Working as a Blue Badge Tourist Guide in I often show my guests – especially if they have young children - the bust of the William Buckland in the south aisle of Westminster Abbey. He may hardly be a household name but Buckland is memorialised for his appointment as Dean of the Abbey in 1845 and his work as an early palaeontologist and undergroundologist (geologist). He excelled at two of the new sciences that would enthral Britain in the nineteenth century.

Mother’s Day is fast approaching – let our knowledgeable and entertaining Blue Badge Tourist Guide reveal the origins of the festival and introduce some beautiful ideas for treating her on Mother’s Day. Mothers’ Day is often confused with Mothering Sunday; an old Christian tradition when believers visited their "mother" church on the fourth Sunday in Lent. Domestic servants were given a day off to do this, usually with their mothers - often the only time a family could reunite all year.