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20
Oct
Knaresborough's best qualities discussed by would-be tour guides at Mayor's meeting
Knaresborough is seen as “a market town on the outskirts of Harrogate”. That answer, which prompted mirth and grumbling in equal measure, was given in a breakout session of a meeting for would-be tour guides at Knaresborough House this week.
Candidates had been asked jot down how they thought Knaresborough was perceived, and then what they thought the world should really know about the town.
What should be publicised better, attendees said, was Knaresborough’s beautiful railway station, its pubs, its “hidden history”, St Robert, the Bed Race, Blind Jack, Mother Shipton and the town’s artistic character.
The lucky ones will get their chance to emphasise pretty much whatever they like about the town. They will be chosen to be the Mayor of Knaresborough’s first ever tour guides, leading morning walking tours throughout the year in order to attract more visitors to the town.
The Mayor, Margy Longhurst, is no stranger to guiding tour parties – she is a qualified Yorkshire Blue Badge Guide and has been offering free tours around Knaresborough town centre on market days for some time.
Margy Longhurst, the Mayor of Knaresborough, who launched the search for tour guide trainees
She told the Stray Ferret:
When I first came to Knaresborough years ago, I was blown away by its beauty and its history, but I didn’t see many tourists about. I visited Nidd Hall, not far away, and there were leaflets for Harrogate and Ripon, but not Knaresborough. I thought that can’t be right, so I started guiding people around the town.
She now wants to expand the service, and this week’s meeting was the first step towards recruiting a small army of tour guides who will be trained by the Institute of Tourist Guiding (ITG). Successful applicants will be awarded an ITG White Badge. Knaresborough Town Council has set aside £7,000 to cover the costs.
Jackie Clare, co-president of the ITG, told attendees:
The tourist guide is an essential component of the visitor experience, because people always remember their guide. They remember how they made them feel.
She said a guide trained by the institute would avoid many of the pitfalls that less knowledgeable guides might fall into. She said:
If you’ve ever been on a tour where you couldn’t hear the guide properly, or it was boring, or you couldn’t see because your view was blocked, you’ll know the kind of thing I’m talking about.
It’s also important that tour groups don’t descend on places and make people living there think ‘not again!’ The institute exists to promote guiding for the benefit of the public.
Gerry Fitzmaurice
One of the candidates at the meeting was Gerry Fitzmaurice, a retired valuer and building surveyor originally from Liverpool, who first came to live in Knaresborough in 2005.
He said:
From an economic point of view, this is good for Knaresborough. Anything that increases trade must be good for the town.
We’ve all been on tours in other towns and they’re often not very well organised, so I’m quite keen on the training aspect to this – it should make it much better.
Beverley Filippi
No prior experience of tour-guiding is needed for these jobs, but like Ms Longhurst, some of the would-be recruits were not new to the work. Beverley Filippi, for example, already has experience accrued at Ripley Castle and with children’s school tours of Mother Shipton’s Cave.
She said:
I’m interested to learn more of the history of the town, and I like meeting people. I’ve come here today because I don’t know what’s involved and I’m interested in helping to promote the town.
One of her colleagues at Ripley Castle has been Bob Siddle, who was also at the meeting. In a previous incarnation, Mr Siddle was Bob the Coffeeman, and doled out espressos in all weathers from his Smart car on Knaresborough market. He’s been working as a tour guide at Ripley Castle for the last 18 months, but the castle’s impending sale is putting a stop to that. He said:
It’s my last tour tomorrow, and I’ve no idea what the future holds. My family all say I’ve got to get another job!
Bob Siddle, formerly Bob the Coffeeman
He was a little concerned that, unlike his Ripley gig, this job will consist of leading walking tours – Knaresborough is a hilly place.
Like Ms Filippi, Mr Fitzmaurice had come along to get a better idea of what the job will entail:
You never know – I may run out at the end of the afternoon, screaming!
As it turned out, there was little cause for panic. The training, said ITG course director Sarah Cowling, would entail 21 hours of knowledge-based lectures on Knaresborough’s history and guiding theory and 18 hours of practical guiding training.
Applicants need to be able to commit to at least two to three hours a week, be reasonably computer-literate, and successfully complete a one-hour written exam.
Course leader Sarah Cowling
She said:
It’s an opportunity to share your town with locals and visitors, which is a wonderful experience. You’ll be one of the Mayor of Knaresborough’s first town guides, so it’s a chance to be a pioneer, really.
The aim, she said, was to create an “engaging, confidant and informative tour script in your own voice”:
If you’re passionate about what you’re talking about and you’re enjoying yourself, your guests will enjoy themselves too.
About 30 people attended the session
All the speakers at the event – who also included Knaresborough town crier Mark Hunter and a couple of ITG-qualified tour guides from Hull – agreed that humour was a vital component of any good tour-guide script, but quite how many gags guides should sprinkle through their spiel is open to debate. Asked what the most important job of a tour guide was, Ms Filippi said:
To educate and entertain.
But Mr Siddle disagreed:
I’d say it’s more to entertain and educate.
Tour-guide hopefuls should submit their applications to the Mayor’s office by October 31. Interviews will take place on November 13, and training is scheduled to start on January 8.
The post-training written exam is pencilled in for May 8, in time of the summer season – when the newly qualified tour guides will have their chance to prove that Knaresborough is more than just a market town on the outskirts of Harrogate.
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