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The tradition of guiding well beyond retirement age was perfectly illustrated when Marilyn met a Blue Badge colleague waiting for a group at Waterloo Place.
‘I asked him his age. ’92’ came the reply. His driver said he was fine as a guide. No retirement for us yet!’
Marilyn was also involved in compiling Capital Info which was an annual publication for fellow guides providing information on tourist attractions including opening times, prices and phone numbers.
‘It was very popular with guides for about 10 years ... and then came the internet,’ she said ruefully.
Radical changes were under way in the marketing of guides in 1984 when, instead of sending leaflets to various agents in the USA, the STGA’s public relations officer Jean Duncan decided to put an advertisement in the BTA Official Agents Sales Guide to Britain which is sent to agents in the states interested in sending people to Britain. One advertisement – the smallest – cost £200 and people had to indicate to the magazine which things they wanted more information about.
To my astonishment and delight we received 650 inquiries,’ she reported.
In 1980 the STGA celebrated its 21st birthday with an informal Buffet Dance at Stockbridge House and the Lord Provost of Edinburgh agreed to become Honorary President of the Edinburgh branch of the STGA. The 1980s was a decade in which Anne Lister took a major role in the evolution of the STGA and which saw the arrival of another figure, Ros Newlands, who would help to take her work on to the next stage. Anne was in charge of the training, and she and Elizabeth Seaton alternated as chairs of STGA, for a number of years. Anne was born in Dundee and studied English and Philosophy at St Andrews University. She taught for two years then married Tony, a journalist from Manchester, and lived in England until the second world war when she spent three years in the Land Army. Her role was to look after the welfare of the Land Girls. She worked at Manchester University on the 2nd Domesday Book of Agriculture and later moved to Scotland where her husband Tony had got a job with the Scottish Tourist Board.
In the late 1950s she returned to teaching at Ainslie Park where she remained until her retirement in 1976. She qualified as a Blue Badge Tourist Guide in 1972 and was secretary of the association before later becoming Chairman and was very knowledgeable about, and involved in, the association’s affairs.
One of her students was a Language school agent called Ros Newlands who saw an advertisement in the Scotsman which was to change her life. Ros had graduated with a psychology degree and her first job was working as a Personnel officer at box manufacturer, William Thyne. By
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