We’re delighted to welcome a Guest Blog from David Shannon, Active Travel Team Leader at Islington Council who will be joining us at the National Modeshift Convention 2025.
David will be speaking in the Designing for Everyone Team Talk Session on Wednesday 26 November, exploring how we can make support for active travel as inclusive as possible. In his guest blog, ‘Islington and Me,’ David reflects on his personal and professional journey with Islington — from childhood memories and early cycling adventures to leading projects that have transformed the borough into one of the UK’s most inclusive cycling communities.
Islington and me
‘My earliest recollection of my connection to Islington is from my grandmother, Gladys. She was orphaned aged 10 and went to live with her aunt in Theberton Street.
One of her famous stories from her childhood was seeing a Zeppelin over Highbury Fields and how terrified everyone was. She recalled trying to run away from these bombers. A notable building in Farringdon Road was destroyed and rebuilt within two years and named the Zeppelin Building.
In the 1970s, while studying for my bar mitzvah and going to synagogue most Saturdays, my father would reward my brother and I by taking us to Highbury to see the Arsenal after the service. Not very kosher to drive on the sabbath, but we didn’t mind. It was only the reserves because Dad was scared of crowds, but we saw some big names play and I became a Gooner.
After uni, I trained as an actor and got my Equity card working for Playboard Puppets, who were touring a stage version of their ITV show Button Moon. I loved all the recycled objects the puppets were made from. The guys behind the show were a creative couple, John Thirtle – a Spitting Image puppeteer – who made the puppets and Ian Allen who wrote the scripts and directed. We rehearsed at their Islington workshop in Ockenden Street, which was like a curiosity shop of puppets. John was nicknamed ‘Hurtle Thirtle,’ because the tour timings seemed to be based on 90mph sprints between venues. As a young actor, my bike was my transport. For each leg of this tour, we’d meet up in Islington and hit the road. Once I got confused about the meet up point and ended up leaving my beloved yellow Dawes MTB at Highbury and Islington Tube for a full fortnight. I was super shocked when it was still there when we got back.
After working as an actor, I worked in media sales and then journalism for 15 years. One day, my brother-in-law told me there was this job called ‘cycle instructor’ and some interesting people are doing it. I was freelance, so I thought, why not? I trained as an instructor and Islington were one of the first boroughs that gave me some shifts. My first Islington school course was a Gillespie School in the shadow of Highbury Stadium, which was pretty exciting. Cycle training rapidly took over my life.
Two years later, there was the opportunity to apply for the role managing the cycle training programme. I was lucky enough to win it. 15 years later, it’s been a pretty amazing journey at the council. Among our many projects, my favourite must be the community piece developing Islington Cycling Club. The club grew so rapidly, it was quite terrifying. Somehow we managed it and I think we’ve been successful because it became the largest cycling club in London and is now the largest non-commercial cycling club in the country. I’m very happy that there is a youth programme and the inclusive spirit we started with is still so strong, if not stronger.
I still race time trials for the club on a tandem which is fun. Everyone seems to get excited when they see a tandem. The small child in all of us, I guess. When I started at Islington Council we had a team cargo bike. I loved taking it out to deliver prizes to schools, because, like the tandem, people got excited and you seemed to get smiles wherever you went. Back in 2011, seeing a cargo bike was like seeing a unicorn.
Recently, I returned to one of my favourite cafes, the Angel Deli in Cross Street. We had trained the owners’ daughter at one of our school holiday courses. As the lady owner brought me my panini and coffee, she said: ‘You done it.’
‘What?’ I asked.
‘You’ve made Islington a cycling borough!’
‘Thanks. But not just me. Many people, many teams over many years.’
As we chatted, hire bikes went by, private bikes, cargo bikes. lslington has changed. There are a lot of challenges and hard days in our work, so it meant a lot to me that someone had noticed, shared their enjoyment and was smiling about it. I’ve never been an Islington resident, but I do feel connected and I think Islington has and always will be part of my life.’
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