When did I first become interested in Street art? In 1981 I was lucky enough to be taken on a trip to New York. I remember going on the New York subway and as we travelled from stop to stop, I began to notice white chalk drawings on black paper on the walls of some of the stations. Most people ignored them, some people stopped and took photographs, and don’t forget back then we didn’t have camera phones. I remember my mother muttering that it was just vandalism but there was something about it that really caught my imagination. It reminded me a bit of Disney cartoons. I loved the fact that some of them were a little bit rude, which much to my delight, annoyed my mother immensely.

I found out that these incredible drawings were by an artist called Keith Haring and from that moment I became hooked and obsessed about Graffiti and Street art. A few years later I was lucky enough to go back to New York and I visited the Pop Shop store that sold Haring memorabilia, but I’m sad to tell you it all disappeared over the years.

In 1987 I was lucky enough to meet Haring in a nightclub. I ran up to him and found him incredibly reserved, a little shy but also very gracious. Sadly he died of AIDS in the early 1990’s.

When I qualified as a London Blue Badge guide in 2011 I decided that I wanted to combine my passion for street art with a walk and so began doing street art walks in the East End. Not that many guides were doing tours of that area at that time apart from the occasional historical tours of old Jewish London and the London of the French Protestant refugees of the 1680’s. Hardly subjects to keep the kids entertained!

So it was fairly new ground when I did my first street art walk in January 2012 and amazingly 67 people showed up. I was absolutely blown away and it showed me that there was definitely an appetite not only for looking at Street art also discovering new and emerging districts of London.

It wasn’t that long ago that graffiti and street art were considered pure vandalism and there are still many feel that way today. However it is now a big business and many of those artists are now selling work commercially and becoming quite successful. Why has graffiti and Street art captured the imagination of people all over the world? Is it because the street artists can say something about the world around us today with a clearer and more direct message than the media can? Or are they just able to connect with young people today?

A work by Banksy, the world’s most famous street artist, recently sold for £9 million at auction. It wasn’t that long ago most people felt that he was just a vandal. Now, if you wake up with a Banksy on the side of your house, it will be worth more than the home itself! His incredible popularity has been achieved with a level of anonymity that cannot be matched by anyone else in modern day culture. What is it about Banksy and street art culture in general that has so captured the imagination?

Why not let us show you this fascinating part of London culture on one of our under the hood experiences. We show you, not only the art but take you behind the scenes to meet one of one of the most talented street artists working today.