Jonathan Thomas (00:21) Welcome to the Anglotopia podcast where we explore British history, travel and culture. And I'm your host, Jonathan Thomas. If you've ever taken a black cab in London, you've experienced something uniquely British. While the rest of the world has turned to GPS and rideshare apps, London's taxi drivers still undergo one of the most grueling tests in the world, the knowledge. memorizing over 25,000 streets and thousands of landmarks within a six mile radius of Charing Cross in central London. Today, I'm speaking with Billy Cullen a London taxi driver who went one step further. After completing the knowledge, he earned a degree in history with honors and built London history taxi tours, a business that combines his intimate knowledge of London streets with a deep passion for the city's 2000 year history. Whether you're arriving at Heathrow for a layover tour, exploring the consoles, or following in the footsteps of Jack the Ripper or taking in the Christmas lights, Billy and his team of certified cabbie guides offer something you simply can't get from a bus tour or a smartphone. A personal connection to London from someone who knows it better than anybody else possibly could. Welcome to the podcast, Billy. Billy (01:32) Hey, how you doing, Jonathan? You good? Jonathan Thomas (01:34) Yeah, thank you for being here. Hopefully the hopefully the the winter weather isn't too bad in London as it is compared to here in Indiana. That's I've always jealous of English winters you guys you guys know about the winter, but your winters are so much better than our winters. Billy (01:36) Thank you very much. I hear it's much better. Yeah, what I've found is that the north of the United States tends to be at an absolute extreme of how it is in London. So London, we kind of get like miserable, moderate weather. It's never terrible, it's never amazing. It's pretty much right there. Jonathan Thomas (02:10) But at least it's not negative 20C today in London like it is here. Billy (02:13) Yeah, you could probably wear a t-shirt out there. I'm not saying you're gonna get a suntan, but I think you'd be alright. Jonathan Thomas (02:20) So let's start at the beginning. What made you want to become a London taxi driver? Billy (02:26) That's an interesting question. I spent most of my early adulthood, 20s, whatever, working in offices. I worked for a jewelers, worked for a ship brokers, worked for law firms, in accountancy and IT. And I just kind of fell up on those jobs and they never really interest me. And I hated not being my own boss. So in between those jobs, because I did a few, I knew a lot of cab drivers. I'll be speaking to a lot of cab drivers and I really appreciated like, well, at least I yearned for the sort of freedom that they alluded to. So I really started thinking about doing the knowledge for freedom, working for myself. And after about a month of kind of testing the waters of doing the knowledge, I knew it was what I should be doing. So the idea of the freedom in working in this really cool city up the road per se, was the ultimate selling point for me. Freedom and a cool city. Jonathan Thomas (03:23) So for Americans who may not know, and I use the word and you use the word, what is the knowledge and why is it considered the hardest test in the world? Billy (03:34) Right, okay. So the knowledge of London technically goes back to 1851 when you had what was called the Great Exhibition. It was like the first World Trade Fair, World Expo, and it was established kind of by the then Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police of Richard Main and the idea was that the the Hackney Carriage Drivers, the cab drivers of London should probably know their way around London. It was going to be this massive influx of tourists coming in so they had to make sure that the cab drivers knew, you know, how to probably get them around, you know, and not take them on a tour inadvertently. It was probably formalized in the early 20th century and how what it is today, it means that you have to learn all estimated 20 to 25,000 streets of London plus 25,000 places of interest across the city within a six mile radius of Charing Cross of technically King Charles I statue at Trafalgar Square. You have to learn everything within six miles around it. You have to see the map of London in your head. Jonathan Thomas (04:37) Yeah, so it's not just learning the places you have to learn how to get to any two places on the map, correct? Yeah. Billy (04:43) Exactly, exactly that. So how we learn it, bear in mind, you have to see the map of London in your head, you have to know your way around, and you can't really deviate from what would be the straightest route. So the way that we learn it, we start off by initially learning 320 runs across London. And that's just the initial part, it's called the blue book. The Blue Book, which was created decades ago, was split into four volumes, 80 runs each. You would physically go out and drive on a scooter, moped, whatever, which would have a plastic board attached to the front. When I did it, I had a paper map and my run, like the list of the roads I needed to drive, the direction and so on attached to the front. Now you see people doing it with iPads. Same routes, just they're using different technology. But the point is, you drive those routes and you should be pulling over every four roads or so. And if you can't visualize, you can't remember the name of the roads or directions, visualize the surroundings around you, just in those four runs or four roads, go back and do it again. It's all about repetition. It's imprinted in your head. You do 320 of those runs and then you do missing pieces and basically just learn all the small bits in between. And what I did, because my memory is a little bit different to other people, probably ADHD, I actually created my own blue book. So you see, there. And what I did there was converting my weaknesses into strengths. So the places of London that I couldn't really see too well, I made a point and focused on them more than anything else. But most cab drivers will use. that blue book, they will do the runs and just keep on reciting, revising those runs from the moment they start the knowledge to the very end. Jonathan Thomas (06:42) So how long did it take you to learn 25,000 Streets? Billy (06:47) So for me to do the knowledge because I'm not gonna claim that I've done you know literally 100 % might be 99.99 or something and it took me three years and I've actually got here my scorecard so here we go as you can see forgive me it's a little bit faded it was a nine ten years ago now but yeah three years it took me Jonathan Thomas (07:12) Wow. So, isn't it true that they've done brain scans of people as they take the knowledge that the direction part of their brain actually grows when they learn this? Billy (07:27) So, right, okay, before I say what I'm gonna say, just bear in mind, I'm not a neurosurgeon, I'm not, you know, some kind of scientist in that regard. But it's a proven fact that it was even in the science museum in South Kensington, London, and there was an exhibit on this, that the London Black cab driver has a significantly larger hippocampus than the average person. So it's probably why most people that do the knowledge, they develop, if they didn't have one already, but they develop a... Jonathan Thomas (07:31) You Billy (07:56) a propensity towards learning and in some ways kind of retaining new skills or whatever that would be. It could also explain why us London Black Cab drivers, we like to voice an opinion or two in debate. Jonathan Thomas (08:07) Yeah, I was gonna say there's a joke there about cab drivers having big heads, but we won't make it right. Billy (08:13) I think it definitely takes up a little bit more size on the screen than it might have done before. Jonathan Thomas (08:19) I learned 25,000 streets, then I can recall how to get from anywhere in London. I probably would have a big head too. So I, you know, I, I, totally. Billy (08:27) God, it wasn't easy. I'll say that much. It wasn't easy. It's constant repetition. And I know people that took them three years, but let's say in the first four or five years, they were kind of doing it part time. They were balancing it with like, you know, family obligations, work and so on. And then because it was taking them so long, they had to take two years out of work to do it. So if you don't put everything into it, you won't get it done. Jonathan Thomas (08:58) Well, and then forgive me, this isn't a question. if you don't know it, I apologize. ⁓ What's the failure rate for people who start the knowledge versus who finishes it? Billy (09:09) I don't know what the failure rate is. Um, I, so there are knowledge schools. Um, bear in mind, you can do the knowledge just by doing the blue books and calling over with a friend, which is revising friends. So technically you can do the knowledge with one other person, but there are generally schools that I would advise people to go to. And I would probably say that 10 % of the people that joined the school that I went to dropped out of the knowledge. And I think that's a relatively kind of some rough statistic but I think that's probably the case of what it is but it's not always a case of failing the knowledge because they do say you can't fail the knowledge you can only quit so that's basically what happens people give up because they keep failing appearances they don't retain the information and I was I would say they're probably back you know maybe a tenth of the people I knew doing the knowledge dropped out it takes on average three and a half to five years to do it. Jonathan Thomas (10:10) So you do it in three is fast then. Billy (10:13) Yeah, so a couple of things about that because I don't want to come across as big headed. Most of the people that I was doing the knowledge with, they were working full time jobs, had families and so on. There were a of firemen doing it, I'll say that much. I was living at home, so I did have the benefit that I didn't have financial obligations. I was doing it quite young per se. I had a couple of decent part time jobs including DJing, which you know just... managed to give me just a little bit enough money just to kind of keep going out, doing the knowledge and so on. So because of the fact that I was only working part time, there were weeks in the last year of doing the knowledge that I was doing, what, six days knowledge, one day work. I had it really good to be fair. I did really well. Jonathan Thomas (10:57) So you mentioned something called appearances. So what were these oral examinations like? I understand that you sit face to face with an examiner who can ask you the shortest route between any two random points and then you have to be able to recall it. Billy (11:00) Hmm. Yeah, right. Okay, so I'm going to answer this in two ways. One, the short way horrific. That's the short answer. The second, the longer one, right, so it is like an interview, but I just want to set the scene for you. You go up to the palastral, wherever the the knowledge center is today. It was different when I did it. You go into a waiting area, which is usually in the middle of like a circle of various offices. You are sat there with loads of other women and men, you don't have a clue who your examiner is. And you're basically sitting there, twiddling your thumbs, hyperventilating, praying that you're going to get an easier examiner, even though there's no such thing as an easy examiner. They'll come out and they'll call your name and you'll either be relieved because you think it'd be easier or you'll be petrified even still. Either way, there's no guarantee of the past. You'll go in that office and they'll ask you four questions of which over four you have to get a minimum of 24 points out of 40. So in other words, six points out of 10 for each question. And they will judge you one by your, well, your temperament, your lack of hesitation, directionality, and they will penalize you. They will zero you if you do a legal turn. So let's say theoretically you say right hand turn on no right, they'll zero you. And they'll usually factor that in for the other questions. They'll make it hard for the rest. But the point is they may say, I don't know, take me from platform nine and three quarters. And you'd be like, no, no, no, you don't know platform nine and three quarters. Okay. Take me from the great Northern Hotel. Pancras Road, sir. Oh yes. Okay. And then take me to the Victorian Albert Museum. So you're allowed like a couple of moments to, you know, just think about the route you're going to take and you theoretically have to drive it. And I'm not going to do the whole route, but essentially you start off with leave and left Pancras Road. right Euston Road, left upper Upper Wyburn Place and then so on, so on, so on. That probably wasn't the best turn, but that's the point. Jonathan Thomas (13:15) Well, we're not we're not grading you, so it's OK. Billy (13:19) Thank God for that. I've already done it and I want to do it again. Jonathan Thomas (13:24) So was there a moment where you thought about giving up or did you were you determined to just get like your I'm doing this? Billy (13:31) I was pretty determined. I was pretty determined for myself. I regarded it as the the opportunity of a lifetime per se. I hadn't had any decent careers. I was largely an unambitious person before doing the knowledge and the knowledge kind of gave me direction. It just made sense to me. And I'm not going to say there were times where I debated giving it up, but there were a couple of times in particular where I didn't know whether I was going to finish. One was quite early, it was before I joined a school and I wasn't really mixing with a lot of other knowledge students at the time and I had kind of no sense as to how I was getting on and it wouldn't be until I happened to meet the owner of a knowledge school who put me in the right direction and then from that point I was immediately on my appearances, I did quite well for myself. The other was I was quite near the end of the knowledge, I was on what's called 28s. which that's the part where, I see the scorecard here, hopefully, might be too bright. But yeah, so I was on 28th and that means that you get called up for another appearance every 28 days. So, and that's the toughest part. That's when they really start asking you intricate runs and so on. And I remember being out on my bike on a random Saturday and some driver, some cab driver drove past and he shouted out the window saying, don't bother mate, the game's dead, give it up. Basically saying, Jonathan Thomas (14:33) Now there we go. Billy (14:57) this, career is not worth it. And I was furious with that. I was furious with him. And after about five minutes, I kind of shrugged it off and carried on my run. And the, the reason why he most likely did that is because he got a terrible job and was having a bad day. But yet that was something that for someone else, that could have been a factor that could have led to them quitting the knowledge. It was the worst thing anyone could say. Never say the game is dead because it's not. Jonathan Thomas (15:14) ⁓ Well, and we'll talk about the challenges that cabbies face later on So how did it feel when you finally passed? Billy (15:30) Ugh. Well. pure elation, absolute relief and for pretty much everyone that does the knowledge it's quite literally that moment in life where you have a new life, you have a new career, you're your own boss, you do whatever you want so it feels surreal because you have no kind of expectation, you have no idea what things are gonna be like it's, I don't know I don't want to say it's the same for a doctor getting his PhD or a lawyer passing the bar but essentially you know that from the moment you've got that qualification your life is going to be completely different to what it was before. So elation, relief and bewilderment. Jonathan Thomas (16:18) ⁓ and and forgive me I didn't put this on the list but I just thought of this so you've you've passed the knowledge what happens next that you have to get a cab how does that work and and and yeah so what can. Billy (16:26) Mm. So, generally speaking, you have two options. You can either buy your own taxi or you can rent one from a garage. And that's what I have always done myself. I quite like that freedom of not owning a vehicle. But just to clarify, it's not like a yellow cab in New York where, you you go to the garage, you pick up the cab, you do your shift and you bring it back. It's very much a case of That tax is yours, but you pay a garage for the maintenance, the rent, for the rent, the maintenance, the insurance and so on. So I rent my taxi, but no one else uses it. So that's why it's all customized with all my own thing and so on. So they're the two choices, owning or renting. Jonathan Thomas (17:18) Okay, and so and so you you so have you been driving renting the same taxi since you passed or do you like change it every few years? Billy (17:28) So for the first month I had a cab, I went to a garage and I was rented a TX4. They're the, still on the road, but they're the older style five seater diesel guzzles. They're on their way out. There's an age limit to them. I rented from a garage where I really liked the person, he seemed really friendly, but I kept on taking the cab back for repairs every three or four days and eventually left them. And I've been with a garage ever since then. I feel like the best part of nine years. I drove a TX4 up until probably late 2019, briefly drove a Mercedes Vito because it was like large, I good for airport runs. But then I made the ultimate switch to the iconic TXE, the electronic six-seater with the panoramic roof. And it is amazing. And what's... The best part about it is that the tourists that don't know of these vehicles, they think we're driving around in a Bentley because the badge looks like one. Jonathan Thomas (18:32) And so is that are those the ones that are fully electric now? Billy (18:35) They are hybrid. The ones that are fully electric are the Nissan Dynamo, which I believe were discontinued. They weren't too popular. I could be wrong in saying that, but no, the most popular, LEVC, the TXE. So they're hybrid petrol and. Jonathan Thomas (18:37) okay. So the black cab itself, even though it's evolved many times over the last 150 years, is such an iconic symbol of London. What would you say is the most special thing about driving one? Billy (18:55) Hmm. Driving something that is in itself an iconic institution is amazing. I will say as a tour guide, it's fantastic because when you pick up guests that have never seen it before, their face, especially the kids, is always like, my God. know, it's a surreal experience, something they see on TV. When you drive the taxi that I've got, especially with no advertisements on it, because there's a lot of cabs that have advertisements, you'll be on Regent Street and you might get stuck at a traffic light or... maybe briefly a little bit of traffic and there will all of a sudden be someone that comes out in front of you and just starts taking loads of pictures and you kind of feel like you're a celebrity. Yeah, yeah, it's brilliant. And when I drive when I drove the Mercedes Vito for a short period of time, I didn't get that and I missed it quite frankly, because at that point I was like, no, you need to go back to driving a proper black cab. So that's why I went with the TXC. It's just the most iconic. So that's what I that's what I love about it. It feels like it's Jonathan Thomas (19:40) Yeah, sorry, that'd be me. Billy (20:02) iconic and an institution in itself. Jonathan Thomas (20:04) So London cabbies famously meet people from all walks of life. Do you have a favorite celebrity or a memorable passenger story that you can tell? Billy (20:14) Right, okay, so what I will tell you is that I don't watch a lot of kind of modern-day TV So people that are celebrities today, they may have jumped in my they may have jumped in my cabin I would have recognized them but I'll also say that I've got a bit of a unique music taste to what probably most people my age have so about Let's say seven years ago a lady jumps in my cap and it's summer driving in the old TX4 So because it's summer got the windows down just having a friendly chat, you know, through Soho on the way to near the BBC. Didn't realise that's actually what she was going to. Anyway, we go past this pub on the corner of Poland Street and very randomly there's a group of people standing outside drinking beer outside the front door, because that's normal pub culture in London, stand outside having a beer, but they're singing, which I thought was really weird. But bear in mind, Soho is a musical part of town, so I thought nothing of it. Well anyway, little bit of traffic. they turn around, they look inside the taxi and they all start going, whee, woo, like that, know, proper shouting. So me mucking around, because I just thought they were drinking and singing and having a good time. turn around and go, whee, like that, just mucking around. We carry them driving. I say to the lady in the back, I oh, thought they know me. I'm a bit of a celebrity. And she goes, haha, maybe. And then it clicked. thought, hold on. Do you know them? Did they recognise you? She goes, and... maybe like quite shy about it and I go sorry who are you if they're not asking she goes and I'm Carys Matthews and I was like sorry I don't know you and she goes I was in a band called Catatonia and just to point out they were massive in Britain in the 1990s and I was like no sorry I don't know she was a Welsh hymn singer and I go I don't go to Welsh churches okay I and Jonathan Thomas (22:02) Ha ha. Billy (22:10) down to the last what, the last thing ever, she goes, I did the song with Tom Jones, baby it's cold outside. And she said it's so begrudging, I was like, oh yeah, yeah, I know you are. And then we just carried on driving, got chatting about her radio show, she was on her way to, I think recording BBC Radio 5. But I just will always look back at that, I remember her being so friendly, so tolerant, and the whole thing of like, know, people shouting inside the taxi and me just being, you know thinking of a shadow me it's just it's always the one that sticks out but bear in mind I've met boxers on their actors and other famous people unfortunately unfortunately one of the boxes I met has died recently Ricky Hatton and he was always really famous for between fights he would you know he would binge you drink a lot and eat lot put on a lot weight but the next time he had a fight he would trim up and when I met him of course it was between pubs so Yeah, I've met a few people whilst being a cab driver. It's amazing. Jonathan Thomas (23:12) So forgive me, this is a random question, but what radio station do you keep on in the cab when you're. Billy (23:15) Yeah. I'm very much a Spotify guy. I do play a lot of my own stuff. However, there is an internet based one called Stump Radio. I'm very much someone that likes a lot of soul music from like the 80s and so on. So that's usually my taste. But sometimes I put on The Cure, The Beatles. It depends on the day. If I'm just cabbing, I know that people want, you know, British. So The Cure, The Beatles, The Stones, The Police, they're the go tos. Jonathan Thomas (23:49) So ⁓ forgive me, I don't want to offend you, but cabbies are known for having opinions on everything. ⁓ Is that stereotype accurate or do your passengers expect to have a debate with you when they get in? Billy (23:52) you yeah. It's a mixture. It's a mixture. Because most cab drivers of common sense know that not everyone thinks the same way. We're also aware of the fact that there was a stereotype about us. we do have to be careful. know, transport for London who issue our licenses, they expect that we're professional at all times. Cab drivers are very opinionated people, but we have our conversations amongst ourselves. And sometimes, We can gauge the situation and talk with our customers if we feel like, you know, they're up for this conversation, but we don't just put it upon people. You know, we can't, we can't do that. It's a, what politically it's a bi, not bipolar. I suppose it is a bipolar world. You can't always assume that people are going to align with your politics. So the best policy is, is just shut up and keep it to yourself. But not to say that we always do that, but we try to do that as carefully as possible. Jonathan Thomas (24:54) Ha ha ha. I can say I had a mixed experience. Ironically, and we'll probably talk about this later, but the most opinionated drivers I've been in are the unfortunate times I've had to take an Uber and those drivers are very opinionated. I don't know, for this one of the reasons I don't like taking Ubers, but let's not get into that just yet. At what point did you decide that regular cabi work wasn't quite enough and you wanted to be a tour guide as well? Billy (25:13) Yeah. Jonathan Thomas (25:26) What was the impetus that led to this? Like, you know, I might want to, I like talking about London. Let's, let's, let's make this a thing. Billy (25:32) It's a multifaceted thing and I'm not going to bore everyone with my life story, but I would just point out I was when I was a kid, I was really into history. I used to do like I used to have an obsession with Kings and Queens, for example. So I'd get an A4, a sheet of multiple sheets of A4 paper, them together, staple them in the middle, then kind of make like my own Kings and Queens of England book. So I've always had that interest in history. There was a podcast I was listening to. by an historian called Dan Carlin. He's a phenomenal American historian and he's really objective. So he was talking about the blueprint to Armageddon, basically the road to the first world war. And I really liked his objectivity and just listening to kind of rekindled something. So I was listening to his podcast around the time that I started thinking about maybe I should do something with history myself. And also to point out this whole thing about growing hippocampus. did give me a well, how can I put it? It psychologically transformed me quite a lot. I become a lot more ambitious. So I started wanting to learn quite a lot. So I started reading a lot more, I started learning languages. I was at the time learning Spanish, but now I'm learning German, this whole random thing. But the point is, I thought, if you've got a history and if you've got an interest in history, you're working in the city that has probably the most history in all anglosferic countries in the world. So everywhere that speaks English, everything's connected back to London. And if you love learning, why don't you just combine it? So I thought, you know what? I like a conversation with my guests. So why don't I look down over it and become a tour guide and combine all those factors? Jonathan Thomas (27:18) And so you went on to get a degree in history with honors. And so how long did that take and how did you balance that with being a taxi driver? Billy (27:24) Yeah Right, so it took me four years, but I started that during lockdown. So, so excuse me. So lockdown was terrible for the black cab trade. It was terrible for everyone. Of course it was. But remember I said about that, know, distinction about between either owning or renting a taxi for those that were renting it, we were so much better off because of the fact that we could just hand the cabs back to the garage if we wanted. And that's what I did. Jonathan Thomas (27:34) okay. Billy (27:56) And midway through 2020, I decided that not bear mind not knowing that the cab trade was going to come back. It kind of looked like the end of, you know, that well to us. So I actually started doing a degree in history with the view of becoming a history teacher and finished a degree, got first class, which I'm absolutely proud of. But by 2021, I was back in the cab doing the tours. It went from nothing to everything. essentially. So I was balancing doing tours, working the airport and whilst I was up Heathrow Airport waiting for people at the terminals, I was doing my studying up there. So fortunately the job kind of you know was conducive for learning. Jonathan Thomas (28:41) That's really interesting. Just imagine you and your cab reading a history book while you're waiting to pick up people like me. Billy (28:48) Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's exactly what I did. Cafeterias, you name it. There were a lot of socials I missed out on, but here's what it is. And I've got my degree whilst working. So, you know, for that I'm proud. Jonathan Thomas (29:02) Well, you and I are very much birds of a feather because, you know, I, when I want to learn something and I'm motivated to learn it, like that becomes my entire identity. And, and it's part of the, it's the kind of the way we do things in Anglotopia Cause you'll know anybody who's filed Anglotopia for a long time will notice we've gone through phases where like I focus on one thing for quite a while and, and then move on to the next thing. And it's just, it's the way it's the way it goes. Billy (29:13) Yep. Yeah. Jonathan Thomas (29:30) So when did you start London history taxi tours and how has it grown? Cause you actually have a team of historian taxi drivers working with you. Billy (29:41) Yeah, so I keep saying 2018, it might have been 2019. So what a good historian I am because I can't even when I started my own company. basically when I was there, so I started off, I was doing a tour guiding course, the cabbie guides course. So it was actually an introductory tour tour guiding course specifically for London black cab drivers. It was a, it was a two month introductory course, but, um, I met a friend there called Martin and me and Martin every day. Jonathan Thomas (30:00) Okay. Billy (30:10) we were studying not only the material that we were learning in the course, but we were learning loads of our own material and so on. And we kind of decided that by the end of the course that we should continue with what, sorry about it, we should continue with what we're doing and, you know, start up ourselves. Now Martin ended up eventually leaving, you know, still friends, but I then continued running London history taxi tours. It's. it's grown quite significantly. It started off with a band of two and then over the course of time, as you know, I've met more people, we'll need to expand. I knew quite a lot of other cabbie guides that had, you know, amazing experience, amazing learning ethic, and also had their own individual interests. some of our tours we do, not all, sorry, just to point out, not all of the tours we do are conducted by myself. Our tour guides have their own kind of specialties. So whether that be, you know, Jack the Ripper, ⁓ Canterbury, Stonehenge. So I have certain guides that are best for certain things. And I believe that I only take on guides that are passionate and friendly. You have to have a big smile on your face and you have to be passionate about what you do. Jonathan Thomas (31:28) So what's the advantage of say a taxi tour over a walking tour or one of the big bus touristy tours? Is it more personal? Billy (31:37) Alright, okay so before I answer this I just want to say that I'm not putting down any of the other tours I'm currently doing another tour guiding course which is largely for walking tours I'm doing a tour guiding course for a new area, well not a new area an area just north of the city of London called Clark and Woburn Islington and the guides that I've done now are phenomenal guides and they offer fantastic tours but what I would just say generally speaking the advantages of doing a Black Cab tour over walking and buses is that you get to cover great distances across London using a car. However, we've got access to all the taxi ranks and so on. So we can park up near enough anywhere in London, get out, see the sights, talk about it in great detail and narrate the history just as long as you would do on a walking tour in front of whether it's Westminster Abbey for five minutes or Buckingham Palace or the... and everyone's called Big Ben. Any of these locations, we can stand outside and do a presentation, but then we can utilise the black cab to get around driving to other places, pointing out other little secret gems along the way, and then stop somewhere else. Whereas instead of a bus tour, you would actually spend a good few minutes, up to 10 minutes in some locations, learning about the history of your photography. I've seen bus tours that drive past iconic sites in less than 30 seconds. My mentality is what are you going to learn in 30 seconds about what you're looking at? Virtually nothing. Jonathan Thomas (33:07) So that's a really good travel hack that if you take one of these, one of your tours, that you can use the taxi ranks to get around. That's a great selling point. I never even thought of that. So you've heard it here first, thank you, Latopians. So, and you've mentioned this as well, but you do offer central London tours, but you can actually go further afield as well to the Cotswolds or Stonehenge. Billy (33:16) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You Jonathan Thomas (33:36) How do you decide which tours you wanna offer? And then is it weird driving a black taxi to Stonehenge? Because it's a two hour drive. ⁓ Billy (33:36) Yes. Yeah, I'll break that down into a couple of questions I myself am very selective about the tours that I do because and this is what I expect from my tour guides I will not conduct a tour if I believe it's subpar. I have to know a Proficient I have to know a proficient amount of information to conduct the tour So I wouldn't do a jack the ripper tour for example I would hand out over to my other guides that do that same as you know, rock and roll. I do include some rock and roll stuff on my tour, but I don't do a exclusively rock and roll tour because I have a tour guide called Dennis who was a rock and roller in the 1970s and 80s who knows the history. So basically you delegate, or you don't delegate, you give the job to the best tour guide for the job. So the ones I love doing are my Billy's Black Cab Tour of London, which is a hybrid, secret and highlights London tour. But also the Cotswolds as you said. And yeah, that is, it is weird. And it's more often at somewhere like Stone in the World where, you know, it could be like three o'clock in the afternoon and you've got someone from the Midlands in England, kind of going, cool, what are you doing out here? That's a long fair. And you you say, I'm actually conducting a tour, I'm a tour guide. And you know, they just can't wrap their head around it. It was weird for me when I first started, it started off as excursions of research and a lot of research. but now I've actually developed a very unique tour myself, Billy's Big Cotswolds Tour, which covers as much of the Cotswolds as possible, providing a ⁓ nice blend of beauty and authentic England with history. Jonathan Thomas (35:26) You're selling me and I'm your target market here. So ⁓ film and TV location tours seem to be getting bigger and bigger everywhere. Every year you got Ted Lasso and Harry Potter and Downton Abbey. Do you find that those are increasingly popular with Americans who are like, I want to see all the Ted Lasso locations? Billy (35:28) I'll look after you, I'll look after you. Yeah. Yeah. most certainly, most certainly. Ted Lasso is huge. I've got a Richmond AFC scarf in the back of my cab. I love that show. Harry Potter, I've got one of my tour guides, Tony, he's a phenomenal Harry Potter tour guide and guest absolutely adorner. The other big one to look out for and it is very much a case of you've either heard of it or you've not, Slow Horses. That is huge. That's big one too. So of course, Ted Lasso, Harry Potter, Slow Horses, Fountain Abbey. I'll probably say off the top of my head, they are the biggest at the moment. Jonathan Thomas (36:29) I'm gonna baffle by what do you what do you look at on a slow horses tour cuz it's like we're gonna see it look we're gonna see all the grim bits of London Billy (36:39) So it's usually what's incorporated with other places along the way. So like for example, if you do a, let's say a secret London tour, you may find that there's historical sites in between, you know, or vice versa, that, you know, these filming locations are in between those. So for example, Slow Horses, Slough House, the main building that Lamb is in, that's between the Barbican estate, the primary residential area of the city of London, which is iconic for its brutalist design, and a charter house, a Tudor building. So technically it's in between those locations. You could do a slow horsey tour, but it's kind of that one specifically works best as just being mentioned. Whereas Ted Lasso, Harry Potter, they are two, for example, that you can just do dedicated tours entirely. Jonathan Thomas (37:31) So airport layover tours kind of fascinate me, giving someone a taste of London in just a few hours. How do you approach a layover tour? Billy (37:33) Yeah. So first of all, I would speak with the client just to see first of all, how long it actually is because you get people that only have a layover of three hours and you know, their messages say, hey, we want to see London. Can you pick us up? And I try to explain to them three hours is barely enough time to get out of the airport and get back. So there has to be a sufficient amount of time in between. I usually say that if you have, let's say eight hours between your flight. Jonathan Thomas (37:49) No, man, no. Yeah. Billy (38:08) that is a good time to be doing a tour. A lot of people have 8 to 12 or so. So the idea is, is you pick them up from the airport, you take them into town, you show them as much as possible. Some guests like to stop off for an authentic beer. And if that's the case, if I go with them, of course I'll be on the non-alcoholic drinks. But the point is you take them into a nice historic pub. Or they may want to go to Borough Market or go for iconic fish and chips. And every cab driver has their own fish and chips bar. I'm very much an advocate for the Mayfair Chippy, but you try and fit in as much authenticity as many of the highlights as possible, as well as a nice spin of secret London hidden sites. Jonathan Thomas (38:54) I never do a layover in London. If I'm coming to London, I'm staying. I'm not passing through. Billy (38:58) You're... yeah. I'm surprised you don't have a house out here already. Jonathan Thomas (39:06) I wish, I wish. So ⁓ what do American tourists typically want to see when they come to London for the first time? Billy (39:07) Yeah. Right, so I will just say that 98 % of my guests are American. I would say that generally speaking, when they come to the first time, the big ones, the big ones are Big Ben, Buckingham Palace, and London Bridge. Now, there are a lot of people that know that the famous bridge that they think is called London Bridge is Tower Bridge, but that's generally what they would say. Jonathan Thomas (39:33) Yeah. Billy (39:38) I'm not gonna offend people by trying to do my American accent right now. It's terrible take my word for it but again, it's typically Buckingham Palace Big Ben and London Bridge, Tower Bridge, but they The people that want the highlights are 90 well 99 % of the time amazed by all these stuff that they weren't expecting It's the secret things that also make up London not just the stuff that you see on pamphlets Jonathan Thomas (40:03) So how do you, and this might be delicate, how do you handle it when Americans have misconceptions about British history? Because I'm sure we have many. Billy (40:07) Hmm. It doesn't happen a lot per se. Generally, it's a tough one to answer. I do apologise. It's a tough one to answer. Sometimes if there are misconceptions, then I would just politely just say, ⁓ this is actually the cut up. I would have to try and think of my feet to try and do that politely. Because as a tour guide, you can't be going, you're wrong. You have to say things in a nice way to people. At the of the day, people are coming to London to have a lovely experience, enjoy it. But as well as you know, kind of experience and learn about it, they're just looking for a good time and no one likes to be, you know, corrected. Yeah. So you try and do it in a nice way. Jonathan Thomas (40:51) told they're wrong. Yeah. ⁓ What's one thing you wish more American visitors knew about one before they arrived? Because you're like, I have to explain this again, really? Billy (41:05) ⁓ I would probably say, and it's going to sound very specific, but I would say to look into more about the city of London, there are two separate cities, but just to clarify what I mean by the city of London, it's the financial district that inside there you've got St Paul's Cathedral, but even though, you know, on the face of it, it's like the most modern looking part, it's the oldest part, it's Roman Londinium. So inside this area that isn't particularly touristy per se, Whereas Westminster is, you've got Roman sites, you there's at least two Roman sites, two Roman museums to visit and old, early modern little streets cut away from things. And there's a lot of locations in the city of London where there's a lot of history and it might not necessarily be immediately visible, but what a lot of people do miss out on by just doing big bus tours and exclusively walking tours and tours in Westminster. You're actually missing out on the part of London that's got the most history. It may on the face of it look more boring, not boring, but more boring because it's offices. But between those offices, there's an immense, a rich amount of history, 2,000 years. So at the beginning of your introduction, when you said 2,000 years worth of history, that's what they're talking about. Roman Londinium, the city of London. So check that out. That should be a priority. Jonathan Thomas (42:28) Yeah, that's I I completely agree with you because a lot of people like they'll go to the St. Paul's and then that's like it and Lynn City of London and I've spent a lot of time there myself and you know, I live just outside of Chicago. So my big city is Chicago and it's all skyscrapers and stuff. But what's interesting about the City of London is you're in this square mile where there's a bunch of skyscrapers, but then you turn a corner and there's a Roman wall, you know. Billy (42:38) Yeah. Yeah, Jonathan Thomas (42:56) It's like imagine Billy (42:56) yeah. Jonathan Thomas (42:56) walking through downtown Chicago and you've seen a 2000 year old wall just doesn't happen and ⁓ you've got. Billy (43:01) exactly that. And like you had the Chicago fire, we had the great fire of London in 1666. I stupidly call it London's Pompeii. So what the unfortunate thing is, is that that wiped out an estimated 80 to 90 % of the city of London, everything in the middle basically, but there's still loads of things that predate the medieval times that have been naturally preserved, which we still rediscover. Jonathan Thomas (43:05) Yeah. Yeah. Ha Yeah, like pubs, like you'll Chester Cheese. Billy (43:30) Oh yeah, that was well, that was built after the great fire, it's still certainly worth going to. Jonathan Thomas (43:35) Yeah, so and it was interesting about exploring the city of London is if you go on a weekend, there's nobody there. It's a ghost town. And ⁓ while you will have trouble catching the black cab in the city of on a weekend, as I learned on my last trip, ⁓ it's great because you just walk around, you got the place to yourself and you've got like you said, there's Roman museums there that people don't really know about. So they're not crowded and Billy (43:42) Yeah, yeah, I love it. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Jonathan Thomas (44:04) I would, in 2026 is a big year because you're going to get the new London Museum in the old Spittalfields market. And so that's really going to change the dynamic in the city of London and hopefully more people go because it's going to be really cool, I think. Billy (44:20) just to clarify just to clarify in case anyone's listening that wants to go there so they're constructing the new one at the the old Smithfield market Smithfield market yeah no I didn't mean to undermine you it's just I just wanted to make sure that so Smithfield but there's to my knowledge there's no kind of certainty when it should be finished by and I think they're still trying to work that out but it's Smithfield and that area still in itself is worth walking around Jonathan Thomas (44:28) ⁓ sorry. Sorry. Yeah. ⁓ Yeah, yes. Yeah, you're absolutely right. Smithfield, sorry. No, no, no, I want to be correct. ⁓ They say it's going to open this year. ⁓ Whether it does, we'll see. We'll see. Hopefully it does by the time I come in August so that I can see it. But we'll see. Yeah. Billy (44:47) Sorry. Yeah. and it's worth going, it's worth going because whilst when people are planning their trip they should consider you know the Natural History Museum, the British Museum and so on, the London Museum is one of those that I think offers the most yet it's the least frequented and it's probably because it doesn't have as much fame but hopefully with its new site it should you know go up in the echelons of what you know people consider. Jonathan Thomas (45:27) Well, it's been closed for a couple of years now while they've been doing the move. then it my criticism of the museum, the old Museum of London is that it's in the worst possible location. Like you, you can't get to it easily from the street on And yeah, like you have to go through a tunnel and an elevator and escalator and they go, there it is. And it's like the steps, but the new place is going to be in the middle of everything. The train is literally going to go through the basement, which is cool. Billy (45:43) Nah, you gotta find your way. Yeah. Yeah. Jonathan Thomas (45:57) So. Billy (45:57) Exactly that, exactly that. Obviously a slow horses location by the way. Jonathan Thomas (46:00) Alright. Alright, alright, see see building up that slow horses tour. Billy (46:07) There you go, working on it. Jonathan Thomas (46:10) So, after all your years of study, what period of London's history fascinates you the most? Billy (46:18) I would probably say early modern London. Early modern London, so let's say largely what William Caxton 1476 until what French Revolution so 1500 to 1800 that's that period of time that I'm probably most fascinated with. Jonathan Thomas (46:36) the long, the long since they call that the long 16th century, right? Is that what they call that? Billy (46:42) Well, I have not heard the term the long 16th century. The one I have heard is the long 19th century. Yeah, so basically the long 19th century, which historians consider beginning of the French Revolutionary Wars, 1789 to the beginning of the First World War, 1914. So the early modern is kind of before that bracket. But again, it's a subjective thing. You could just coin these terms. Yeah, essentially that. Jonathan Thomas (46:49) Okay, alright. Okay. pre-industrial revolution. Billy (47:11) Hmm. Jonathan Thomas (47:12) are there hidden gems or places most tourists never see that you love showing people for the first time and they're like, wow, I didn't even know this was here. Billy (47:20) So I would probably say the most neglected that is certainly worth going to around London is Greenwich. Greenwich has amazing culture, especially around maritime history. But everywhere between Rutherhive to Greenwich in some way or another is connected to Tudors, exploration, the Prime Meridian, our well time zone, know, literally the middle of it is there. And also, technically, you can make the argument for the origins of America. The Mayflower, exactly that. Christopher Jones. know, these are these Captain Christopher Jones, sorry, I should say, my apologies. Yeah, between Robbohive and Greenwich, that's certainly an area that should be explored that bit more. And the city of London, Westminster, Suffolk, Kensington, they have a lot to offer and they shouldn't be neglected. But you should also try and factor in a visit to Greenwich. Jonathan Thomas (47:52) flowerpup. I'll hardly endorse this. Greenwich is great. So takes a bit of time to get there, but get a black taxi and you're fine. ⁓ How has London changed in the years since you've done the knowledge? Billy (48:19) you Yeah. So I will point out that I did the knowledge and got out by about the time that Uber had already been out. And the reason I'm mentioning that is because they have kind of, they've had the biggest impact on the trade. But the biggest transformations that I've seen since being a black cab driver have been the implementation of more cycle highways, ⁓ which has, it has affected some parts of our trade. Jonathan Thomas (48:37) So. Billy (48:58) But generally speaking, getting around in central London is still very much the case as it was nine years ago. It's just could be a little bit more of a nuisance for the black cab drivers on occasion. But generally speaking, it seems to me that away from the trade, the biggest transformation came after lockdown, because after lockdown, people were like, ⁓ there's an amazing city over there called London. Let's go visit it. And people now seem to be much more keen, enthusiastic, wanting to come visit London. I notice a lot more of an excitement of people, within people when they come here. Jonathan Thomas (49:33) So now do you do do more tours now than actual applying the trade or do you is it vice versa or I mean how are you doing mostly tours? How is it? How's your day structured these days? Billy (49:40) Yes. Yeah, I mostly do tours. My day structure is typically that I like to work in a day. We don't get too many evening tours, but sometimes we get like Twilight's tours, even the Christmas lights tours. But for me, I am predominantly working as a tour guide. And for me, I have to balance, you know, the administration of running London history taxi tours and doing the tours themselves, which I love doing. I think I'll always be a hands on guide, but I have still been working the cab. don't give a f**k, wanna earn money, but when you don't have to do it all the time, it's a really fun job. know, it's this kind of excitement you might see on a taxi rank, you might drive around and just get jobs by people waving you down and it's the, know, kind of feels like playing a game in a sense, but you're actually getting paid for it and you meet loads of cool people and have great chats. It's a very free and liberating job. Jonathan Thomas (50:45) I love the idea that you wake up some days and say, you know what, I'm going to be a proper cab driver today. Not that you're not a proper cab driver. And you do that instead of, I love that. That's so, that's cool. Yeah. Billy (50:51) Yeah. Well, I'll give you the best example. Today, I was thinking, oh, I'm actually quite in the mood to go to work today. But I thought, hmm, don't really have the time. need to make sure that I get back for the interview, you know. So I'm not saying we feel like that on regular basis, but it's nice that you can feel like that. On a Sunday, you think, yeah, I'll go out for a few hours. Why not? You know. Jonathan Thomas (51:12) Yeah. Right. Well, you got to keep stretching that knowledge muscle, right? Well, ⁓ let's talk about Uber. Now, we don't want to, we could probably talk an hour about this, but let's keep this general and let me kind of focus in here. Now, most Americans, okay, I'll give you some context because you may not have, forgive me if you do and I'm wasting your time, but Billy (51:18) Mm-hmm. yeah. Yeah reading and driving Hmm. Jonathan Thomas (51:41) ⁓ For most Americans, when we go to our big cities, our taxi drivers are terrible. Objectively, we actively avoid taking a taxi in our large cities. And so when Uber came around, it revolutionized that because it introduced some sign of standards to at least getting somewhere safe and alive. And you tended to trust the app more than the actual driver. Billy (51:47) Hmm. Hmm. Jonathan Thomas (52:11) So our first instinct when we go to a foreign country is to use the app that we use back home that kind of fixed the taxi trade in our big cities, which is Uber. so tell our listeners why they shouldn't open the Uber app. And then also there are plenty of black taxi apps. So tell them which app to open instead, but you can download before they get to London. Billy (52:37) Right, okay. So let me just say now, I know full well for anyone that comments on this video that he's gonna be completely biased. So I am aware of that fact. The truth of the matter is, is that the country which Uber was created in, it filled a void, it was needed. Los Angeles was sparsely populated by cabs. The New York cabs, which I've witnessed for myself, are some of the dirtiest cars I've been in and their partitions that they've got in the back of the vehicles. I went in three or four of these cars, there was barely enough room for me to put my foot down. My feet were literally pushing up against the partitions. They're not looked after. So I can understand why people in the States kind of look away from the local cabs. But in the UK, it's pretty much the, well, I don't want to speak badly about the Uber drivers because, well, I'm not here to do that. But what I would say is the black cab drivers, they are not just the London black cab drivers, the Hackney Carries drivers, the certified drivers of all towns. and cities across the UK. Hackney carriages are locally regulated and they've done their own kind of form of knowledge. The knowledge of London is the most complex, there's no doubt about it, but they know their area. But also, accountability. A London black cab driver is going to be much more professional and considerate because of their badge. Their badge has taken them years to acquire. An Uber driver has literally just turned up with, I have a phone, I have a car. Can I have a job? Yeah. Jonathan Thomas (54:04) I have a license. Hopefully have a license. Billy (54:06) Well, yeah, preferably a license, which I have no doubt they do. I'm not going to sit here and say they don't, you know. But the point is, is that if you're someone who's just turned up and just been given a job, you know, how likely is it that they might just one day go, do you know what? I've had enough of this customer. I'm just going to shout abuse at them because I've had enough and just go back to the job I was doing before. London Black cab drivers specifically, we do not have that mentality. Our badge is everything. We've spent years. Jonathan Thomas (54:09) Yeah. Billy (54:33) That badge is worth millions of pounds off. It's a lifetime of employment. So if there's one reason in particular why you should use a black cab rather than Uber, it's because we actually care. And because of our accountability, we put in more effort. know, let alone the fact we know London better. But on a moral level, I would just say Uber is a multi-billion dollar company that has infiltrated the transport industry worldwide. ruining people's lives. if you're going to visit another city, another town or whatever, support local, support the local businesses. Don't pay up to a multi-billion company that has no care for human welfare. Chip in a few quid towards the local economy, support a family, not a big business. That's what I would say. Jonathan Thomas (55:21) So which app should we download then? Billy (55:24) right the best app to download now in london is jump jump is exclusively for london black cab drivers it connects directly to their car terminals so it is only london black cab drivers that work this app jump Jonathan Thomas (55:43) ⁓ because this changes every few years. Like every few years, the favored app changes. Billy (55:43) Brilliant. Well, I can explain that there were two apps historic now ones had different names, but there's two apps in the past that used to be exclusively black cab but for Aspiration of expansion they decided to betray the London black cab drivers and take on the private highest in other words the same drivers as the ubers So that's why we're now moving towards junk Jonathan Thomas (56:08) Yeah. can't find it in my things. I'll have to look it up later. It's called Jump. Okay. Yeah. And I, and I, I was in, when I was in London, couple, ⁓ about two years ago, I was talking to a black cab driver and he was very incensed about, ⁓ how you can actually book a black cab in the Uber app now. But the, the, the, actually you guys consider those guys have betrayed the, the, line on, on black taxis because you've Billy (56:18) yet. Jonathan Thomas (56:43) partnered with Uber. So. Billy (56:44) Yeah, yeah, there's an expression for them which applies to miners that were supposed to strike but went to work anyway. I'm not going to say that term, but no, but that's what we call them. It's not a curse word, but I'm just not going to say it. It's not a nice word, but we have no good regard for them whatsoever. Jonathan Thomas (56:54) That's not nice. Yeah, so. Just make sure you get the right app, everybody. Just make it the right app, hire a black taxi driver. You'll always generally, I've only like, in hundreds of black taxi rides, I've only maybe had a bad experience a couple of times. So the less said about that, the better. So, so, yeah, there you go. So to wrap things up, Billy (57:06) Yeah Exactly less than 2 % us Jonathan Thomas (57:29) So looking ahead, what is next for London history taxi tours in 2026? What do you have planned? Billy (57:36) lot more learning. So you can be a tour guide of London and feel think that you've, well you'd never think this, but you could think that you've learned almost everything there is to know and realise that there's still another 2000 years of research that you should do. So whilst we're always expanding, know, excursion tours, our theme tours, we're just going to keep on learning and just kind of coming up with like new ideas of quirky sort of themes. I myself, I've always been interested in the idea of a, you know, a radicals and revolutions tour, but basically there is something on everything in London. So we're just going to keep learning, adding new thing tours and just keep on going. Jonathan Thomas (58:18) So ⁓ I'm gonna use one of the backup questions, cause I just read it and I'm like, I gotta ask this. If you could go back in time and witness one moment in London's history, what would you wanna build that time machine for? Billy (58:31) Nah. Probably the Marian Martyrs maybe married a first counter to the Reformation. I think that would have been one of the most horrific times in London and I think witnessing that first hand would be surreal. That would be my personal choice. Bloody Mary watching what she does. Jonathan Thomas (58:53) Huh. Okay. That's a very interesting answer. Billy (58:58) And sorry, just to add to that, for those that have been to London, if you look at say St Paul's Cathedral at the back, you've got Paul's Cross, where the proclamations would have been made, the heretic books and so on would have been burned. Watching that sort of thing is what I'm talking about. Watching not only the executions by Bloody Mary, probably not so much that, but watching the whole event, this whole country and city flipped. and no one knowing what to do. Jonathan Thomas (59:27) I just know it would be terrifying. Billy (59:29) Mm-hmm. Yeah, would have been like the white or the red terror. It's basically how it was in England during her reign Jonathan Thomas (59:33) Yeah. And then you'll want to get back in your time machine and return to a more sensible 2026. Billy (59:42) yeah, yeah, I would do it with like a protective force, I wouldn't want to be involved, I just want to see it as an historian, you know, maybe take a photo while I'm there so can show people. I know, it's an idea. Jonathan Thomas (59:51) All right, and what's your favorite pub and that you like to take visitors? Billy (59:58) ⁓ For the history alone, the Watlin, the old Watlin on Watlin Street inside the city of London is one of the only two surviving Sir Christopher Wren pubs and up on what we call the first floor, your second floor, is where his drawing rooms were. So it's where he orchestrated the reconstruction of London after the Great Fire of 1666 and you can sit up there and have your fish and chips. Jonathan Thomas (1:00:00) Thank you. Well, now going to have to do that. So thanks. I didn't even know that. I didn't even know that existed. now I even, I am continually learning. ⁓ So for my final question for our American Anglophile listeners planning their first trip to London, what is your advice for our first trip that says you need to do this? ⁓ Billy (1:00:28) You're welcome. Yeah. Sorry, can you rephrase that, sorry? How do you mean sorry? Jonathan Thomas (1:00:50) So for people who are visiting London for the first time, what is your go-to advice for first-time visitors so they don't get overwhelmed? Billy (1:00:58) know that you can't do everything in one trip. You can certainly see as much of London as possible. You can certainly see as many of the highlights as possible or even see all the highlights, but you won't be able to visit them all in too much detail and you won't be able to do everything. You have to really kind of balance how much you want to, how much you want to do sightseeing, how much you want authentic experiences and how much you want to do museums, how much you want to do shopping. It's best to kind of Jonathan Thomas (1:01:01) Yeah. Yeah. Billy (1:01:27) Balance out yourself, what are your priorities and go with that. But just know that you can't do everything. There's people that live and have lived in London, that have tried to do almost everything. They would need at least 200 lifetimes to do that. It's not possible. Jonathan Thomas (1:01:43) great advice and I completely agree with you and that's actually the advice I give. You can't do everything. ⁓ It just gives you an excuse to come back over and over. So on that note, ⁓ Billy Cullen here represents the best of British tradition, the dedication to a master of craft, a passion for history and the warmth of hospitality. So whether you're visiting London for the first time or the hundredth, Billy (1:01:50) Yeah, I'll put it. Exactly that. Jonathan Thomas (1:02:09) Experiencing the city through the eyes of a cabbie who spent years learning every street and every story is something truly special I'll link to his website in the show notes It's also London history taxi tours comm and also linked to his social media accounts. Give him a follow If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe like and leave a comment. And if you love the Anglotopia podcast Please consider joining the Friends of Anglotopia Club where you can get early access to new episodes and connect with other Britain enthusiasts Join us next time as we continue exploring the people, places, and stories that make Britain's history and culture so endlessly fascinating to discover. Thank you, Billy. Billy (1:02:48) Thank you for having me, it's been a real pleasure. Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. Jonathan Thomas (1:02:52) Thank you, thank you. We really appreciate your time. So thank you again. Billy (1:02:56) Thank you.