The Tower of London, by Annie Reid

‘Naughty people get their heads get chopped off at the tower,’ teased my older son and I the evening before our planned trip to the Tower of London. Much cajoling and reassuring that that only happened in olden times ensued before Josh, aged 3, would agree to come – and even then there were a few wobbly moments.

What’s known as the Tower of London is in fact a castle, made up a group of buildings and towers, the first and biggest of which is the White Tower built by William the Conqueror in 1080. Here, successive Kings and Queens of England until James I in the sixteenth century lived with their extended family. Right on the River Thames with a view of Tower Bridge and HMS Belfast, it is shut off from the rest of London by a high wall and moat. With its cobbled streets and different styled buildings, it could be a square in a busy market town – save for the site of the execution scaffold, where the three queens, Anne Boleyn, Katherine Howard and Lady Jane Grey, met their deaths!

Ravens hop around the grounds providing popular photo opportunities and guard the precious Crown Jewels. The birds’ wings have been clipped to ensure that they don’t fly away for, as legend goes, if the ravens fly away then both the Tower and England will crumble and fall.

As our guide, I had downloaded the Kids’ Tour from the Tower of London’s website . Yeoman Guards offer free tours and it is well worth tagging along as it is the history of what happened at the Tower that is of interest. English history, the detail of which you may have thought you’d never remember from schooldays, comes flooding back as you walk from tower to tower, serving to remind you that nothing has changed much throughout history: battles to fight, plots to uncover and treachery to punish. The difference is that nowadays no one actually gets their head chopped off.

The White Tower is where the royal family actually lived. You can see the chapel and imagine the rooms as they might have been furnished but what really appealed to my army-mad children was room after room filled with bayonets, swords, cannons, barrels of gunpowder, jousting weapons and armour.

The Queen’s House, made partially of timber, stands out as it is the only building of its style to survive the Great Fire of London. Traitor’s Gate has an eerily fascinating history. Formerly known as the Water Gate, it is here that traitors were brought down
the river to the tower by boat at nighttime to be tried.

We asked the children what was the most memorable part of the day for them, which perhaps not surprisingly turned out to be the Crown Jewels – it is, after all, why most visitors come to visit the Tower of London. These are kept in the Jewel House. An unfrightening-looking bearskin-headed soldier patrols outside (even so, at this point, Josh was afraid he was going to be marched off to the dungeons to await execution!). Questioning the seeming lack of security surrounding the jewels, a rather gruff guard replied that we shouldn’t concern ourselves at all: the jewels were well protected. Video footage of the last two coronations is played whilst you queue to see the paraphernalia related to such pageantry (diamond-encrusted swords, sceptres and rings), and then finally the crowns themselves. Ingeniously, everyone is ushered onto two slow-moving conveyor belts so you can have a good gawp with no one hogging the space in front of you and you can take the short ride as many times as you like. There are five crowns to see, including the Imperial State Crown worn by monarchs at their coronations: I had forgotten how quite amazing they are. Some of the diamonds (including the Second Star of Africa), rubies, sapphires and pearls are jaw-droppingly huge and, in their own right, are well worth the entrance fee.

You have to save the Crown Jewels until last as anything after that would just be an anticlimax. From here we had a quick look inside one of many shopping outlets, where they had some excellent plastic and wooden swords and jousting sticks – and, rather bizarrely, a replica of Henry VII’s codpiece (for £75!). From the shop we headed to the New Artilleries Café, where we had some very good sandwiches and cakes.

The Tower of London website
Adults £12, Children £7.80
Family ticket £36
Open Mon–Sat 9am–6pm; Sun 10am–6pm

A day at the races, by Henry Birtles

I am a racing bore. Ask me to name three members of the Cabinet and I will be struggling, but the runner up in the 1972 Irish Derby … It’s not just the stats or the bookies, and I cannot even ride, but the sport of kings has me hooked. Thankfully my wife, although not an obsessive, gets the point of it, just. It was time to start on Jack, aged 4.

Until recently, the racetrack was regarded as a playground for anybody and everybody with one notable exception, children: it just wasn’t suitable. This attitude is changing – as with many sports these days, racing is looking increasingly towards the family to spin the turnstiles. If you need an example of one venue that is leading the way, look no further than Kempton Park, off the A316 at junction 1 of the M3 and less than 40 minutes from central London. Home of some of the UK’s greatest steeplechasing during the winter, Kempton has designated a number of Saturdays throughout the summer ‘family days’ and I am pleased to report that the Bouncy Castle, although still an essential feature, is not the only selling point for those of knee-high persuasion.

Kempton lays it on thick, but importantly, not at the expense of the main attraction, that intoxicating spectacle of man and beast straining every sinew to get to a lollipop-like stick first. The essence of their compromise is in the positioning of the ‘family facilities’. They use that hitherto redundant space, the infield, to great effect. Fair attractions, mini farms, fast food outlets, pony rides and, yes, the bouncy castle are all there and facing the Grandstand. With betting available, the older generation can enjoy what the track is really about. Whilst kids have their faces painted or take a trip around the Carousel, dads can look at ways of subsidising the family day out with a few well-placed investments on men not dissimilar in appearance to their offspring. Trained staff are on hand and en masse to ensure safety and supervision for the children.