Sarah is the Blue Badge Guide in the photograph above -
a wonderful photograph that caught the fun of a guided
tour at the British Museum with a Decorative & Fine Arts
Society. Sarah took a BA in English Literature with
French followed by a PCGE in English, French & Drama.
In 1988 she qualified as a Blue Badge Guide and began
working with City & Village Tours in 1989 making her
our longest serving guide. Sarah’s interest in London’s
museums led to an MA in Education in Museums and
Galleries from The Institute of Education (now called
University College London) in conjunction with the
British Museum, The V&A and The Science Museum.
When not looking after City & Village groups Sarah
guides French parties in London. She shares her insights
into how the French view us as part of All Our Waterloos
which explores a thousand years of living next door to and
with the French. Afternoon options on this entertaining
and erudite new tour include a visit to The Wallace
Collection or to the new Europe Galleries at The V&A.
This month Sarah explains how she grew to appreciate
the virtues of French art and design having found the
court of Versailles, on her first meeting, to be a tad vulgar.
Maybe it’s to do with growing up in Dogsthorpe in
Peterborough but as a small child everything French
seemed impossibly exotic. Somehow, though, I plodded
on with my school French and somehow ended up
studying it at University where everyone else seemed
to have a French mother and a French holiday home
(I know, it felt like cheating to me too). It was a
holiday job that changed it for me though. Aged 19
I started travelling around Europe taking groups
of American teenagers and their teachers to places
I barely knew myself.
Helped along by a year abroad in Paris, before I knew it
the impossibly exotic was becoming familiar territory to
me. Paris became like a second home. I also got to know
the Loire Valley, the Riviera, Provence, Normandy and
Brittany better than I knew my own country and I loved it
all – with one exception. Versailles. For most of the year
it was overwhelmed with visitors with no thought being
given to making the experience enjoyable, a tourist
saucisson factory. However, even when I went to visit
in the quiet of winter it felt soulless and empty, like the
Sun King’s version of the Emperor’s New Clothes.
Bearing in mind that I was used to Northamptonshire
churches, I thought that Versailles was rather vulgar!
It was only when I came to London that I started to get
an idea of what made the court of Versailles one of the
greatest ever seen. Most of the contents of the French
Royal palaces had been destroyed during the French
Revolution but much of it was brought to Britain and sold
From Versailles to The V&A
All Our Waterloos
is a new day trip that explores
one thousand years of living next door to and with
our French neighbours. A morning of Normans,
Huguenots and refugees from Madame Guillotine,
war and the French super tax (leading to the growth
of London’s vibrant French Quarter) is followed by
an afternoon at The Wallace Collection or the V&A.
