Captain, Bards on Boats, Eric Ellman

• AT a point in time when people mourn the death of print journalism, you all deserve a bit of recognition, or at least a short congratulatory email.

Your December 4 report devoted to the plight of buskers (Izzard: ‘These rules criminalise our buskers’ ) is what motivated me to write, and then I discovered your Xtra Diary, promoting discovery and history in our London back yard. All compelling all well timed.

I’d say that even if our upstart company wasn’t featured in the first of the busker stories (Buskers are on board to beat the ban, August 16, 2019), but because our own evolution as a company has tracked yours.

Working with many of the same buskers who we met as a result of the ban on amplified music on Portobello Road, we’ve recruited a cast of actors and history enthusiasts to develop walking tours of the canal and Kensal Green Cemetery which debut this weekend in Ladbroke Grove.

The tours are free for the time being, one hour in length, and led by actors in character, assuming the roles of prominent and lesser-known people buried at Kensal Green, generally concluding at the grave site of the deceased.

Tours begin and end at our boat, on the public landing behind Sainsburys on Ladbroke Grove, where buskers – as usual – are invited to play atop the boat.

People can claim a free ticket, here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/o/bards-on-boats-17862011929

Perhaps one of your reporters, or the marvellous writer who pens the Diary would care to join us – we’d love to know who they are.

ERIC ELLMAN
Captain, Bards on Boats, Ltd
www.bardsonboats.com
& Founding Director
Your Canal Boat CIC
www.yourcanalboat.com