Page 15 - Microsoft Word - Guiding light final version 0955 1506 big print.doc

Dr Barclay was also an avid fan of film, and he was a founding member of the Scottish Educational Film Association, later known as the Scottish Screen department at the National Library of Scotland.
It is clear that Nicolson was proud of the achievements of the STGA when he paid tribute to the organisation in 1984.
‘Scotland owes a debt of gratitude to her tourists guides who in 25 years have contributed so much to our national prosperity,’ he wrote.
‘Away back in 1959 ...the incoming tourist trade was bringing in a total revenue of £100m per year. Ten years earlier in 1949 our tourist income was £60m. Since 1959 the annual incoming tourist income in Scotland has risen each passing year and it would not surprise me if by the end of 1984 it had reached the astonishing total of nearly £1bn.
‘The quality of our guide services is such that practically every time I organise or handle incoming groups of world visitors, I am the recipient of letters from participants praising the knowledge and courtesy of those guides who accompanied them and ensured the success of their visit. ‘To me it has been a pleasure to have been associated for so long with the Scottish Tourist Guides.
Bill Combe passed his guiding exam when he was 30 and became one of the youngest driver guides at ECT.
However, his first official tour started out as a bit of an ordeal.
‘We left from the Waverley bridge and I got into the cab and I couldn’t talk,’ he confessed.
‘I just froze. When I got to the West End I said to myself I had to say something.
Inge Speitel, who was on the 1971-72 guiding course admitted she found Dr Barclay’s populist style of lecturing somewhat frustrating.
‘He was quite a personality.’ she said. ‘He found it very hard to stick to a subject. He started off lecturing on a subject and then went all over the place and I got quite impatient. I got really annoyed at him. He kept calling me his little rebel. I said it is all very well but what about the actual subject. He was used to entertaining elderly Edinburgh upper middle-class folk with lectures about Edinburgh history and Scottish history.
‘But I learned one thing early on - that entertaining is part of being a guide. He always said when he heard the first laugh he knew he had them and I have never forgotten that.’
A great help to the Association was its early recognition by the then Ministry of Works, which administered many Ancient Monuments. It was the predecessor of today’s Historic Environment Scotland.
Only holders of the diploma and badge were allowed to conduct parties through these historical buildings and lecture within the precincts.
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