Author Interview with Tim Walker

 

Today, I am chatting with Tim Walker about London Tales, a collection of sixteen short stories inspired by one of the world’s most historic cities.

Travelling across almost two thousand years, the collection introduces readers to imagined lives set against moments of upheaval, change and reinvention, before moving into the London of more recent memory and beyond. For Tim, the city is also a personal one, shaped by his own years spent living, working and walking its streets.

Tim joins me today to talk about the history and experiences that inspired London Tales, the appeal of the short-story form, and why London continues to provide such fertile ground for storytelling.

But first, let's check out  London Tales

Publication Date: 8th November 2023

 2nd Edition 2026

Publisher: Independently Published

Print Length: 220 Pages

Genre: Short Stories / Historical Fiction / Contemporary Fiction / Dystopian

Audiobook: narrated by Richard James

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.

London Tales spans almost two thousand years of the city’s history, from Roman Londinium to an imagined dystopian future. What made the short-story format particularly suited to telling the story of London across such an enormous period of time?

I started my creative writing journey in 2013 by writing short stories. A creative writing course I did recommended starting with short fiction, then building to longer stories. It proposed a basic structure for a short story – exposition; complication; climax and resolution, and something that stayed with me was to work your five senses when developing your main character(s) – sit in a café and write down what you see, hear, touch, taste and smell. Write down snippets of conversations to help improve your use of dialogue. Also, a short story (mine are typically around 5,000 words) hangs on a single theme or idea. I found it easier to come up with a subject for a short story, then set up a main character to carry the story forward. My first set of short stories, written when I was living in Maidenhead on the River Thames in Berkshire, were inspired by local history, news reports and my own life experiences. The settings were places along the course of the river, and my first book was Thames Valley Tales. I followed this up with a set of short stories that focused on London’s long history, my memories of working there, and some current affairs. These became London Tales.

The collection opens with a prologue in verse from the perspective of a native Briton woman confronting the arrival of the Romans. Why did you choose to begin with her voice rather than with the Roman city itself?

Well, the prologue started its life as an epic poem about one period in the history of Slough that I performed during an anniversary event for the Slough-based astronomer, William Herschel. I picked pre-history as my theme and did some research about pre-Roman Iron Age people and tribal culture. I decided to include the poem in London Tales as a pre-Roman scene-setting prologue. I decided to use the point of view of a mother who voiced her fear of how the sudden arrival of an alien military power might impact her family and tribe.

One of the earliest stories takes readers to Londinium in 60 CE as Boudica’s forces approach the city. What interested you about showing this famous episode through the frightened legionaries and ordinary townspeople caught in its path?

The more I read about the Boudiccan uprising, the more my fascination grew. It is one of Britain’s great historical, defining, events, evoking strong visual imagery of half-naked, painted tribal men and women pitting themselves against the military and technical might of the Roman army. Sheer numerical advantage and the absence of a strong garrison worked in Boudicca’s favour and the city was burnt down with most of the inhabitants slaughtered. I decided to take the point of view of a handful of legionaries, each from different parts of Europe, finding themselves in a cold, wet and wild northern frontier of empire, fighting for their lives against Celtic tribes whom many would have recognised as their tribal cousins.

You move through some extraordinary moments in London’s history, including the Peasants’ Revolt, the Great Fire, the final Thames ice fair, the Blitz and the changing city of the 1960s and 70s. How did you decide which moments deserved their own story?

I looked for well-known incidents that came to define the resilience and resourcefulness of Londoners. The Peasant’s Revolt is a fascinating collision between commoners and King, with the revolt leaders having the audacity to present their charter for reforms to a boy-king (Richard II) who would have been raised believing in the Divine Right of Kings to rule over the population of their kingdom and to never be challenged in this way. The Great Fire of 1666 spread from east to west in a rare and calamitous reversal of the normal direction of the wind during a dry period. Resourcefulness came in with the use of firebreaks when the Prince of Wales’s cavalry tore down houses as distraught homeowners looked on. This tactic worked in stopping the spread of the fire. I also shoehorned in a fictional tale of one of the Regicides (a signatory to the execution order of King Charles I), William Say, fleeing from the Sheriffs men. The lawyer William Say is thought to have fled to Holland for safety after the Restoration and may have died in 1666 or1667. Could he have made a secret visit to London to visit family? Other historical events that caught my eye were turned into mini human dramas.

Your nineteenth-century story draws upon the Jack the Ripper murders but approaches them through a tale of copycat killings. How did you use such a familiar and heavily documented episode of London history while still creating something distinctly your own?

I went on a Jack the Ripper walking tour and scribbled furiously in my notebook. I noticed the Bangladeshi restaurants on Brick Lane and looked in estate agent windows at how properties for sale or rent in the area were described, formulating a contemporary tale of community tensions and copycat killings that echoed the 1888 Ripper murders in location and gruesome detail. I enjoyed the juxtaposition of comedy with horror.

You lived and worked in London during the 1980s and 90s and spent ten years commuting into the city. How much of the London you personally experienced found its way into the later stories in the collection?

I worked off Fleet Street in the late 80s for a newspaper publishing company and loved walking around the city, lapping up the history, admiring the odd buildings standing next to each other from different periods. I worked in market research, and so made the main character in Geraniums a retired market researcher. A literary pub crawl I went on formed the inspiration for The Seesaw Sea of Fate, and Brian’s Beat tales draw on some notable events including the 1966 World Cup trophy theft, the Beatles rooftop gig and a bank robbery. Also, the last story, Valentine’s Day, is built on memories of working in Ludgate House on the south bank opposite Blackfriars, in the early 1990s. On dry mornings I would walk along the South Bank from Waterloo Station, enjoying the scenery and thinking how lucky I was to be working in this most amazing city.

Adaptability, resilience, conformity and resolve recur throughout London Tales. Did you deliberately set out to explore these themes across different centuries, or did you recognise the connections once the individual stories began coming together as a collection?

I think it was a theme that revealed itself during the writing of the stories. Natural or manmade disasters litter London’s timeline, and after each event, those who survived somehow rebuilt, often using more advanced building techniques to give parts of the city a makeover.

The collection gradually moves from historical fiction into stories influenced by events within living memory before ultimately reaching a dystopian vision of London. What interested you about allowing the book to move beyond the city's recorded past and imagine where its story might eventually lead?

I indulged my fascination with dystopian fiction in the final story – but I believe sci-fi and dystopian (future-looking) genres have similarities to historical story-telling in that imagination (in addition to research) is needed in world building, scene-setting, and character creation. Also, events in living memory that occurred in the 20th century are increasingly being written about in the style of historical fiction. My contemporary stories often hark back to past events. World War II has become a popular historical fiction sub-genre. My parents were both teenagers during the War and I questioned them both about their memories and experiences. At least to them, it was a catastrophic event in living memory.

London Tales is a companion volume to Thames Valley Tales, and both collections were written over a long period beginning during your recovery from cancer treatment. Has the role creative writing plays in your life changed since you first began writing those stories in 2014?

No. Creative writing has become an important crutch to me during my ongoing health problems. It focusses my mind in mornings when most of my writing is done, and gives me a sense of purpose and achievement. Also, because I worked in publishing for so much of my working life, when I discovered Amazon’s self-publishing platform, it seemed a natural approach for me to become a self-published author. Looking back over the past 11 years, I feel a sense of pride and achievement in my numbers – fourteen books, over a million words, talks given and articles written, over 7,000 cumulative book sales and over 500 favourable reviews. I should add my gratitude for the support and camaraderie I’ve experienced from writing groups, writing course tutors and participants and online communities.

After exploring London through invasion, rebellion, fire, murder, war, cultural change and modern uncertainty, what do you think it is about the city that allows it continually to change while still remaining unmistakably London?

Cultural assimilation over centuries has given the city its patchwork look, with many ingenious individuals adding their ideas to its constant re-invention. It is people who build cities, and London’s 2,000-year history showcases the stubbornness and resilience of its inhabitants in the aftermath of conflicts and natural disasters. There have been many fires over the centuries, and we can sympathise with distraught homeowners when surveying the ruins of their home and possessions. But there is something in the human spirit – a will to survive, prosper and procreate – that prompts us to get back up and carry on after a setback. That is who we are, and the history of London stands as testament to the human spirit.

A huge thank you to Tim Walker for joining us today and sharing the story behind London Tales. What comes through particularly strongly is Tim’s affection for London — not simply as a collection of famous landmarks and historical events, but as a city continually shaped by the people who have lived there. Across centuries of invasion, rebellion, disaster and enormous social change, its inhabitants have repeatedly adapted, rebuilt and carried on.

London Tales offers readers the opportunity to dip into very different moments in that long history, moving from Roman Londinium through to the modern city and even an imagined future.

If you enjoy short fiction, history and stories that place ordinary people at the heart of extraordinary events, then London Tales is certainly one to add to your reading list.

Pick up your copy of London Tales HERE

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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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