How did you discover the power of walking?

When I was sixteen, I came home from school one day in a terrible mood and my dad took one look at me and said “go for a walk and then we’ll talk.” I took his advice and vividly recall the way my mood had shifted by the time I got home 20 minutes later. Since then, walking has always been part of my personal practice.

How does walking help us?

Walking is a simple, but incredibly powerful practice. The research around all of the things walking does for us is truly remarkable. For our bodies, a regular walking practice reduces our risk of many diseases, from high blood pressure to dementia to several types of cancer. For our mood, walking has been shown to be an effective tool in the arsenal against depression and, as I often say, walking is a great antidote to a crappy day. And walking is good for our minds by improving our decision making, increasing our focus and fueling our creativity.

What does ‘better’ mean for you?

Oh, that’s such a good question — no one has asked me that. By better, I mean happier and working our way towards living a life that is more closely aligned with our true personal goals, priorities and purpose.

What has been the biggest ‘a ha’ moment you’ve had whilst walking?

I really can’t point to one “lightning bolt” moment. Walking is more of a process for me. A time in my day when I sort through what’s on my mind and untangle my thoughts.

What for you is the link between stories and walking?

I feel that we are all running so fast and doing so much that what’s missing for many of us is the chance to let our minds wander and process and percolate and create. It’s no surprise to me that the research shows a very significant increase in our ability to generate creative ideas following a walk. All of those things come together to make working and stories — whether creating stories or contemplating them — closely connected.

Katie is an engaging guide, her enthusiasm for the city fluently conveyed. She’s clearly done her research, having been blogging about London for the last three years, and she imparts enough knowledge to educate and interest us without it being overwhelming. ‘On a mission to reveal the secrets hidden above your eyeline’ she runs walking tours around the area.

‘There are three things to remember about Spitalfields’ she tells us. ‘Radicalism, immigration and industry. Sitting just outside of the city walls the East End has always been a place where the rules and regulations of the financial and government stronghold doesn’t quite  stretch. It’s something that is represented by Kenny Hunter’s Goat sculpture that stands at the entrance to Spitalfield’s Market; the goat being a somewhat wayward creature that doesn’t follow the crowd, unlike sheep.

Taking its name from the fields around the hospital – ‘spital – the area has seen huge changes, the economic ones accelerated over recent years. Street names like Gun and Artillery give clues to Henry VIII’s selling of the area to convert to army barracks. After the  immigration persecuted Huguenots in the 17th and 18th centuries,  the area became home for the fabric and textile industries, particularly silk weavers. This was due to large attics and airy light rooms available at the top of buildings on streets such as Fournier Street. Waves of Jewish communities fleeing Russia moved over in the 18th century, and many street signs are still written in both Yiddish and English. Today it is home to a large Bengali community; Brick Lane famed for its curry houses.

There’s plenty of clues to what the building that are now trendy pubs and coffee shops once were. The A Gold store in Brushfield Street was originally opened in 1880 by Amelia Gold, and the original shop front can still be seen. The signs of a bakery are found in the form of Philip Lindsey Clark’s Sculptures in Widegate Street. Frying Pan Alley is so named due to the frying pans hung outside by the ironmongers who used  to operate there. We look up to see what some of them might have been before – warehouses, weavers, pubs, and the art deco Mayfair cinema.

One of the most fascinating buildings was built on the corner of Brick Lane and Fournier Street in 1742. La Neuve Eglise was a Huguenot chapel, then in  1809 started to be used by missionaries as The Jews’ Chapel, where they promoted Christianity to the expanding Jewish population, before being adapted as a Methodist Chapel in 1819. Then in 1898, the building was consecrated as the Machzikei HaDath, or Spitalfields Great Synagogue, and most recently in 1976, to serve the expanding Bangledeshi community, it was adapted again as the London Jamme Masjid (Great London Mosque). The fluid and ebbing nature of the area is something that fascinates me. How people make a place their own but with echoes of the past.

It’s hard to imagine now with all the glass buildings and money dripping from the surrounding banks that Spitalfields was once one of the poorest areas, up to twenty families houses in each building and the slums being no go areas for many. The decline of the textile industry in the 19th century led to a poverty-stricken, over populated area with little work available, where drinking and prostitution were often the only escapes from a troubled life, and crime ran rife. These were the days of Jack the Ripper, and the Ten Bells pub on Commercial Street, where victim Mary Kelly drank, still stands. We see the Jewish Soup Kitchen in Lehman Street, and the Providence Row Night Refuge.

One of the most striking things is the echoes of past years that run through the threads of the story. Immigration from refugees fleeing conflict, tension between communities, concern for jobs, and steady gentrification pushing workers further out to the suburbs continues. We finish up in Altab Ali park, named after a 25-year-old Bangladeshi clothing worker of the same name who was brutally stabbed here in 1978. It prompted mobilisation and protests and a coming together of communities, and despite ongoing friction this has been repeated over recent years. Along the path down the centre of the park are letters spelling out a fragment of a poem by Rabindranath Tagore: ‘The shade of my tree is offered to those who come and go fleetingly.’ People may come and go, but the spirit of Spitalfields lives on – and as Katie taught us, you often have to look up to find it.

Read more about London on Katie’s blog here, and book on to a tour here.