DADS IN LONDON

Plans worth leaving the house for.

🐮 29 things to do in London this weekend with the kids (26–27 September)

Jeff – Dads in London

Hey DILFs!

Ever wondered why we keep getting random temporary artworks on the Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square? The short answer is: the Victorians ran out of money.

The four plinths were built as part of Trafalgar Square in the 1840s, ready to be topped with statues of important men. Three eventually were: George IV, General Sir Charles James Napier and Major-General Sir Henry Havelock. The fourth was supposed to get King William IV on horseback, but cash-flow issues meant he never got made. So the plinth sat empty for more than 150 years.

Then, in 1999, someone had the idea to put temporary art there. Three works were commissioned as an experiment – and people liked them so much that they decided to keep going, with the artwork changing every couple of years.

Since then we've had Hans Haacke's giant bronze horse skeleton with a live Stock Exchange ticker tied around its leg; Michael Rakowitz's recreation of an ancient Assyrian sculpture made from 10,500 empty date-syrup cans; Heather Phillipson's enormous swirl of whipped cream topped with a cherry, a fly and a drone; and a whole load of other things nobody in the 1840s could possibly have anticipated.

The strangest commission didn't involve a sculpture at all. In 2009, Antony Gormley's One & Other put 2,400 members of the public on the plinth, one at a time for an hour each, 24 hours a day for 100 days, doing pretty much whatever they fancied.

And now, after almost two years of Teresa Margolles's A Thousand Times in an Instant – 726 plaster casts of the faces of trans, non-binary and gender-nonconforming people – we have Lady in Blue.

It's a nine-foot-tall bronze sculpture by New York artist Tschabalala Self, depicting an ordinary young woman striding through the city. She’s wearing a bright blue dress with matching blue shoes and jewellery, and she's deliberately not a king, general or famous historical figure: Self wanted to put an everyday contemporary woman on a pedestal instead.

She'll be keeping George, Charles and Henry company until 2028, so if you don't have a chance to see her this weekend, there's plenty of time.

In the meantime, I've got sheep, trains, art, personal finance and some completely unnecessary glueing for you.

Enjoy!

Jeff xx

PS I’m sending Golden Ticket subscribers my complete guide to October half term in London very shortly. It’s a suitably enormous, carefully researched list of theatre, workshops, museums, Halloween events and days out, complete with dates, prices and Age. Want a copy? Join the Golden Ticket for just £3/£36 a year.

1: Watch actual sheep take over Southwark Bridge

The Woolmen Sheep Drive & Livery Fair

📍 Where: Livery Fair: Queen Street and Queen Street Place, EC4R 1BE (which is at the north end of Southwark Bridge)
📅 When: Sunday 27 September, 10:00–16:00
🎟️ Price: FREE

I remember when I first heard about the tradition of the American president formally pardoning a live turkey every Thanksgiving – and I was almost jealous that over here, we have nothing nearly so bonkers. Even cheese rolling feels relatively normal compared to informing a fat bird that it won't have to die alongside all its buddies.

But then I read about the annual Sheep Drive. And you know what? I think the reprieved turkey has some competition.

For one day every September, groups of people take turns herding actual sheep across Southwark Bridge. It's in memory of the days when flocks regularly crossed London Bridge on their way to Smithfield, where they were sold alive to butchers and livestock dealers.

Back then, the sheep might have already spent several days being herded on foot from Kent, Surrey and beyond – so crossing London Bridge was practically the home straight. There was a toll to cross the bridge, but Freemen of the City – basically City traders with a bundle of special privileges – didn't have to pay it.
The practice stopped when Smithfield stopped selling live animals in 1855, but in 2013 the Worshipful Company of Woolmen (don't ask) decided to revive the schlepping – albeit not the selling – part of the tradition as a charity fundraiser. Each year, Freemen get to herd sheep over the Thames in honour of a toll exemption that no longer exists, on a different bridge from the one where the toll used to be charged. I know, I know: the turkey pardon is looking increasingly sensible.

Unfortunately, you and other regular people can't join in the Sheep Drive, because Freemen still exist and you're not one of them. Being a Freeman these days is basically a ceremonial continuation of the old system, with considerably fewer tangible benefits – although you can still add “take sheep for a walk across the Thames” to the perks package.

You and your fellow regular people can still turn up and watch the spectacle. The sheep are herded back and forth across the bridge throughout the day, with a public viewing area in the middle.

And at the north end you'll find the free Livery Fair. Livery Companies are essentially the descendants of London's old trade guilds – the Woolmen, Weavers, Basketmakers, Bakers and dozens of others – and a load of them will have stalls and demonstrations. There'll also be wool and craft stalls, rare-breed sheep and demonstrations of traditional blade shearing.

Find out more: https://woolmensheepdrive.london

2: Let the kids call the shots in an interactive money show

Pocket Money

📍 Where: Unicorn Theatre, 147 Tooley Street, SE1 2HZ
📅 When: Until 1 November, various start times (see website)
🎟️ Price: £3 per person for first 40% of performances, then £15 per person
👶 Age: 7–12

My children are spectacularly enthusiastic about spending my money. They've literally never encountered an overpriced piece of plastic they didn't immediately need – and the same goes for snacks, random stationery and anything sold within 20 metres of the exit of a museum.

To be fair, money is a weird concept – especially when you're a kid, and especially now that physical cash is barely a thing anymore. My kids watch me wave my phone at a machine and walk away with a shopping bag. And they see a parcel magically arrive at our door the day after I've mentioned that we're running low on dishwasher tablets. My considerably richer namesake Jeff has been extremely helpful here, but perhaps not for their financial education.

So of course they're begging for an £8.99 magazine containing twenty-three pages of Spot the Difference and a "free" magnifying glass that doesn't work.

The Unicorn Theatre has decided to tackle this problem, aiming to get 7–12s thinking about everything from spending and saving to why things cost what they do – and how the choices they make with money can affect other people. Thankfully, they're doing this without resorting to PowerPoint lectures on quantitative easing and fiscal policy.

Pocket Money is an interactive performance in which every child gets an electronic voting system and the audience's decisions affect what happens on stage. There’s a live DJ playing throughout, a mischievous clown, projections, bright lights and a cast of performers. Beyond that, they're not revealing much about what the kids will actually be voting on.

What we do know is that Pocket Money has been developed with children as well as financial experts. The young people involved were asked what matters to them when they think about money, the economy and the financial world they're growing up in – and their ideas have helped shape the finished production.

And the Unicorn is putting its money where its mouth is: 40% of tickets for every performance cost just £3 – deliberately priced so that, for once, the kids could actually pay for the thing themselves.

Find out more: https://www.unicorntheatre.com/events/pocket-money

3: Find out what a Hockney actually costs

British Art Fair 2026

📍 Where: Saatchi Gallery, Duke of York’s HQ, King’s Road, SW3 4RY
📅 When: Saturday 11:00–19:00 and Sunday 11:00–17:00
🎟️ Price: Adults £24.38, under-16s free

Once your children have learned all about sensible financial decision-making at Pocket Money, let's ruin everything. Give them an imaginary (or real; your choice) £100,000 to spend on art.

The British Art Fair takes over all three floors of the Saatchi Gallery this weekend, with more than 70 galleries and dealers selling Modern and Contemporary British art. Unlike a normal trip to an art gallery, almost everything you're looking at can actually be bought.

And there are some fairly big names on the price tags: David Hockney (Californian swimming pools), L.S. Lowry (matchstick people), Barbara Hepworth (holes in sculptures), Bridget Riley (paintings that make your eyes go funny), Henry Moore (giant lumpy sculptures), Tracey Emin (the messy bed) and Damien Hirst (dead things in tanks).

So, what can I tempt you with?

At the top end, there's Lynn Chadwick's Teddy Boy and Girl. And this exquisite little bronze can be yours for the low, low price of… £216,000. Which is out of your imaginary £100k price range. Sorry: bad one to start with.

But DON'T LEAVE. For just £750, you could be the proud owner of Hulls, St Ives, a 1956 ink drawing by Trevor Bell. He made it shortly after selling his possessions and riding from Leeds to St Ives on a motorbike with his wife to join the artists gathering there. Bargain!

Or how about Watershed no 3 by David Whitaker? Whitaker trained as an artist at the Royal Academy Schools, got fed up with his job as a designer and became a milkman instead. He didn't give up the art, though: he went on to spend five decades making Op Art – geometric patterns designed to trick the eye – using stencils and strips of tape. Watershed no 3 is £24,500. Not a bad price for someone with £100k to throw around.

And there's Hockney's The Student: Homage to Picasso, made in 1973, the year Picasso died. It shows Picasso towering over a tiny Hockney from the top of a plinth. Except Hockney has fiddled with the perspective so that, despite being about a quarter of Picasso's size, he can still look him straight in the eye. No self-esteem issues there. Price on application. Grrrr.

Still not found anything to blow your £100,000 on? Let's try the techie stuff upstairs.

The fair's “Digitalism” section takes over the top-floor galleries, with more than 100 artists using AI, augmented and virtual reality, moving images, photography, digital sculpture and various other things I don't entirely understand.

It's basically the part of the fair where you explain everything away with: “Ooh, isn't this clever? All this futuristic stuff? It's amazing what you can do these days with a computer.”

Whatever you decide to buy, spend wisely. Or don't. It's only £100,000 after all.

Find out more: https://www.britishartfair.co.uk/fair-2026

4: Make some art in the house where Dr Johnson defined “art”

Craft Afternoon at Dr Johnson's House

📍 Where: Dr Johnson’s House, 17 Gough Square, EC4A 3DE
📅 When: Sunday 17 September, 12:00–16:00 (drop in)
🎟️ Price: Free with admission (adults £10, 5–16s £5, under-5s free)
👶 Age: Suitable for all

Sometimes, I’ve realised, a venue puts on a children’s activity that has almost nothing to do with the reason the venue exists. I assume it's a cunning way of getting grown-ups through the door when they want to visit but their children emphatically don't.

And yeah: fair enough. The parents get to look around, the kids get something they actually want to do, and there’s always a chance that some of the interesting stuff will sneak into their brains while they're distracted.

I bloody hope that happens at Dr Johnson’s House this weekend.

The little townhouse just off Fleet Street is where Samuel Johnson spent nine years working on his Dictionary of the English Language. It eventually ran to 42,773 entries, with around 114,000 quotations from writers including Shakespeare and Milton.

And Johnson didn't always keep his opinions out of it. He defined oats as something fed to horses in England but people in Scotland, called excise a “hateful tax” administered by “wretches”, and described a patron as someone who “supports with insolence, and is paid with flattery”.

But enough about words: there's glueing to do! Yay?

Drop in to find dried flowers, vintage papers and everything else you need to make your own collage greeting cards. It's informal, all the materials are provided... and it has absolutely bugger all to do with dictionaries or words. Which the organisers seem entirely aware of: they've advertised it as “a craft afternoon at the home of literacy”.

So once the kids are done sticking shrivelled-up daisies to bits of old wallpaper, take them for a proper nose around. They'll be learning about Dr Johnson whether they like it or not – and anyone cheeky enough to sneak personal insults into his own dictionary might actually win them over.

Good luck.

Find out more: https://www.drjohnsonshouse.org/post/craft-afternoon-at-dr-johnsons-house-sep26

5: Climb aboard London’s most iconic buses and trains in one place

Depot Open Days: Design Classics

📍 Where: Museum Depot, 2 Museum Way, 118–120 Gunnersbury Lane, Acton, W3 9BQ
📅 When: Friday–Sunday, 10:00–17:00
🎟️ Price: Adults £19, 4–17s £10, under-3s free (not sure what you do if your child is 3 years old…)
👶 Age: Suitable for all

Do you have a favourite tube line? Strong opinions on Routemasters? Are you someone who notices train station architecture and considers Harry Beck to be one of the cleverest humans to have ever existed? Firstly, you and I should be friends. Secondly, let’s hope your children are into all this stuff as much as you are, because they’re coming to this open day whether they like it or not.

The Acton Depot is essentially a massive warehouse containing all the vehicles, artwork and brand designs that won’t fit inside the London Transport Museum in Covent Garden. And it’s not just the sloppy seconds. You’ll get to see unique buses like the Routemaster RM1 and RM2 – early prototypes of the iconic design, including the open rear platform that lets you hop on and off. And you can also take a peek at iconic trains like the 1927 stock (one of the first electric Tube trains with automatic sliding doors) and 1938 stock (widely considered the gold standard of Underground design, and used for decades).

Whenever the depot opens up to the public, there are activities running throughout the day. This weekend you’ll be able to do the following:

• A history of the Underground in 10 minutes: a whistle-stop talk on the history of London’s Underground.

• Under the bonnet: a peek under the bonnet of some of TfL’s busses, with a talk about how the engines work.

• Match the moquette: a quiz to test your knowledge of a variety of famous moquette patterns, past and present.

• London 2126: posters of tomorrow: a workshop in which you’ll take inspiration from posters in the museum’s collection, then design a new one that tells people how to get around the city in 2126.

• Design a roundel: a workshop in which you can create your own roundel using different colours, logos and patterns to make it as original as you like.

• Object handling: try out TfL’s collection of ticket machines and tickets through time.

• Signalling demos: learn more about TfL’s heritage train signalling equipment with live demos and interpretation.

• Victoria line rig demos: try your hand at being a train operator in a Victoria line cab.

• London miniature railway (£1 per ride): a working miniature railway based on real London Underground trains, carriages, signals and signs.

And so much more! Check out the website for the full schedule.

Find out more: https://www.ltmuseum.co.uk/whats-on/depot-open-days/design-classics

Other listings

This section brings together both new events I don’t have room to expand on and selected older ones from past newsletters that are still running. If you see a “(see my write-up here)”, that’s your cue to click through and rediscover whatever Past Me felt strongly enough to write about.