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Chapter one
The creation of the ‘Guide, philosopher and friend’
Nobody can say when the first tourist guide appeared in Scotland but he, or she, would definitely not have been speaking into a tiny microphone with a group of 50 tourists listening through earphones as they wander up the Royal Mile to visit Edinburgh Castle as many do today.
The legendary author of the English dictionary Dr Samuel Johnson could certainly have done with a guide when he visited St Andrews with his friend and biographer James Boswell.
‘Since the publication of Dr Johnson’s book (about his tour to the Hebrides in 1773) I find that he has been censured for not seeing here the ancient chapel of St Rule, a curious piece of sacred architecture,’ wrote Boswell in his version of the tour.
‘But this was neither his fault nor mine. We were both of us abundantly desirous of surveying such sort of antiquitie: But neither of us knew of this. I am afraid the censure must fall upon those who did not tell us of it. In every place, where there is anything worthy of observation, there should be a short printed directory for strangers, such as we find in all the towns of Italy and in some towns in England.’
However in Inverness they hired two highland ‘guides’ John Hay and Lauchland Vass who took them to the west coast. They also had a guide on the Isle of Skye.
There were undoubtedly tourist guides at Edinburgh Castle back in the 19th century when Sir Walter Scott dramatically rediscovered the locked away Scottish Crown Jewels and asked King George IV for permission for them to be shown to the public.
By 1840, according to Black’s Guide to Scotland, the Crown Jewels were on show every day between 12 noon and 3pm to visitors who could also look at the room where Mary Queen of Scots gave birth to James VI. It was often retired soldiers working at the castle who acted as tourist guides to those wishing to know more about its extraordinary history. But, according to Alastair J Durie in his book, Scotland for the Holidays, if Scott had every claim to be the father of tourism in Scotland, Thomas Cook had no mean role as his midwife. Cook first started bringing tourists to Scotland by train in 1846 when he offered an 800 mile tour for one guinea. Cook took a group of around 350 people by train from Leicester to Fleetwood then boarded a steamer to Ardrossan and finally a train to Glasgow. A band greeted the tourists at Glasgow and they also visited Edinburgh, Stirling and Loch Lomond.
Cook paid Edinburgh guides one shilling a head for a day’s work in 1849 and, with 50 in a group, it was no mean salary.
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