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of war. Many tourists came to London in 1951 to visit The Festival of Britain.
In 1949 Bill Nicholson said he would like to see a development of the scheme in Scotland with Edinburgh being one of the most visited cities in Europe and enjoying increasing visitor numbers.
Some 230 English bus companies were operating tours north of the border and it was calculated that at least 100,000 people from England and overseas including America, New Zealand and South Africa had visited Scotland that year.
Nicholson said a start had already been made in Edinburgh with the formation of a corps of voluntary guides who operated chiefly during the International Festival of Music and Drama. There was an increasing demand made on the Tourist Board for guides with a knowledge of the country’s history and customs, and although the board was sometimes able to supply them, the number of guides on its list was very small.
He thought that, this being a seasonal occupation, there would be difficulty in finding suitable people but, if Scotland developed the tourist industry, well informed guides with official status were bound to come. How right he was but it was another ten years before he managed to get a scheme for Scotland off the ground.
According to STGA founder member Marie Frier, it was the established tourist guides in the city who were the driving force behind the creation of the new organisation.
In the 30th anniversary edition of the STGA’s then newsletter for members, Guidelines, Marie said she had worked as a representative of a London Travel Agent in Edinburgh in the 1950s.
‘It was, I feel, thanks to the Edinburgh International Festival that my firm began to organise package tours to Edinburgh which required guides,’ she said.
‘At that time, the 1950s, we depended on the wealthy American market, our friends from England, a few from Australia and even fewer from the Continent.’
‘The first ‘Guides’ were often colourful characters and included a Baillie of the city, a great orator who would commence his visit to St. Giles with a prayer, then Jock who carried a little cane and called his party ‘my children’, and ‘Bonnie Prince Charlie’ so called because he wore a kilt, a rare sight in those days.
‘I had to obtain guides and was fortunate in having many teacher friends who acted as guides for me at that time. I can assure you that good lung power and stamina were required as not many coaches had a microphone and certainly there was no seat beside the driver - you stood!
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