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“Camerons” to trace their ancestry which even involved a helicopter trip. She accepted with alacrity the opportunity to be a tour manager in New England. This also gave her time with her three daughters who now lived in that area. A little later the three girls all married Americans and in time they gave Mark and Fionna nine grand-children. Understandably the U.S.A. became their holiday destination.’
Another guide, Diane Rose, remembers that some years ago Fionna was the subject of a full page spread in the Herald about tourism. ‘She was photographed in front of the Gallery of Modern Art beside the Duke of Wellington's statue which went well with her quirky personality and excellent sense of humour,’ said Diane. ‘She also worked yearly for the Earl Haig Fund/ Poppy Scotland and a visit to her house in the autumn always saw it strewn with collecting tins. Fionna was a very enthusiastic, able and popular guide despite battling for 19 years a very rare cancer of the blood called Waldenström Macroglobulinemia. She volunteered to raise money for the Leukaemia Research Fund because of the excellent care she had received at the Western Infirmary and Gartnavel General. Fionna also regularly wrote articles for the International Waldenström Macroglobulinemia Foundation newsletter. She died in April 2018.’
Gillian Brear qualified at the same time as Fionna and acted as a mentor for many guides over the years. Before becoming a guide Gillian qualified as a nurse. She was active in organizing medical support for the people of Nicaragua. Gillian guided in Italian and Spanish and for many years she worked virtually non-stop over the summer on extended tours, speaking Italian and Spanish on the same coach. Sadly she died in 2015 at the age of 64 after a long battle with cancer.
Another graduate of 1993 was Ken Fyfe who was later to become chairman of the STGA between 1999 and 2001. Although born in Glasgow, he spent the early years of his life in the Borders, living in St Boswells and attending school in Galashiels. Later he moved to Edinburgh for six years before returning to Glasgow to study Naval Architecture at Strathclyde University. His industrial career started with Yarrow Shipbuilders on the Clyde as a student apprentice, moving up the managerial ladder to become general manager responsible for the construction of frigates for the Royal Navy. Just before retirement, he took the STGA training course in Glasgow. ‘I decided to do this as a result of my father’s experience, ‘ he said. ‘He was a tour guide with the then Scottish Tourist Board, just before the founding of the STGA, and enjoyed it so much and it kept him active so I decided to follow in his footsteps.’
Stewart Noble was born in Glasgow in 1943 and shortly before his eighth birthday moved to Helensburgh, a town on the Firth of Clyde about 25 miles north-west of Glasgow. ‘Apart from four years spent living in the "Far East" (in other words Edinburgh, as far as someone born in Glasgow is concerned), I have been in Helensburgh ever since,’ he said. He has degrees in economics from the Universities of Glasgow and Strathclyde, and lectured in economics and also worked as a self-employed financial adviser. He qualified as a Scottish Tourist Guide in 1996, and works principally with German-speaking groups. From 2002 to 2008 he was a director of the Scottish Tourist Guides Association, serving as chairman for three of these years. He also has a variety of interests in Helensburgh. He has been involved in Helensburgh Community Council for many years and also Helensburgh Heritage Trust. He has also served on the Council of the Friends of Loch Lomond and been involved in the production of three books. ‘By The Banks of Loch Lomond’ appeared in 2003, and in the previous year he was the editor of ‘200 Years of Helensburgh’.
In 2010 he brought out ‘The Vanished Railways of Old Western Dunbartonshire’, a book of historic photographs. Two years later he produced a DVD for schoolchildren on Henry Bell (the first recorded Provost of Helensburgh) and the "Comet" (Europe's first commercial steamship). He also produced another video on "The Helensburgh Area in the Second World War". In 2014 he received the accolade of Citizen of the Year in the Helensburgh and District Community Spirit Awards.
Sue Gruellich trained as a guide in Glasgow in 1995/6 while still working in PR & Marketing at Edinburgh Napier University. Prior to that she had worked in export sales, with various Scottish manufacturing companies including Flexible Ducting, Howden Compressors and
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