Though her parents were born in the UK, Ellie grew up in the south of Spain, where she began studying her Art History degree, before moving to London in 2013. It was in London that she first began guiding and discovered it was a great way to share the stories she loved with anyone who would listen! However, she eventually started to find the tour industry a little soulless and longed to show people the real London, along with the incredible mix of characters that make up its history, which led her to create Rebel Tours along with her friend and colleague Charlie. (Website https://rebeltours.co.uk/ )
1. How and when did you get hooked on history?
My grandparents were brilliant storytellers, but most of their bedtime stories weren't fantasy, they were stories about real people - ancestors or tales from the areas where they grew up or about people they had known. That's when I got hooked on people's stories from the past, which to me is exactly what history is.
2. What role does history play or has it played in your personal life?
I think I wanted to be an artist of some kind, but I just fell in love with reading about it even more than making it, so I went off to study Art History. Studying history through the objects or the art we make, really helps me to connect to people in the past and try to get to know them. Through Art History I then developed a love for Social History, which is the main focus for me with Rebel Tours.
3. How does history play a part of your professional life/career?
I consider myself a public historian, which is someone who interprets the past for the public. I do that primarily as a tour guide in London, where I can bring history to life for visitors and hopefully give them some new perspectives and make them think about things they hadn't considered before.
4. Why is studying/knowing history important?
To create good connections with people in the present, you need to understand those of the past. History is just a deeper and more complete understanding of us now, the systems and structures we have in place, our attitudes towards others, good and bad. When it comes to history, or just time itself, I don't like to think of things in such a linear way, that's why I love talking about connections! If I'm talking about conditions in a Victorian workhouse, it's not a fixed event that happened 130 years ago - what does it mean to me now? What did those systems evolve into? How did they shape the attitudes towards the poor? What do these attitudes look like now?
5. What is your favorite period or aspect of history to learn about and why?
That's very tricky because it changes all the time! As London the city has over 2000 years of history, I have to constantly immerse myself in quite a lot of different eras. I do have a soft spot for Saxon and Viking history but I think it's probably the 19th to early 20th century. The reason for this is that I specialise in radical history and this is a great time for big social movements, in particular in the East End of London and the Docklands (where I also live!).
6. How did Rebel Tours come into being?
When the pandemic came along, as a freelance tour guide, I found myself with no work literally overnight. I spoke to my friend and fellow tour guide Charlie and we decided we had to use the time to do something and break the cycle. Both of us had been guides for years in London and though we loved it, we often felt limited as to the topics we could talk about. We were freelance guides but working for different companies, most of which wanted "classical" tours. Your typical tourist doesn't want to hear why you're an anti monarchist! The thing is that many actually do, there just wasn't a tour for them.
We felt that if we made our own company, we could talk about whatever we wanted, however we wanted.
7. What makes Rebel Tours unique among all the London tour companies and what do you hope your tour participants take away with them?
We don't shy away from "difficult" conversations but more importantly, we bring people's stories to the forefront, and they might be stories that have disappeared from the history books, despite them making the city what it is today. Of course there are other tours in London that offer women's history, LGBTQ, black and even radical history, and I hope there come to be more and more - but we want our participants to make those connections between past and present, we hope they'll look at things from different angles and really engage with us, as we bring the city to life for them.
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