Last week was a fantastic milestone as I launched my first ever book, 111 Places In Windsor That You Shouldn’t Miss, published by Emons Verlag and available now worldwide (RRP £13.99).
Part of the best-selling guidebook series 111 Places, the book is designed to show visitors and locals around some of the more intrepid, off-the-beaten-track destinations in Windsor. It is intended to appeal just as much as to adventurous tourists as it is to people who have lived in the town for decades.
I grew up between Bracknell and Ascot, so Windsor is a destination I am very familiar with. What I didn’t realise until recently is that it is actually the most-visited destination in the UK, when internal tourism is taken into account. That’s thanks to having Windsor Great Park, which attracted some 5.6 million people in 2022 – the second-placed Natural History Museum drew just 4.6 million in comparison.
However, these statistics also reveal the challenge concerning tourism in Windsor, which is that footfall tends to be ushered towards Windsor’s main attractions. These are the Great Park and the Long Walk, Legoland Windsor and of course Windsor Castle, which, again, is by far the most-visited Royal household in the UK. This is not synonymous with the town I know. As a local (I live in Bracknell now), Windsor to me represents an up-and-coming modern market town, full of craft beer breweries and independent shops and cafés, plucky enterprises and busy local history associations. Beyond the Castle walls, Windsor is a thriving place, home to 35,000 people, many of whom are innovative entrepreneurs, incredible artists, dedicated local historians and custodians for the town.
So, there was a strong precedent for producing a new guidebook to Windsor, and especially one that intentionally left out Windsor’s so-called ‘tourist traps’. Thankfully, when I approached Emons Verlag with the idea, they were drawn to it almost immediately, and commissioned the book right away with a view to have it in shops before Christmas 2023. That meant that I had less than six months to write the book, start to finish! Not that that put me off – I’m used to writing at that kind of pace, and was frankly very excited at the prospect of the challenge.
The first thing I did was rope in my very talented friend James Riley as the photographer on the project. James and I both grew up in the area and went on to start our careers in London, before moving back to the ‘Shires’ to do those typical adult things like buy a house and, in James’s case, get married. Of course, being the internationally-renowned photographer/videographer he is, James had to work doubly hard to fit this project into his schedule, which I’m very grateful for. We weren’t helped either by the fact 2023 ended up being one of the rainiest summers in living memory.
By April, I was working on the book pretty much full-time. The process was research-intensive, and took me back to my days of writing my dissertation. There was a lot of field walking involved, and I can confirm – lest there was any doubt – that I did visit all 111 places (and many more) of the course of writing the book. The Berkshire Records Office, now known as the Royal Berkshire Archives, was a regular destination, as was the Windsor Library. There were countless emails and phone calls to local business owners, historians, and even the Royal Collection, who kindly supplied the image of the King Henry VIII Gateway to use on the front cover.
In the end, James and I delivered the book ahead of schedule, which gave us plenty of time to start preparing for the launch. The book was delayed slightly (you can thank Brexit for supply chain issues there), then brought forward again, such that by the time the book did launch in November, it took us both completely by surprise. In fact, I was only made aware of the fact the book was out by a friend who had received her copy before either of us had!
The official launch event took place on November 27 at Waterstones in Windsor. I had assumed we were going to have trouble finding a venue for the launch, but was actually surprised to find that Waterstones were more than happy to not only offer us the entire shop for an evening, they even provided four members of staff, and a table of free nibbles.
Being desperately afraid of public speaking, I enlisted the help of my good friend Chelsea Dickenson, better known as the Cheap Holiday Expert, to emcee the event. Chelsea is far more professional than either James or I when it comes to this sort of thing. The ‘cheap’ connection was also an advantage – in producing a guidebook that avoided the classic tourist traps, we had inadvertently managed to reposition Windsor as an affordable destination for a weekend break! In fact, this is how I’d chosen to position a trip to Windsor in an article for The Irish News.
The launch night was a huge success and attended by… I didn’t actually count how many people, but enough to fill the downstairs of a Waterstones at least. Chelsea kicked things off with a quiz about the book, and Windsor’s history, which was won by a young man who was visiting Windsor all the way from Australia – he later told me he intended to use the book first thing in the morning to start exploring the town.
After that we sold goodness-knows-how-many books, and James and I got to complete our personal lifetime ambitions of signing them!
One of the attendees on the night was Natasha Daniel, of the Daniel family, who own Windsor’s largest department store and one of the places mentioned in the book. She very kindly offered me a concession in the store that weekend to continue signings for local residents, and so began what I have started unironically referring to as my ‘book tour.’
I want to say a huge thank you to everyone who has helped by contributing to this book, who came to the launch, and who has offered kind words of feedback. It has been an incredible experience both writing and launching this book, which we hope will stand the test of time and help to re-invent tourism in Windsor.
For while we believe tourists absolutely should visit the Castle, the Long Walk and Legoland, we also hope that they will be inspired to spend a little longer in Windsor – to get off the tourist trail and down Windsor’s many fascinating back streets, where they will discover all sorts of interesting stories relating to the people, both historical and contemporary, who have made this a living, breathing, thriving town – one that we feel is fast becoming a destination in its own right.
And if you too would like to experience the more intrepid side of Windsor, pick up a copy of 111 Places In Windsor That You Shouldn’t Miss, available now in the UK and in the USA later this month.