London Tales is a collection of sixteen tales that offer dramatic pinpricks in the rich tapestry of London’s timeline, a city with two thousand years of history. They are glimpses of imagined lives at key moments, starting with a prologue in verse from the point of view of a native Briton tribeswoman absorbing the shock of Roman invasion. Then there’s a tale set in Roman Londinium in 60 CE, from the perspective of terrified legionaries and townsfolk facing the vengeful Iceni queen, Boudica, whose army burnt the fledgling city to the ground.
From Roman Londinium there’s a jump to Saxon Lundenwic in the late eighth century, then onward to the medieval city in 1381 at the time of the Peasant’s Revolt. Then a jump to the second significant conflagration, the Great Fire of London, in 1666. From there the reader is transported to 1814 and the last ice fair on the frozen River Thames in the year before the battle of Waterloo, then onto an unnerving tale of copycat killings based on the 1888 Jack the Ripper murders. This is followed by a fraught romance set during the Blitz in 1941; then the swinging Sixties and wide-flared seventies are remembered in the life story of fictional policeman, Brian Smith. There’s a series of contemporary stories that reference recent history and current affairs, including the London terrorist bombings of 2005; a literary pub crawl and a daring prison break, building to the imagined death throes of London in a dystopian vision.
These stories are inspired by the author’s love of history, personal experiences and reflections on his time living and working in London in the 1980’s and 90’s. Adaptability, resilience, conformity and resolve are recurring themes in these stories.
For ten years the author was one of thousands of commuters who’d pour in daily from outlying suburbs to feed the insatiable economic appetite of the city. London’s a busy and at times unfriendly place, driven by the productivity of its inhabitants and set against an incredible landscape of history, art, architectural and cultural development. It both inspires and tires in equal measure.
Available from Amazon in e-book, paperback, Kindle Unlimited, and audiobook formats, London Tales is a companion volume to Thames Valley Tales.
Publication Date: November 8th, 2023; 2nd Edition 2026
Publisher: independently published
Pages: 220
Genre: Short Stories / Historical Fiction / Contemporary Fiction / Dystopian
Audiobook: narrated by Richard James
Praise
"I really enjoyed dipping in to the various periods of history depicted by Tim Walker. It was a lovely bite sized chunks of London life that had me searching for more information, such as the great freeze. A great format."
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Tim Walker
Tim Walker is an independent author living near Windsor in the UK.
Born in Hong Kong in the Sixties, Tim grew up in Liverpool where he began his working life as a trainee reporter on a local newspaper. He went on to attain an honours degree in Communication Studies at the University of Glamorgan in South Wales before moving to London where he worked in the newspaper publishing industry for ten years.
In the mid-90s he opted to spend a few years doing voluntary work in Zambia through VSO, running an educational book publishing development programme. After this, he set up his own marketing and publishing company in Lusaka, Zambia’s capital. He returned to the UK in 2009.
His creative writing journey began in earnest in 2014, as a therapeutic activity whilst recovering from cancer treatment. Thames Valley Tales and London Tales were collections of short stories written between 2014 and 2026. They are both audiobooks available on Amazon Audible, narrated and produced by actor / author, Richard James.
In addition to short stories, Tim researched and wrote a five-book history-meets-legend fiction series, A Light in the Dark Ages. This series connects the end of Roman Britain to the story of a possible historical King Arthur based on scant research material. There’s also a dystopian novel, Devil Gate Dawn, a book of poems and flash fiction, Perverse, and a dual timeline historical novel set at Hadrian’s Wall, Guardians at the Wall. In 2025 he published a novella, The Trials of Arthur Whitty, that took inspiration from a group he runs that supports old men in Windsor. Somewhere along the way, he and his daughter, Cathy, wrote a three-book children’s series, The Adventures of Charly Holmes.
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