About us

About Us

Jane Duffield Bursary Charitable Trust

This trust was created in memory of Jane Duffield who was a Blue Badge Guide, a member of the City of London, City of Westminster, Clerkenwell and Islington Guides, and Camden Guides.

Jane was also the Course Director of the Camden Tour Guiding Association and also a tutor on the Clerkenwell and Islington Tour Guiding courses.

Friends, family and guides from across London helped to create this Charitable Trust to provide bursaries or other support for applicants for tour guide training courses in Greater London who would not otherwise be able to afford them (broadening access to guide training).

The trust currently works with two partners, Camden Guides', and the Clerkenwell & Islington Guides to support suitable candidates that are thinking of applying or have been accepted on either guides training course.

About Jane

The Jane Duffield Bursary Charitable Trust was set up in late 2020 in memory of our friend Jane Duffield. Jane was an inspirational teacher who was for some 17 years a teacher, Literacy Co-ordinator, Head of Key Stage and ultimately Assistant Head of Richard Cobden Primary School in the London Borough of Camden. While she was teaching Jane was also following her interest in tour guiding, qualifying as a City of London Guide, a Westminster Guide, and a Clerkenwell and Islington Guide (receiving the Guide of the Year award on this course). After 10 years as a part time guide she gave up her teaching post to train as a Blue Badge Guide, covering not only the whole of London but also other areas such as Windsor, Oxford, Bath, Stonehenge and Stratford upon Avon. She qualified as a Blue Badge guide in 2015 and went on to qualify as a London Borough of Camden tour guide, the borough where she had lived and worked for so long.

Jane was an amazing guide, enthusiastic, knowledgeable and fun. She was able to bring her skills in story telling and her passion for making the inaccessible accessible to her guiding. She became a tutor on the Clerkenwell and Islington Course and in 2019 took on the role of Course Director of the Camden Course. Tragically her far too early death meant that she only undertook this for one year but her students were given the benefit of all her experience and skills to learn to become excellent guides.

Jane was always keen to encourage people to consider tour guiding, especially those with a connection to the areas they guided in and she was only too aware that the costs of courses could be a barrier to many, and limited the diversity of applicants.

So it seemed an obvious way to commemorate her and reinforce her legacy to set up this charitable trust to award bursaries to those who by reason of youth, age, ill health, disability, financial hardship or other disadvantage would otherwise be unable to afford them.

The Trustees

What a wonderful bunch we have

Peter Twist (Chairman)

Peter is a Founder Member and previous Chair of the Camden Tour Guides Association from its inception to 2020. He is also trained as a City of London Guide, although he has lived in Camden since 1988. He is an advocate of making tour guiding more inclusive, having himself worked to develop walking tours for blind and partially sighted individuals in both the London Borough of Camden and the City of London. He shares Jane Duffield's vision of attracting people to train as tour guides who might otherwise be unable to afford the expense of training. Happily, thanks to the generosity of her colleagues, the charity founded in her name, which he chairs, will now be able to make this possible.

Jane Scott (Secretary)

Jane trained as a tour guide on the Clerkenwell and Islington guiding course in 2020 as was fortunate to have had the benefit of being one of Jane’s students. Jane’s enthusiasm and inspiration was particularly invaluable that year as it was during the covid lockdown. Since qualifying, Jane has run a number of tours in and around Islington and also at the London Stadium. She also contributes the occasional blog to the Clerkenwell and Islington website. Guiding has brough so many new challenges, new learnings new experiences, new friends and opportunities for Jane. She has gained so much from it personally so supporting the Jane Duffield Bursary Trust is a way of giving back and helping others have the chance to benefit from the course. Promoting guiding to those who can add to the diversity of guiding and to those who have much to contribute but not necessarily the means to fund the study is a fitting way to help and to honour the memory of such a larger than life personality that was Jane Duffield.

Pete Axson (Treasurer)

Pete is a qualified Camden tour guide who trained with Jane whilst she was completing her collection of tour guide qualifications. Jane was an inspiration and he shares her views about the financial barriers facing potentially brilliant candidates from becoming tour guides. He also passionately believes that the tour guide training gives all candidates valuable skills regardless of what career they wish to pursue. Becoming proficient and confident on researching and delivering an interesting presentation to a group of twelve to fifteen people (often complete strangers) is a valuable skill to develop regardless of your ultimate career. Prior to becoming a tour guide Pete had a career in IT in the finance industry.

Avril Nanton

Born in Dominica (not the Dominican Republic!), Avril Nanton came to London in 1965 and lived most of her life in Islington. In 2016 she qualified as a professional Tour Guide and set up Avril’s Walks and Talks. Since then, she has given many tours and presentations around London. Her biggest and busiest month is October which is Black History Month in the UK. Avril prides herself on being one of the few Black female Black history tourist guide specialists in the UK and intends to ensure she inspires as many people as possible in the field of Black history. Avril published her first book in June 2021 called Black London: History, Art & Culture in over 120 places. The book catalogues various places in London that have a link to Black history. In September 2022, Avril published the Black History London Map. The map features 50 places of interest to find out about Black History in London. Avril joined the Jane’s Trust from the beginning although she never met Jane personally. She felt it was important to help future guides, especially those from poor backgrounds who might want to become guides but struggle to pay the fees.

Neil Riddington

Neil has lived and worked in London all his life, and despite his working in insurance for almost three decades, this has not prevented him cultivating an interest in the social and cultural history of this great City. Wishing to learn more about London, and himself, Neil embarked on the Camden guiding course in the same year that Jane was a student on the course, which she later went on to teach. He was inspired by her professional approach to learning, and her empathetic and humorous approach to inspiring others to believe in their own abilities. Most recently Neil undertook the Clerkenwell and Islington guiding course inspired once again by Jane, this time as a tutor. Jane’s example continues to be an inspiration to many in the London guiding community, and it is with her selfless, and generous approach to the development of others that JanesTrust will hopefully enable a new generation of guides to share their knowledge and enthusiasm for this City with as many people who are interested. It is also an opportunity for share new skills with people who may not have the opportunity to fund their learning through such courses. Neil has always believed in pass the parcel: “Pass the parcel. That's sometimes all you can do. Take it, feel it, and pass it on. Not for me, not for you, but for someone, somewhere, one day. Pass it on,..that's the game I want you to learn. Pass it on.”