Geoff Simmons

Geoff Simmons runs a community history project in south west London called Summerstown182 alongside his job as a graphic designer. This involves Guided Walks and Talks, working with schools and putting up plaques. Recent ones include Tooting's 'Reggae Superstars', 'The Daffodil King' and Sadie Crawford 'Lost Woman of British Jazz'. He's just found a home for 'The People of Wardley Street' celebrating Wandsworth's GRT heritage but is still looking for one for the 'Corruganza Boxmakers'!

Always interested in family history, he started a First World centenary research project which ended up with him walking round the area telling stories outside the houses of people whose names were on the local war memorial. This was Lottery-funded and received a number of awards including being one of Sadiq Khan’s ‘Tooting Community Heroes’. He works very closely with Wandsworth Borough Council and many other community groups and charities.

Recently he’s expanded his orbit connecting some of the localised history into central London and developing the London Irish History Cycle Trail. This is free to download as are 26 ‘Great Escapes’ which hopefully helped a few people through lockdown and are still very relevant. ‘I always want to champion things that I feel might have been a bit neglected or not as widely known as they should be. I keep a very close eye on what is happening today and how that relates to things that happened in the past. The more I found out about my area the more I grew to love it and I just want to share that feeling with other people’.



Keep an eye on Geoff’s blog for what’s going on or follow him on Twitter @summerstown182