Page 112 - Microsoft Word - Guiding lights final version 0841 1007 big print.doc

own speaking. ‘Ah yes’ said Hugh. ‘The Lord Mayor had turned to him and said it’s now getting a bit late and my English just isn’t as good at this time of night after a long day so you can start speaking for me in German. I think that shows just how good some of our language guides are.’ By 1988 Jan had become booking secretary for the Glasgow guides.
Another boost came in 1990 when Open Top bus tours started in Glasgow and Blue Badge guides were recruited by them. However, there was a major downturn in the early 1990s with the Gulf war which resulted in a big drop in overseas visitors particularly from the USA. Margaret Anderson recalls that Glasgow and West of Scotland guides did city walks around Glasgow in the 1990s. These were all in English and run by Catherine Allan and Iris Somerville, who got sponsorship from the Bowmore distillery for a number of years.
‘This was largely before mobile 'phones or any social media which made communications difficult,’ said Margaret.
‘We did evening walks around Glasgow city centre to fit in in times between the worst of the rush hour and when tourists might be going back to their hotel for dinner. These were Monday to Friday for 90 minutes. On Sunday and Wednesday afternoons we started, as with the other walks, from the tourist information centre - in St. Vincent Place and later in George Square. This time instead of a circular walk we did a linear walk to the Cathedral area and ended with a short tour of the Cathedral. There was a rota of guides who were willing to do these walks. The total number of guides on the rota was limited to allow a fair chance to earn some money. We would just turn up at the stated place and hope there would be enough takers to do the walk. At this stage I can't easily remember what we were paid per walk but we could not have done them without the sponsorship. One guide came in from Ayrshire and could find that by the time she had paid her fare she had not covered the fee if there were no takers.
‘Once the Bowmore sponsorship ended we were able for two seasons to get some funds from the Trades' House Commonweal Fund,’ said Jan. ‘These funds had to pay for fliers for publicity and for lack of income from walks. Once these sponsorship incomes had dried up we had to wind the walks up. Nowadays with social media it would be much easier and I know that there are some young women - not STGA guides - doing such walks now. I don't know how successful they are. Linked to the walks we did, were walks some of us did/do for Strathclyde and Glasgow Universities' adult education departments. We had been doing the walks on the original basis and then transferred our knowledge to these courses and added many other walks. These were not under STGA auspices or Glasgow branch but we were all STGA BB guides.’
111