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In 1949 I was appointed Bristol organiser for the 1951
Festival of Britain and one of the requirements was
to train a band of Bristol guides for the Festival. The
British Travel & Holidays Association was offering a
qualification and I came up to London to take that with
a view to running a similar course in Bristol. There were
some lectures running which I couldn’t attend but found
the assessment was based on a thorough knowledge of
London’s streets and places of interest. My sister, the
actress Dorothy Primrose, was appearing in season with
Alec Clunes at the Arts Theatre and had a flat in Pimlico
where I stayed.
Nearby was a cabmen’s shelter and I found there were
several trainees “learning the town” for the Cabbies’
examination. They used to tour London on bicycles
learning the routes and places likely to be asked for.
I borrowed my sister’s bike and went out many times
with them. I had been training for the Bar in the Temple
and knew the City of London well. Armed with an
encyclopaedic knowledge of London I took the tests which
were a series of searching questions by BTHA examiners
in a room in George Inn Yard, the Borough, the same
room in which we formed the Guild of Guide Lecturers in
1950. The practical assessment was on a London double
decker bus without a microphone. The bus went anywhere
in London and we had to do the commentary downstairs
and then race upstairs to repeat it. It was more a test
of stamina than guiding. I had satisfactory marks and
received my first badge – a red one.”
Frank Buckley (1914-2003) began his 75-year guiding
career in the Isle of Man as a 12 year old. For a shilling
a head visitors would be taken to the Glens where they
could pick their own fruit. Young Frank was employed to
stand on the running board of a charabanc and deliver a
commentary through a megaphone. His sixpenny tips were
more than what some adults earned in a month.
Legendary Guides & Guiding Legends
Freddie Brampton who trained with Frank had begun
his guiding career in London in the 1920s. He noted that
guests staying at the Bloomsbury Hotels would emerge
after dinner for a stroll looking for Dickens House or the
Old Curiosity Shop and would offer to escort them on
walks through Lincolns Inn to Fleet Street and the Middle
Temple. Freddie, who was later awarded the MBE for his
services to guiding, died in 1994 aged 83. His son-in-law
Andrew qualified as a Blue Badge Guide in 1977. If you
search for London 1920s on www.youtube.com you can
watch fascinating films of the London Freddie guided.
Legend has it that another of the Festival of Britain guides
volunteered to look after French speaking parties but
turned out to have very little French. He’d take his French
tourists to the Abbey, the Tower, the British Museum,
wherever, introducing each site with a showman’s flourish
and the words “voila Westminster Abbey, voila Le Tower”.
You get the picture. Old Voila they called him. Or so they
say. I don’t know his name or even if the story is true but
I hope it is because I often think of Old Voila.
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