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‘I decided I would take the classes myself because I always had aspirations of doing something like guiding if I wasn’t sitting in an office,’ Michael said.
‘So I turned up at most of the classes when I could. They were either in the afternoon or early evening which was family time. Neither was it the best time of day when working full-time. What I do remember was organising bus trips for the trainee guides. They went to such places as the Borders and Fife as well as Edinburgh of course. I had to work out the stages each person would do on the tour. I didn’t have any part in the teaching or examination because that wasn’t my role.’
Glen also made his mark by designing a new badge for the STGA and commissioned Birmingham-based Fattorini and Sons to make them. ‘Fattorini employed lots of women with stoves at home who having got a brass mould with depressions in it then poured in the enamel using the particular colours that were required,’ Michael continued. ‘I had pretensions among many other things to be a graphic designer. I was involved at a very early age in school in lettering and printing.’ Certificates for qualified guides were signed by Scottish gynaecologist Sir Hector MacLennan who was chairman of the STB.
According to the July 1984 newsletter, in the spring of 1973 a need was felt for an independent agent through whom reservations for guides in Scotland could be made and, in April George Cochran was engaged as its man on the telephone who could be contacted at any time for a guide from the registered list. Edinburgh-born George had served with the RAF during the second world war in Shetland and India and returned to his home city and worked as a shipping and despatch clerk for woollen goods exporter, C R McRitchie. George later suffered from rheumatoid arthritis and was confined to a wheelchair.
Blue Badge guide Ros Newlands who was later to become a major figure in the STGA recalls: ‘George Cochran lived in the Thistle Foundation, and was disabled. Nobody was allowed to meet him. Mr Cochran had to go through the list methodically, this was just Edinburgh, and employ the guides in strict order. You didn’t give your availability or anything, he just phoned you up and hoped that you were available.
And if you could speak a foreign language, you were not allowed to guide in English, even if you were British. You were not, for Mr Cochran, anyway. That was a source of a lot of resentment by a lot of guides, as I'm sure you can imagine. But it was done with the best of intentions, because there wasn’t nearly as much work then. So, the idea was to make sure the English-speaking guides would also get work.’
The newsletter also reflected that many changes had taken place over the years in the way groups have been escorted at Edinburgh Castle.
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