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reappear. The course tutor was Innes MacLeod’ Jan continued. Jan says one of the main characters in the Glasgow branch was a guide called Filita Brown. ‘She was a wonderful lady who was Spanish speaking because the family had owned estates in some place in Spain,’ she said. ‘Margaret Houston was very much involved in the training as well. Another guide called Robin Hodge was also very involved with the running of the branch. Fausto Ferrari of Ferraris restaurants was also a member.’
Jan said they met other branch members in Scotland at Christmas parties. When Jan and her colleagues were doing their course, Glasgow was going through a major transformation. The city had been in the doldrums since the closure of the majority of shipyards on The Clyde and there was high unemployment. In 1985 the new Scottish Exhibition and Conference Centre was opened on former dockland and started attracting clients from all over the world. Guidelines reported in Autumn 1987 that, with the increasing popularity and importance of Glasgow as a tourist centre, more demand was being made for the services of guides of the Glasgow branch. To meet the increased demand, particularly in the language sector, a training course was organised that winter.
‘There were well over 100 applicants for the thirty places and they were clearly well suited and/or qualified so that selection was not easy,’ it was reported. ‘Two thirds of those selected have fluency in at least one language. One speaks Gaelic and another can do sign language.’
By analysing old guide directories it appears that at least 21 new guides qualified in Glasgow in 1988.
A huge showcase for the city was held in 1988 – the Glasgow Garden Festival. It attracted some 4.3 million visitors over 152 days and Blue Badge guides played an important role in its success. Two years later Glasgow was European City of Culture. ‘For the official .... opening? Glasgow taking over the baton from Paris they brought in people from all over Europe and, of course, all the Lord Mayors had to be accompanied by somebody who spoke their own language,’ said Jan. ‘So the language guides were having a ball. I was looking after the son of Charles Haughey who was then the Irish Taoiseach. His son Sean was then Lord Mayor of Dublin. At the end of one of the days there was a reception for the guests in the Moat hotel which is now the Crown Plaza. I remember seeing one of our guides who was a very, very good German and French speaker called Hugh Campbell. When I spoke to Hugh he said his German Lord Mayor spoke excellent English and didn’t want him to translate for him. Later as I was going past this little group late at night I could hear that Hugh was talking in German. And the next day I said to him I thought you said your man wants to do his
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