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The First Minister wants to come on the coach!
In 2005 BBG Ron Malcolm was outside Bute House in Charlotte Square with a coach load of German visitors when a large car drew up and out came First Minister Jack McConnell.
Ron was just explaining who he was when the First Minister came across to the coach, tapped on the window, came on board and welcomed the astonished German visitors to Scotland!
Guides come to the rescue
By Gail Fotheringham
out on the roads!’
Coffee dregs
Today we are used to having an abundance of high-quality coffee houses in Scotland but back in 1984 this was not the case. Peter Hutchison who was the Editor of the STGA Newsletter in 1984 wrote a leader column in which he said he was fed up of having to apologise to French and, above all, Italian visitors for the appalling quality of coffee served in otherwise high-quality establishments. ‘Indeed, in the granary type whole food coffee shop of a water driven flour mill in the central highlands I was horrified to be served instant coffee from a tin behind the counter to accompany my wholemeal scone and jam,’ he reported.
‘With some butterflies in my stomach I drove my wife early one Friday morning to the school where she worked as a teacher. She was about to leave on a weekend trip to Paris with some of her pupils. The butterflies in my stomach had nothing to do with the fact that I was going to be left alone for the weekend but rather because I was going to do my first tour with German visitors and I was going to be able to put into practice some, if not all, of what I had learned on my Blue Badge course.
‘The brief was straightforward- pick up the group at a hotel in the the Cramond area, do the tour and then direct them towards the north as they continued on their way to the Highlands. "Guiding is fun", I repeated to myself, as I drove to Cramond, located the hotel, space here the coach and the driver and awaited the arrival of the tourists, then coming out of the hotel. Just as they were getting into the coach one of the men literally dropped dead right in front of me. An ambulance was called and took the man to the nearby Western General hospital with our coach and tourists following. At the hospital it was confirmed officially that the man was dead. The coach driver expressed his condolences to the widow and then told me that we would have to continue with the city tour. Before leaving I told the widow that if she wished to stay in Edinburgh she could come and stay with me. if she wished – delete
“During our summer week of training as a Blue Badge Guide on the drive from Beauly to
Inverness, we turned a corner into a quiet road to see a body lying across it.
Brakes were slammed on in time and fortunately having Kenny Kerr, Alastair McDermott and
Ewan Skinner with us (all police trained), between them a diversion was operated,
ambulance called and the road reopened. It certainly made us aware of what we might face
Kenny adds: ‘I remember it vividly. We were coming down from Beauly and had just turned
left onto the Drumnadtochit road when the driver saw a body on the road across the other
carriageway. Thinking quickly, he stopped in front of her and put on his hazards. The other
guys directed traffic while I got help. The casualty was well known for collapsing drunk!’.
A Tale of Kindness
Andrew Thackrey’s first tour
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