
walking tours and then, afterhalf-day walking tours, I
launched my full-day walkingtours and actually last year I

(11:03):
stopped doing the one and twohour walking tours and now the
shortest tours I do is half day.
But now I've really focused thebusiness in on full day and
multi-day tours, because that'smy real passion, because you can
do a lot more nuance than youcan within two hours.
So that's the one focus.
Now that was where I was.
I was up to full day toursduring COVID.
Well, up to COVID, then, duringCOVID, obviously I jokingly say

(11:25):
that my business became illegalBecause obviously you know you
couldn't be in a car with otherpeople, you couldn't be in those
areas outside of your ownfamily groups.
So, with that being the case,for nearly two years I had to
really think about what I wasdoing and I was able to go back
to all of my scripts.
I went over all of my old books, reread, refreshed, restudied

(11:45):
all of that stuff.
But one of the things I foundwas with history books.
A lot of the history books werecovering the same data, because
history is what's beingrecorded, so when it's being
recorded you have to go back tothe same documents and a lot of
the history books are verysimilar.
Now I just started readingarchaeology reports excavations
of various sites throughout theNortheast and I noticed that the

(12:06):
story was slightly different.
And that's not to say thehistorians are wrong, but the
historians have a certain numberof documents until new
documents are found or stufflike that.
But it was just the archaeologyreports were just slightly
different and you could see adifferent story, because the
people who don't normally getrecorded in history are the
people who you know.

(12:26):
Obviously, often history is thestory of governments, of kings,
of rulers, of the powerful inlife.
You don't get the story of thefarmer who's sitting in
hillsides in Northumberland.
You know just as the Romans aremarching through the land.
You don't get the story of youknow the Anglo-Saxon communities
who are migrating over theNorth Sea and settling there and

(12:49):
you know the initial villagesand their interactions,
intermarrying and all the otherthings that are going on with
the native Britons.
You don't get the story of, youknow the medieval farmer who
everything looks great, untilall of a sudden, unfortunately
through a domino effect, yousuddenly have a war between

(13:11):
edward the first and, uh, robertthe bruce.
You know you.
Suddenly those people's storiesare much harder to see.
But through archaeology you canlook at their household, you can
look at, you know what theyleft behind, and amongst
archaeologists it's a verycommon joke, to the point where
it's become a trope and peopleare just like, oh, my career is
in ruins, and so that's thewhole thing.
There, where you have this sortof thing about that.

(13:32):
You're looking and you'relearning about people in a very
day-to-day, life-to-life basis,and so it's taking that data
that can be very nuanced, verydetailed, and then reading lots
of those different reports, soyou can get an idea of a region
and then you tell that story andyou go.
Well, historically, we knowthis happened.

(13:53):
Now, when this is happening,this is the direct effect on the
people.
These are the people who arelike you, who live their normal
lives, who aren't, you know, ingovernment, who aren't a king
sitting or a lord sitting in hiscastle who is going to go and
attack another very similar lordwho's sitting in another castle

(14:15):
.
And actually the people on theground are a lot more similar on
both sides of theEnglish-Scottish border than
they would be otherwise, and sowe can tell that story.
We can go into the nuance andwe can tell that story.
We can go into the nuance andwe can go.
Well, these settlements, thesepeople, this is how they lived,
this is how it impacted them andthis is how it actually created
England and Scotland, or youknow, the Roman invasion.

(14:36):
Well, suddenly, land thatpeople have been living on for
two and a half thousand yearshad a bloomed, great big wall
built through it.
You know, you couldn't visityour cousin, you know, because
he just happens to live twomiles across and then suddenly
someone has built this wall foryour land and you're like, that
wall was never there before.
There was no distinction, therewas no Northern and Southern

(14:57):
Britain, there was Britain.
There was well, as they wouldhave probably referred to it,
britannia or something alongthose lines.
But, um, you know that thatsuddenly broke the island in
half for the first time and laidthe foundations towards this
concept of you know what wouldeventually be the sort of a
divide between the two areas.
So that's that's alsofascinating and really

(15:18):
interesting to drag out in awell not drag out.

Speaker 1 (15:21):
So that's really interesting and fun to to bring
to life during the tour but youare for me and you know I I grew
up, I grew up beside Hadrian'swall.
My dad was born in Wall's End,which obviously end of the wall.
So, um, you know, it's, it'sjust something that I it's
always been there my entire life, obviously been there for a few
thousand years, and you knowwhat?

(15:41):
I've never even thought of itin those terms.
It's just there, it's justsomething that I've always seen,
but actually thinking of, likethe fact that, as you say,
people live in an area, theromans turn up and they build a
great big wall right between,you know, between between the
the well, between england andscotland now, but obviously at
that point it wasn't.

Speaker 3 (16:00):
So, you know, yeah, yeah, so like that's another fun
one.
I love doing this where peopleare just like they think
Hadrian's Wall is the EnglishScottish border.
But actually if you do that youcut off pretty much almost all
of Northumberland and Cumbriaand so the people living there,
they definitely feel English.
And it's one of the fun oneswhen I get international

(16:21):
travelers Like I remember I hadtwo lovely ladies from
California and we did a tour ofBambra and we did the whole
eight hour day and at the end ofthe day one of the ladies
turned to me and she said so howlong has this been a part of
Scotland for?
And I turned around and saidthere was a short period of time
when it was a part of Scotlandfor 40 years during the Middle

(16:42):
Ages.
But no, it's always been a partof Northumbria, which has
generally been seen as English.
Well, and again, if you want toget into archaeology and
history, the debate about whendoes Englishness actually start
and when does Scottishness start, that's a whole kettle of fish
and, trust me, I can go off onthat.
But generally and it's like youknow, we're talking about lines

(17:06):
drawn on a paper by peoplesitting, you know, during the
Middle Ages, let's say inStirling for the King of Scots
and London for the King ofEngland.
You know, those aredistinctions in international
politics that affect the dailylives of normal people, and
that's what I love.

Speaker 1 (17:24):
So I'm going to ask you a question now.
I was born in hexham, right.
So I was born in hexham right.
So the the roman wall is notvery far from hexham.
So if I was born in hexhamduring the time when the wall
was built, would I have beenclassed as being on which side
of the wall so kind of like youknow what I'm saying.
Would I have been?

Speaker 3 (17:44):
where hexam is.
You would be on paper insidethe Roman Empire.
Now when, when you're lookingat this again, it's like we look
at lines on the paper and thereality is that the Romans had a
lot more influence than peoplerealize.
So this is where we can getinto fun stuff like science.
There's something calledisotopic analysis, which is

(18:08):
where you can take bones orteeth and whenever you eat
something or drink something,that puts a signature when
you're growing up into yourteeth.
So there's obviously thetragedy of when you have, let's
say, a teenager's human remains,skeletons, and that is
obviously a personal tragedy forthe person who passed away and

(18:29):
for their family and all of thatsort of stuff.
But it provides data Because,let's say, they have their
children's teeth and their adultteeth.
You can see from their babyteeth where they were growing up
, because there's teeth, and theadult teeth you can see from
their baby teeth where they weregrowing up, because there's
that signature in their teeth.
And then you have their adultteeth coming in and then you can
see if they've migrated, moved,changed or anything like that.

(18:50):
Now we can do the same thingwith animals.
Now, when you do that withanimals, they've analyzed the
bones of cattle on Hadrian'sWall, and over half of them are
from the Scottish Highlands.
It's not just a case of thewall was built.
Everyone north of the wall wasjust kept out.
To use a modern example, let'sthink of something like North

(19:11):
Korea, south Korea.
That's a modern example of ahard boundary where,
unfortunately, it's heavilymilitarized.
That's not what hadron's wallis.
We have people giving tribute ortaxation, if you want to think
of it that way to the romans andin turn the romans are sending
large amounts of silver northand they're giving it to the
tribal leaders in what is todayscotland and they're giving

(19:34):
those to those native britainsup there and they're basically
paying them with that.
And then you have this tradeand movement of goods.
Now you can create all sorts offun stories with that and go
well, did the Romans get a headsup that something was going to
go bad when the food supplysuddenly dries up and suddenly
it's like oh, the cattleshipment hasn't turned up.
Why is that?

(19:55):
But these are the interestingparts where we can use modern
science.
We can look at migrations ofpeople.
We can look at um, ancient dna,adna.
We can look at items andartifacts and see, you know
where these items travel from in.
In a lot of the nativesettlements in northumberland
and in southern scotland youfind roman pottery.
The romans are just taking liketheir seconds and they're

(20:17):
flooding the market and you findloads of that stuff.
So it's really interesting,especially with those movement
of people from the North SeaBasin coming across the British
Isles and migrating in.
There's a whole sort oftransformation and mixing and
change and new ideas coming inat the same time at the end of
the Roman period as well.

(20:38):
So you get this amazing sort oflike ability with archaeology
to basically understand thehuman story, I feel, in a much
more nuanced manner.
Archaeologists also like topoke fun at historians that
historians are basically readingthe gossip of ancient times and

(20:58):
then writing books about it,whereas archaeologists are
actually looking at the dailylife of real people.

Speaker 1 (21:04):
I know and it's absolutely fascinating.
Honestly, I could spend thenext hour just talking about
Hadrian's Wall and thebackground of that, because in
my head I just had this visionof and bearing in mind I used to
be a history teacher thisvision of it being, like you
know, that hard border that wasbuilt to stop the marauding
hordes coming down from Scotlandand attacking and taking all

(21:25):
the things away from the Romans.
But actually it sounds likeeverybody is far more integrated
than I had kind of imagined.

Speaker 3 (21:34):
Yeah, so obviously there's connections.
But I think just to sort oftouch on that, just to sort of
give a little sense of it, thereis an element of that where
there is obviously conflict.
But one of the studiesobviously I was reading last
year and I found reallyinteresting was the idea that
you look at different levels ofconflict.

(21:54):
So you have, like hot wars andcold wars and high intensity
conflict, which is like whatwe'd understand as war today,
and then you have low intensityconflict, which is things where
unfortunately you have longunresolved problems, and one of
the examples of that would bethe troubles in Northern Ireland
and many people argue that likethe idea is that Hadrian's War

(22:17):
may have been much more like alow-intensity conflict.
You know, a Roman patrol goesnorth of the wall and they chat
to a local farmer, they have adrink of water, stuff like that.
You know they come back, theygive information that goes on
for six months a year, somethinglike that.
Suddenly a patrol doesn't comeback.
You know everyone's smilingfaces, faces, everyone's

(22:38):
chatting.
Bits of roman pottery are beingexchanged, roman artifacts are
ending up.
Then suddenly like somethingoccurs and you know everyone
seems friendly until they're not.
That's one theory, but again,we don't have written records of
what's going on, um, and sothat's, that's the stuff that I
like to bring out.
It's the idea of, like, we'relooking at a world where, you

(23:01):
know, the stuff that's recordedis very much coming from
historians and high level andthat sort of stuff, but we're
now needing to go down into thenormal lives of people and try
and figure out from looking atthese settlements what's
actually going on, and that's,yeah, that's the fun of it.

Speaker 1 (23:17):
I hope I bring that across in my tours oh yeah, well
, you're bringing that across onthis podcast, alex.
Definitely, uh, absolutelyfascinating now.
So you started the tours in2013 and I know you.
You started with your walkingtours in newcastle and you've
grown since then.
One thing that fascinated methat I read on your website was
that you started by readingevery book in the Newcastle
Library's local history section.

(23:39):
So that is some commitment.

Speaker 3 (23:42):
Yeah, so I jokingly say that one thing that helped
me with my business wasunemployment.
So I finished university of theyear 2013.
And that's when the first wave,let's say, of our global
recessions hit, and so trying toapply for jobs in that period
was incredibly difficult 2012into 2013.
And so I was really struggling.

(24:05):
I wanted to be involved inbusiness development in the
northeast of England.
That was something I was verypassionate about.
I wanted to be involved ininvestment to the region,
showing the region off that sortof stuff.
I just couldn't get a job inthat region, in that area.
It was a very hard time for alot of people and it was really

(24:25):
sort of like a watershed for, Ithink, a lot of the stuff that
we see in our modern age.
And with that I basicallythought I was having a bit of a
moan to my family.
And when I had a bit of a moanto my family, I just remember
sitting there and just go.
I just want to have a job and,like one of my family members
just said, well, why don't youstart your own business then?
And then from that I then satdown and really thought about
what I could do.
I sort of had a brainstormingsession with, with close family

(24:46):
members, and then it's just likethis.
This beginning of what I wastours became came out of the
idea of doing walking tourswhere it could be outdoors,
physically fit, meeting peoplefrom all over the world, showing
them the region that I loved,and just doing something that
was strong with my skills,because I've always had a good
ability to speak and to be ableto take huge amounts of data and

(25:09):
then to be able to convey themin a nuanced manner.
That's something I really enjoy.
And so I started off and I justbasically if anyone else here
has ever started a business andI'm sure there's some people on
your podcast who areentrepreneurs, or even yourself
yeah, I actually sat down in ain a coffee shop.
I was one of those terriblepeople who would buy one coffee

(25:31):
and then nurse it for an entiresix or eight hours, you know,
and just try and get through,because I was.
I was very much bootstrapping itin those early days and I would
go to library, get a pile ofbooks, sit down with my notebook
beside me, read a chapter, thenwrite it down, and even if I
didn't understand something inparticular, I'd take notes.
One really good example, and Ithink if you're from the North

(25:52):
East you'll know about this.
But there was a group of peoplein the early modern period in
Newcastle called the Keelmen,and the Keelmen kept being
mentioned their uniforms, theway they dressed, their culture
but no one ever explained what aKeelman was in any of these
books.
I couldn't find any explanationin the early days when I
started out, until eventually Ifound one of my friends who was

(26:14):
actually from Sunderland, sothere's a sort of a regional
thing there.
One of the greatest strengthsand weaknesses of the northeast
of England is that we're verytribal, but from Sunderland.
They also had Keelmen.
And he said oh well, don't youknow where Keelmen is?
I said, no, none of the bookstell me, because all the local
historians just presumed thatwhoever was reading the book
would know where Keelmen was,and so he explained it.
And just for anyone listening,a keel was a special type of

(26:37):
flat-bottomed boat that wouldcarry up to about 50 tons of
coal.
Because the northeast of Englandwas a huge coal mining area
from probably around theElizabethan time.
Elizabeth I right the waythrough until the 1970s or so,
with the last Northumbrian coalmine closing in 2008.
And at the height of theVictorian period the northeast

(27:00):
of England was producing 19% ofBritain's coal, which is just a
huge amount that was coming outof like Newcastle.
So, as some of you may haveheard and I hear this a lot with
international travellersthere's an expression saying
coals to Newcastle, which meansa pointless exercise to the idea
of like selling coal to newpeople in Newcastle.
No, they didn't do that andactually we know across in

(27:23):
Gateshead, where some of thecoal streams so Gateshead was on
the south bank of the RiverTyne, just opposite Newcastle
People were digging their ownillegal coal mines, as in like
they would have their houses,they would take up the
floorboards, they would dig downand they would take up the
floorboards, they would dig downand they would create what's
called a bell coal mine.
So they would have these uhshafts down and it would open up
, like if you can think of a bigold bell you would see in a

(27:45):
town hall or a church, and theywould dig a coal mine like that,
extract the coal and then fillit in with the family's rubbish,
so like, and then they wouldsell the excess to to local
people.
So that was, that was one ofthe things that was going on.
So, like in the Northeast,sometimes when people build they
find unrecorded coal minesbecause it's been going on, like
coal mining that we know of hasbeen going back to the 1200s

(28:08):
that's how long people have beenmining coal in the region.
So sometimes they're just noton maps.
And I have a friend who's acivil engineer and he's
experienced that himself wherehe was doing a house and they
found an unrecorded coal mine.
So it happened.
It's brilliant, that'sincredible.
He wasn't too pleased about that.

Speaker 1 (28:26):
No, I bet he wasn't yeah.

Speaker 3 (28:28):
The killmen transported the coal up and down
the river past all the medievalbridges, because the big ships
couldn't get past the bridges,and so they would transport it
from the the the quayside, fromthe um, from what's called a
stave, which is a woodentransport system to take the
coal out of the hills down intothe riverside and they would
bring them along and the keelmenwould regularly get into uh

(28:51):
conflict with the civilauthorities and would be on
strike and stuff.
So that that was.
It's a big part of the sort ofthe history of the the quayside
and the industrial heritage ofthe northeast of england well,
no, really interesting.

Speaker 1 (29:03):
Well, I'm a coal miner's granddaughter, so, yeah,
I come from a coal miningfamily, though, uh, on one side,
on my mom's side, um, yeah, sostrong coal mining uh background
, as you say, in the in thenortheast, I'm sure most of us
have got relatives who were downthe mines, for sure.
Um, now I want to talk about,um, how your business has grown
since then, because obviouslywe're talking, we're now 12

(29:25):
years on.
We've had, we've had the, the,unfortunately a few COVID years,
but since, since, uh, two years, the last few years since COVID
, you've you've grown and you'vestarted to do, to, say, half
day and a multi-day tour.
So should we talk about thosetours that you're offering now?
And, um, you know how do theydiffer from the traditional kind
of idea of a walking tour?

Speaker 3 (29:46):
so I've moved slightly away from walking tours
and I do guided full-day tours,as they the core of my business
and, with that being the case,what I do is I collect my
customers on the morning of thetour, either from their
accommodation or from one of thetrain stations.
We then travel out and eachtour is themed around areas of
the Northeast.
So we've talked a lot about myHadrian's Wall tour.

(30:09):
So I talk about I take themalong and show them the Roman
frontier and how the Romansinteracted with the natives, and
also the other nuances of thatas well.
But I also have a Bambra andLindisfarne tour which I take
people up to.
Bambra, which is one of thecapitals of the kings of
Northumbria, these Anglo-Saxonkings who mixed and interacted

(30:30):
with the native British.
And then, obviously, there'sthe famous story of the
conversion of the Anglo-Saxonsto Christianity, which is
recorded in Bede'sEcclesiastical History, bede
being one of the conversion ofthe Anglo-Saxons to Christianity
which is recorded in Bede'secclesiastical history, bede
being one of the first Englishhistorians and is another North
East individual who was areligious figure within the
North East of England.
So we've got these stories andI take people up there and show

(30:52):
people where they are.
I also offer an Anglo-SaxonNorthumbria tour where we go
into the Anglo-Saxon sites, theheritage and the history of
where the Anglo-Saxon kingdom ofNorthumbria was.
When people hear there's amodern county called
Northumberland, which is theborder county, it goes from
Newcastle upon Tyne in thenorth-east of England right the

(31:13):
way up to the Scottish border.
But Northumbria included partsof the Scottish borders
Northumberland, cumbria County,durham, parts well, yorkshire
and also parts of Lancaster andwent right the way down to where
modern day Liverpool is.
So that was a massive kingdom.
It was the kingdom of CentralBritain, as some archaeologists

(31:34):
refer to it as, and so when youthink of Central Britain, as
some archaeologists refer to itas, and so when you think of
central Britain, you knowbasically from South Yorkshire
right the way up to the Scottishborders.
And the reason why it gets itsname is because you have the
River Humber, the Humber estuary, coming in at the southern part
of Yorkshire.
So Northumbria was the kingdomof all the peoples who lived
north of the River Humber.

(31:55):
That's how large it was andsignificant.
So I try and take that in inthe tour.
Then I also have tours of Durham, durham Cathedral, where you
have the story of, first of allSt Cuthbert, who was a really
important Northumbrian bishopand a very important religious
figure during the Anglo-Saxonperiod, but then, after his

(32:16):
death, he became a saint andwhen he became a saint his
relics were used to found DurhamCathedral and the Prince
Bishops of County Durham weresome of the most influential
religious figures, but also theyhad their own kingdom,
basically within England.
They were referred to as PrinceBishops because they were
allowed to have independencefrom the monarchy and basically

(32:38):
had their own what's called apalatinate within England.
So highly powerful andinfluential figures who
controlled huge amounts of landthroughout County Durham and
also Northumberland and even hadinfluence in one of the famous
ones, like Bishop Anthony Beckhe actually was one of Edward
I's generals and led battlesagainst Robert the Bruce.

(32:59):
These guys are very importantas one third of the bishops are
religious figures, one third arebasically military men and one
third probably shouldn't havebeen bishops.
But that's a good explanationto get your head around it.
In the most simplest terms andI mean no offence by that it's
just trying to cover some ofthat history and heritage.

(33:20):
And then I also do prehistorictours.
I take people out and show them.
You know prehistoric places inNorthumberland, things like
stone circles, ancient BronzeAge burial mounds, hill forts,
and so that's more specialist inarchaeology, because obviously,
when you're dealing withsomething that is from 9 000 bc
so something about 11 000 yearsold, you don't have structures

(33:42):
above the ground.
But what you can do is you cantake you take someone to a place
where the actual excavationshappened and say, well, the
stone age britons were livingright here, this is what they
were like, this is theircommunity, this is the landscape
they lived in and this is whathappened to them.
And then you go through to theneolithic, the new stone age,
and talk what happened to them.
And then you go through to theNeolithic, the New Stone Age,
and talk about that populationwho brought farming.
Then you go into the Bronze Age, where they were the first

(34:04):
metal workers, and talk aboutthem.
And those Bronze Age peoplewould eventually become the
people we recognize as the IronAge Britons, who then had the
very interesting interactionswith the Romans.
So you get the precursor to theRoman history.
And then, alongside that as well, I do specialist tours covering
the two powerful groups withinCounty Durham, which is the

(34:25):
Neville family who owned RabyCastle, and also the Bishops of
Durham and their palace atBishop Auckland.
So there's a lot more toursthan that.
Those are the core full-daytours and then I also have the
multi-day tours, tours which arewhen people have a specialist
interest.
So, for instance, I've donetours based around the idea of
faith.
So people want to search aboutthe faith in the northeast.

(34:49):
So we go from prehistoric androman beliefs right the way
through to the dawn ofchristianity and other elements
like that as well, and so we gointo the story of faith in the
region, visiting churches,ancient sites and discuss all of
that from three to five dayslong.
There's a specialist Roman tourwhere we go really in-depth into
the Romans.
I take people around all of thedifferent Roman sites.

(35:10):
That again goes from York rightthe way up to the Scottish
borders, and then also I docastles as well, which is more
of a medieval tour but digs intothe sort of Anglo Scottish wars
, the conflicts between,obviously, the kings of England,
the kings of Scots and the, therivalries between both sides
there and how, how thatbasically shaped the region,

(35:34):
which is, which is amazing and Ican touch on that in a little
bit because those wars basicallycreated the landscape that we
see today when you travelthrough places like
Northumberland and County Durham.

Speaker 1 (35:44):
I was going to say I'm always very proud of the
fact that Northumberland has themost castles in the whole of
England.

Speaker 3 (35:49):
Yes, well, it's a side effect of, unfortunately,
what you could describe as 300years of pure warfare, which you
know.
You go to places like themidlands in england and you have
quite a lot of large to mediumto large size towns and cities.
You come to northumberland,newcastle in and durham are the
two cities and sunderland aswell sorry, newcastle,

(36:11):
sunderland, durham and then, asyou go further north, it's small
to medium-sized towns.
You know, like, as youmentioned, uh, I think, when we
were preparing this, there's atown called morpeth and a town
called hexam, which we'vementioned in the podcast already
, and there's berwick upon tweed.
And then you have the smallertowns, such as places like
wooler, core bridge, um prudder,places like that um amble.

(36:35):
You know these are smallertowns.
We don't have the medium-sizedtowns.
The reason why is because ofthis long-term conflict.
You go to the Scottish Bordersas well.
You'll find a lot of theirtowns are of a similar size to
the ones in Northumberland.
It's because they never gotthat chance to develop.
You know, you talk about theseheroes of the Scottish
Independence Wars, like WilliamWallace and Robert the Bruce In

(36:57):
Northumberland they ain't heroes.
They are not our heroes at all,because Northumberland had a
population of 120,000 before theAnglo-Scottish wars.
At the end it had 18.
Many people were being drivenout and stuff like that, and
Bruce harrowed the area.
But at the same time I want tobe clear.
I'm not saying Edward, I was asaint and he was the good guy in

(37:19):
this.
He did equal stuff to Scotland.
That was just as horrific.
But I do sometimes wince whenyou get people going.
Oh you know, wallace was thispure-hearted, amazing guy like
you see in Braveheart and I'mlike no, neither was Bruce.
These guys were opportunistsand they saw a way of of getting
into power just as edward thefirst did, and they.

(37:41):
They went out of their way tocarve kingdoms, to carve lands,
to wealth and to inflicthorrible things on normal people
.

Speaker 1 (37:49):
So I was gonna say I was just about to say, in the
normal people, the everydaypeople are kind of stuck in the
middle of all of this.
Well, all this kind of powergames is going on and with it,
and we do forget, don't, withthat, there are just normal,
ordinary people living theirlives or trying to live their
lives at this time, in theseperiods of history, don't we?
And I know you're very, verypassionate about all the
different um times eras thatyou've talked about, and you

(38:12):
know you talk about romans andanglo-saxons, medieval themes.
Do you have a favorite or areyou happy to do just the whole?

Speaker 3 (38:19):
the whole spectrum it's.
It's really hard because somepeople there's two sides to this
question.
Some people sometimes ask me doyou ever get bored doing the
same tours and you knowdelivering the same information?
But I think what really I loveis when I'm doing a tour and I
can make it personal to thepeople who are on the tour.

(38:39):
So everyone has their owninterests.
I've had people who are medicalprofessionals on the tour and
they want to know about medicinein the past, so I know about
that.
Some people you know haveanother interest entirely.
It's family history.
Some people are interested in,you know, as I've mentioned, the
Anglo-Scottish wars or stufflike that.
So every tour is differentbecause of who's on it and you

(39:00):
bring your own life experiencesto the tour and then it's
connecting those life experienceand going well.
This is the way it was in thepast and this is also what it
means for us today and how allties together In those ways.
I my favorite period, I think,is I love periods that are quite

(39:21):
tumultuous.
So the end of Roman Britain isone where we don't know much
about it.
We're starting to get a betterand better image because of
science advancing andarchaeology advancing, but that
sort of period from 400, well,350 AD right the way through to
probably around about the 700sis a period I find absolutely

(39:41):
fascinating.
And I love In the same way theNorman conquest till about 1200.
I find so just for anyone whodoesn't know English history
1066 is generally consideredwith the date of the Norman
invasion and then the periodafter that was a very conflicted
period in British history.
So I find those sort of periodsamazing because you have these

(40:05):
new formations, thesetransformations, the changes,
anything like that, especiallythe Roman invasion of
Northumberland, and even likethe Bronze Age migration where
we have a new population cominginto the British Isles around
2500 BC.
That's the stuff that gets mereally excited because it's like
that pioneering, that mixing,that change and transformation.

(40:27):
Those things I think we canlearn a lot about the human
experience.
We just get a sense of what'shappening as people create new
stories in those times, eitherlegitimizing some horrific stuff
or getting through and havingtheir story remembered through
oral or recorded traditions, andthat stuff I think is just it

(40:53):
gets me going, oh no, it'sfantastic.

Speaker 1 (40:56):
Now we'll'll move on a bit of practical tour
information.
So if you listen to the podcastand you're thinking, yeah, I, I
want to go out on a half day orfull day or multi-day tour, uh,
with alex, and and why wouldn'tyou?
I tell you what, when I'mcoming back, I'm gonna book a
tour with you, alex, becausethere's some stuff I want to
find out about.
I mean, I grew up in the areaand and just talking to you now

(41:16):
I'm kind of like, oh, I know Ican chat to you about, about
some of the things that I'minterested in and wanting to
know that I feel like I've neveractually thought about before.
So about if people want to bookyour tour, how many people can
you cater for from minimum tomaximum?

Speaker 3 (41:30):
so I normally do tours.
My own vehicle is a six-seaterso I can take up to groups of
six in a vehicle at any one time.
So that can be a mixed group ofyou know, free twos or whatever
works well.
On occasion I have done solotours and I take people out by
themselves, but it just dependson the day and who's actually

(41:52):
booked on.
Though I have organized largergroups where a group has they're
already booked, their coach orthey would like me to access an
intermediary there.
So I've done groups of 70, 80,90.
Um, I remember a few years agoI did a group of 160 for a dutch
university and last year I dida tour of 540 where I brought on

(42:17):
to my freelance guides and itwas a larger group and we did it
over the course of three dayswith different groups having
tours at different times.
That was a really lovelyexperience and it was good fun
there.
So I don't know if yourlisteners will probably have a
group of 540, but if they cangive me a bit of a heads up.
That one just took a wee bit oflogistical work as you

(42:39):
understand, um, but, like, Ilike to keep the group sizes
slightly smaller.
So, like, even a group of up toyou know, 80 can still feel
intimate because you can bringon two or three other guides who
work with me, who I know havethe you know, they are also, uh,
archaeologists, professionalarchaeologists or have an
experience in history andstorytelling.
And there's about three or fourclose people who I work with

(43:03):
who I think are absolutelyamazing, and so that's why I
employ them as my freelancers.
And then we could do a grouptour like that, where it's a
larger group and we focus in onstuff like that.
Those are often multi-day toursin their own right, or if you
just have, like, this is a fewof you and you want to go out
together, I can work that aswell, and it'd either be me or
one of my freelancers who woulddeliver the tour, um, normally

(43:25):
up to a group size of aboutanywhere between three and six,
depending on, uh, which one ofus is doing it and which vehicle
is in use.
So those are the sort of thingsI do with my, with my tours,
and obviously, as the businessis growing, I'm always looking
to do more.
I'd love to expand with smallbuses and involve a sort of it's

(43:48):
still that high-end bespokenature of the tours, so that
when groups are coming on boardit's comfortable, it's enjoyable
and we're doing the route there, that's always good fun.

Speaker 1 (43:59):
Anna, that sounds brilliant and are all tours
suitable for all ages andfitness levels?

Speaker 3 (44:04):
yes, I would say that with children on tours.
I generally say that, um, I amgood at working with kids and a
lot of my guides also haveexperience in historical
education or have worked inmuseums and schools.
Just with the information andlength of, I often find that 10
plus is a good rule of thumb,just because younger children

(44:24):
sometimes find it a bit moretiring or stuff like that,
especially if you've done a fewdays in advance.
And I don't see as an up agelimit of the tour, because even
if we're doing a Hadrian's Walltour, there are areas of the
wall that are accessible.
It's not all pure up and downcliff faces.
If you type Hadron's Wall intoGoogle, let's say, you'll

(44:47):
suddenly see these very dramaticsceneries of these cliff faces
and the wall on the top of it.
It's not all like that and youcan make it to a bespoke and I
always want to make sure thatcustomers have the best
experience.
I had a tour about I think itwas four years ago now, and this
is one where I came awaybuzzing at the end of the tour.

(45:07):
It was a challenge but it wasreally good fun to do it,
because I had a visuallyimpaired group and I was doing a
walking tour of Newcastle.
Now they didn't tell me thatthey were visually impaired
until the tour started, becausethey had had experiences where
people had cancelled the tour onthem because they said oh,
you're blind, so therefore wedon't want to take you on a tour

(45:30):
.
And they hadn't said that.
But you could tell that therewas an element of probably
discrimination, because theguide would just go I don't know
what I'm going to do with them.
And so suddenly you have tochange the whole tour because
you can't go.
Look over there, it's notpossible.
So what you do instead is yousay what you're standing in
front of now is a Georgianbuilding in Newcastle.
The sandstone is a goldenyellow colour.

(45:52):
You feel the sandstone hereit's quite a strong sandstone,
but it can be worn down overtime.
And sandstone here it's quite astrong sandstone, but it can be
worn down over time and a lotof the bricks have been replaced
.
In the 1990s onwards, becauseof the fact that Newcastle had
so much industrial heritage, andthe burning of the coal around
here meant that this goldenyellow sandstone had gone black
with coal soot and the wholecity was generally black, and

(46:13):
it's been clean since the 90swith heritage, lottery money,
and so you do that storytellingwhere you paint the picture in
someone's mind.
And by painting the picture insomeone's mind you can do a tour
where, yes, for two hours Isuddenly had to go.
All right, I can't say, look,what I have to say is I have to

(46:34):
describe it, I have to dophysical, the senses that are
there and work from that.
So if a group tells me, youknow, we have people who have
mobility issues and stuff likethat, we will do our best to
modify it.
Some things, for instance, likeif you wanted to do like an
off-road wheelchair tour ofHadrian's Wall, I might say that

(46:56):
another provider might bebetter suited than myself.
But if there was like a, youknow, you say, oh, we just need
to go a little bit slower.
Because, you know, just thisweek actually, I had a lady who
contacted me and she said, look,my foot is in a boot because I
broke my foot beforehand.

(47:16):
Can we go a bit more of adifferent pace or can we make it
a bit more comfortable?
And I was able to modify thetour for her.
So I don't want anyone ever tosit down and go oh, because of
this reason I can't do a tour,we'll work the tour around it,
because the thing is me and myguides, we know our region, we
love it and if we can't do aplace, like going back to

(47:44):
Hadron's Wall again, there's aplace called Halsteads, one of
my favourite forts.
But Halsteads is on a hill slope.
Its Roman name, veracovium,literally means the settlement
on a hillside, so for somepeople with impairment that's
not suitable.
But there are sites that aremuch flatter and so you can
modify the tour and take peopleto a Roman fort.
You can take people and stilltell the same story, which is to
the archaeology and theinformation in that area.
So I hope that makes sense whenI'm saying about, like you know

(48:05):
, group sizes and also alongsidethat as well, like how you
modify a tour, because you knowI have my on-the-shelf tour, I
deliver, but it doesn't meanthat that can't be changed to
make sure that you know peoplewho are visiting get the best
experience possible now theyjust have to contact you and
kind of let you know what, what,what it is that they're after,
and then you can, yeah, havethat conversation it's on the

(48:26):
morning of the tour and yousuddenly say something to me.
I can try and make small, smallchanges, but it is best to have,
you know, some knowledge.
And I know that's hard becauseI mean, I had a tour earlier in
the year where the lady had beenin York the day before and
she'd stepped off a curb andshe'd broken her foot and she
didn't know.
She actually messaged meafterwards, about a month later.

(48:48):
Um, she was really lovely,she'd done a review and sent me
a bit of feedback and she said Iwas just, you know, I thought I
twisted my foot, I had a standand I broke my foot in York and
she had done a whole tour aroundthe region and she'd been
limping the whole way becauseshe thought she'd sprained it.
And I just, you know that wasone where we did modify the tour
for her and make it much morecomfortable, but she obviously

(49:11):
thought she had a sprain and shehad a broken foot, which I mean
, that's just a you, you'resomeone's vacation, it's uh yeah
, that's not, that's right.

Speaker 1 (49:20):
I've got a friend of mine who does that every time
she goes on holiday.
She's done it three times now.
So the joke is, none of us wantto go on a trip with Melissa,
but anyway.
So, if, how far in advance dopeople need to book?
If they're going to book withyou, I mean, is it busier?
Obviously in the summer months,I'm guessing.
Um, so, and obviously I'm goingto put a link in the show notes
to your website, um, but youknow, if, if somebody's thinking

(49:43):
, um, they wanted to in the nextmonth or two, is it too late,
or you know how, how soon shouldthey get in touch with you?

Speaker 3 (49:51):
so I would say, um, anywhere between uh one to three
months at the start of a seasonis always a good rule of thumb.
It's really good to sort of getthat in the diary and start
working and that means I havetime to.
If you wanted a more bespokeroute or anything like that, I
can plan that.
If you contact me on the weekof the date you wish, I can

(50:13):
still probably get you in on atour or contact one of my guides
.
There is occasions where youmight be a little bit
disappointed, just because youknow pre booking and the routes
are already in place and let'ssay I might have all Bamber and
Lindisfarne tours and one Bishop, I might have four Bamber and
Lindisfarne tours and one RabianBishop, auckland and you would

(50:35):
like to go to Hadrian's Wall andI can't fit you in.
But what I can do is tell youwhat I do have running.
So you know, there is alwayselements where I can say, oh,
this Tuesday you could join thetour and we've got two spaces or
stuff like that.
But it is that as you getcloser to the date,
unfortunately, the more bespokenature of the tour and the
availability will become less,less for you, which is just one

(50:59):
of the side things, but if yougive me plenty of time I'll be
able to work out things for youand your group and make it work
as best as possible.
And that's always good, and Iwork throughout the year.
I do take Christmas off andEaster off, which are my times
where I like to take some timeoff and occasionally a book of
time in the summer, but that is,that's all my times.

(51:20):
But I've had people who've comeand wanted to do stuff in
December and January andFebruary and that works just as
well, though obviously I alwayssay you know, prepare for any
sort of weather.
We do sometimes get nice longsummers, but the one thing that
is always takes people bysurprise is that the region can
be quite windy.
So I think a lot ofinternational travellers when

(51:42):
they think of the British Isles,they think of rain.
Now that has been heavilyinformed by the Atlantic coast
of Scotland, of the north westof England, so the Lake District
and Devon and Cornwallwall,which as well get exposed to the
Atlantic temperatures.
The east coast of Britain isactually remarkably dry, but we

(52:02):
get a lot of wind.
So sometimes when people comeon tours, what surprises them is
it could be a lovely warm day,but there's always a wind in the
background.
So I always suggest, whenyou're coming, pack so that you
can, you know, obviously havelayers, but also to have
something that will protect youfrom the wind, because that's
always something that I thinkpeople don't always think about.

(52:23):
Um there, and I mean I had someladies at the start of this week
from florida and when they came, uh, they obviously are used to
much warmer temperatures.
It was, in my opinion, a warmday.
It was around about uh 24degrees celsius, which I'm
trying to work that out infahrenheit, um, I want to say
60s to 70s fahrenheit I thinkit's about 60 something, yeah

(52:47):
yeah, yeah, um, to them, it'sstill far too cold for me.
It was, you know, a great day.
I had my t-shirt, uh, shortsleeves, all of that.
I was having a great time.
They, on the other hand, feltthat they needed to have their
jumpers on, which uh did make mechuckle.
But I understand that.
You know the northeast ofEngland isn't Florida or Texas,

(53:07):
or you know even the south ofFrance, because, trust us, you
know those places have got, youknow, much nicer or warmer
climates.

Speaker 1 (53:15):
Well, I have to say, as you know, I'm from
Northumberumberland.
I was born and brought up inNorthumberland, but the one
thing that drove me away fromNorthumberland was, I'm afraid,
the weather and the wind, um.
So I have to say I I don't missthe the the coolness of the
weather up there, becauseobviously I live in, live in
Brisbane, um, where we havewarmer temperatures, so I
probably would have found it abit chilly as well this week, I

(53:35):
have to say one thing I will sayI'm just gonna, I was gonna say
alex one thing I'm gonna saythat I do miss of the, of those
long days of just daylight thatyou get, um, which gives you far
longer to go out and explore.
It really does, uh, gives youthe county on a plate, I think,
because you just have so muchtime you can go out and enjoy,

(53:57):
enjoy, exploring it.

Speaker 3 (53:59):
Well, yeah, so just two points on that.
So at the moment we're in Julyand it's becoming light around
about five in the morning andit's still light until 10
o'clock at night.
So we're getting long, longdays in July and stuff like that
.
So even after your tour, youknow you can go back to your
hotel, you can enjoy our warmweather I wouldn't say warmer

(54:23):
weather but you can sit outside,you can, you know, go to a
restaurant and it'll still belight, and so you get that
experience where you know yourdays are longer and you can
really enjoy other things aswell.
So it's basing yourself inplaces like Newcastle, annex,
places like that.
Since COVID we've actuallystarted moving more towards
outdoor dining and stuff insummer and we really enjoy it.

(54:44):
So that's always good there,and most hotels and restaurants
actually do outdoor seating withblankets.
So for customers who do findthat wee chill, you can just
have a blanket and still enjoyyour glass of wine or beer or
whatever you're fancying in theevening and have a lovely time,
and that's something that isproper class or really good oh,
you see, you make it.

Speaker 1 (55:03):
You make me homesick now, because I just can see
myself going to holy island andsitting in a, in sitting on the
uh pub garden there with a witha drink and enjoying the, the
warmth and the, the summersunshine.
That would be really nice.
Maybe I'll get to do that in afew weeks.
I never know.
Not know.
Now.
You've guided people from allover the world, um, are there
any standout kind of stories ormoments from your tours over the

(55:27):
last sort of 12, 13 years?
Alex?

Speaker 3 (55:31):
I think, um, each tour has its own moments, which
is really lovely.
So, like I, as you say, overthe past 13 years met so many
different people and I thinkthat what's lovely for me is
seeing their response to twodifferent parts of

(55:51):
Northumberland, to or to placesin County Durham and stuff like
that.
So I, for instance, have done atour, for this was just last
month, actually for aconfirmation group, so as a part
of the Anglican Communion, youcan do a confirmation course
before you do your confirmation,and so this was a group from

(56:15):
North America who came acrossfor it, and I just remember we
were at Lindisfarne and theystood in the location where the
Shrine of St Cuthbert had beenand they just had 20 minutes of
silent prayer in LindisfarnePriory, which was.
So it was a wonderful,beautiful spiritual moment,

(56:39):
spiritual moment For othercustomers, like for them.
They want to travel through thelandscape and they love going,
when I say off-road, off themain road, so you're onto the
smaller A roads and B roads ofNorthumberland and you get to
see the hills and the landscape,but then that is their space.
I often talk about somethingthis is an idea that you find a

(56:59):
lot in um scottish and irishculture, but there's something
called fin space and it's theidea of where heaven touches
earth, uh, the idea of someplace where you feel close to
heaven, and I love helpingpeople on your tours just to
experience their own little thinspace during their vacation.
So you know, sometimes it'scoming over the hills and seeing

(57:21):
the cheviots for the first timewith you know the, the
millfield valley, which is alovely, um fertile valley in
northumberland, surrounded bybig hills on either side, and
they see that for the first time.
They're like wow and stuff likethat.
Or going inside durhamcathedral and being able to say,
look, this was built in 40years and was you know this

(57:42):
amazing cathedral and it's threetimes older than the United
States.
Or like going around and beingable to show you know where some
of the first human settlerslived on the coastline.
Or to go inside Newcastle'scastle and say, well, this is
the castle that gave the cityits name.
You know, each of those thingsare really special in their own

(58:05):
ways.
So it's really hard for me,because each tour has their own
lovely moments, to pick out oneor a story where I can go.
Yeah, that was it that I reallyremember as well, as there have
been plenty of funny moments aswell, which I definitely
remember.

Speaker 1 (58:23):
It sounds like all of them.
I was going to ask you whatyour favourite thing is about
being a guide, but you can hearit just in your voice when you
talk about it the passion andthe enjoyment and your love for
what you do and showcasing thenorth-east of England.
It's lovely to hear.
What about future plans, alex.
Have you got any ideas for newtours or kind of what are you

(58:44):
hoping to kind of expand to?

Speaker 3 (58:48):
So I'm working on my Scottish Borders tour in a
minute.
So that's me wanting to sort ofdevelop that history and
heritage of the area of widerNorthumbria, the old kingdom of
the Anglo-Saxons, but alsotalking about the Anglo-Scottish
borders and stuff like that andconnecting that in as well.
So that's something I've beenworking on at the minute and

(59:11):
while I've got some downtimeI've been researching that in
quite a lot of depth and that'ssomething that I'm really
enjoying.
But in the next few years I'mreally looking to try and work
with other guides in locationslike the Lake District, like
Yorkshire, like the rest ofScotland, who are also
archaeologists, so that I cantake the learning I've had and

(59:32):
then say, right, let's developtours for these regions and
branch out isles tours.
Now, obviously that takes time,that takes partnerships and
it's not something that I'mgoing to be launching in the
next month or two.
But my long-term goal is towork with those people to
develop the Isles Tours tour,guiding across probably northern
Britain and in other areas aswell, and tell those stories

(59:53):
that can really bring bring theregion to life.
So that's something I'm hopingto do in the future.

Speaker 1 (59:59):
Oh no, it sounds very exciting.
Now, I know, I know we've gotan announcement, you've got an
announcement in a moment to make.
So if you're listening to thepodcast and you're thinking
about booking with Alex, hang on, because he's got some exciting
news to share.
But before we do that, there'salways one question I ask at the
end of the podcast, and that iswhat would be the number one
tip you would share with anybodyvisiting the northeast for the

(01:00:21):
first time so my tip would be tochoose a theme for your first
visit.

Speaker 3 (01:00:29):
So, for instance, in the northeast we have beautiful
coastlines, so you could choosecoasts, or you could choose
market towns.
You could choose hill walkingand go out into the hills of the
north pennines, the cheviots.
You could choose, uh, the factyou want to try out newcastle
and durham and see city lifehere and experience those

(01:00:50):
ancient towns and cities.
And when you choose a theme,build your visit around that
theme, because the problem is isthat if you came here and just
try and do everything at once,you're going to get overwhelmed.
It's like visiting any otherregion.
You have to be quite specificin your first visit, because
you'll do what you love to doand you'll figure out what your

(01:01:12):
love is.
And even if you didn't workwith me, let's say, as your tour
guide and you just decided togo with other guides, there are
so many amazing guides, so manyamazing attractions, so many
amazing things to do in thisregion that I think you would
have a great time no matter what.
Because, for instance, I can'ttake you out on a nature walk,

(01:01:34):
but there are companies that donature photography in the region
.
There are people that take youout in a boat, so Billy Shields
Boat Company they take you outand you can see seals and orcas
and puffins and travel aroundthe coast of the Northeast.
You can go and do a pub tour.
You know I don't do pub tours,but there are some amazing

(01:01:54):
guides who can take you on a pubtour or a food tour of the
Northeast, and you know thoseare things that I don't do.
But if you choose what you want,your theme for your visit, I
don't think you'll bedisappointed whatsoever.
And, uh, that would be my.
My sort of statement to anyonewho who wants to visit here is

(01:02:14):
figure out what you love andthen focus in on that, and when
you do that you're going to havethe best time, because I think
the people here are open,welcoming, friendly, communal.
The landscape, the history, theculture it all brings it
together.
And I don't like when peoplesay you're an undiscovered gem
or stuff like that, because weare here but we're just not on

(01:02:37):
the main beaten track.
And when we're not on the mainbeaten track track, it's.
One of my dreams is to help usto become that, but in a way
that's sustainable, bringspeople here and develops a love
for the region, rather than itbeing sort of like, um, a tacky
tourist item that you pick up ina in a wee corner shop.
This is something that I wantyou to cherish for the for the

(01:02:58):
rest of your life.

Speaker 1 (01:02:59):
There's a lot of, there's a huge amount of depth,
and I'm going to talk aboutNorthumberland.
So.
So my tip and I'm going to I'mgoing to chip in on this one.
I really am, alex, so I'm fromNorthumberland, proudly from
Northumberland, and if youlisten to this podcast and you
are visiting England and you'replanning to travel which many of
you may do from London to York,and then you're thinking I'm
going to go from York and I'mgoing to head up to Edinburgh,

(01:03:21):
do me a favour, please, please,do not just go from York to
Edinburgh.
There's a massive amount ofbeautiful countryside and
history and culture toexperience in the North East of
England.
So do me a favour and promiseme that you will stop off and
spend some time exploring thebeautiful northeast, and with
Alex as well as your guide wouldbe absolutely perfect.

(01:03:43):
So, alex, you have a surprisefor our listeners, so would you
like to share what that is?

Speaker 3 (01:03:50):
Yes, so I would like to offer to the listeners of the
UK travel planning podcast adiscount of 10% on a direct
booking with me.
So when you contact IELTS,either contact me directly by
email and just quote the UKtravel planning discount code of
UKTP10, or you can also do itthrough a direct booking on my

(01:04:10):
website, which iswwwisletourscouk, which is Isles
, spelt I-L-E-S.
Unfortunately, one of myancestors lived on land that
belonged to a Norman knight andso because of that, we have the
French spelling of the word Ilesrather than anything else,
which causes a great deal ofconfusion.
But yes, as I said, it'swwwioles I-L-E-S tours

(01:04:34):
T-O-U-R-Scouk and the discountcode is UKTP10.
And if you would even quotethat through the contact us page
, if you want to do somethingmore bespoke, or if instead you
would just like to get one ofthe tours off the website and
just book that way, then putthat in on the promotional code

(01:04:54):
section of the booking and thenfrom there you'll get a 10%
discount which you can enjoy onthe tour.

Speaker 1 (01:05:00):
And that's valid for tours booked in 2025, Alex.

Speaker 3 (01:05:03):
That is yes.

Speaker 1 (01:05:04):
Anyway, alex, it's been absolutely fantastic to
talk to you this week.
It's always a joy to talk tosomebody about Northumberland
anyway, but it's just your lovefor it and passion for it, and
your tours sound amazing, so Iam so pleased that we are able
to work together and come on thepodcast today.
So thanks very much.

Speaker 3 (01:05:22):
Thank you so much for having me and it's been an
absolute pleasure and I lookforward to hopefully speaking
again in the future and alsohopefully hosting some of your
guests, thank you for tuning into this week's episode of the UK
Travel Planning Podcast.

Speaker 1 (01:05:36):
As always, show notes can be found at
uktravelplanningcom.
If you've enjoyed the show, whynot leave us feedback via text
or a review on your favouritepodcast app?
We love to hear from you andyou never know, you may receive
a shout out in a future episode.
But, as always, that justleaves me to say until next week
.
Happy UK travel planning.

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