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Aug 2024
Mother Shipton tour guide celebrates over 30 years on the job
A well-known Knareborough tour guide is celebrating over 30 years on the job - and he's not looking to retire any time soon.
John Wynne has been giving guided tours around Mother Shipton’s Cave for over 30 years.
He originally signed a seven-month contract in the early 1990s and has been informing visitors of the history of the site ever since.
John’s inspiration is his predecessor, Jack Carr, who was in his 80s and still giving tours when John first got the job in 1992. He mentored John, who still remembers the delight of being told by Jack after his first day as guide: "that tour was first class, I can’t teach you anything".
John explained:
It's on my bucket list to still be doing tours at 80 like Jack. He's been an inspiration and I always think back to him when I'm doing tours. Even now, I make sure to include a nod to Jack in them.
In 1993, a year after joining the Mother Shipton’s team, John became manager under the encouragement of the late Bob McBratney, who was general manager at the time.
Speaking of the friendship they formed, he said:
I kept in contact with him until the end, we were friends for life. He gave me a lot and it felt like we were part of a big family. I was sad when he died because we had a lot of laughs together.
His knowledge and expertise has landed him plenty of TV gigs, appearing on Four in a Bed in 2020 and giving a tour to the Yorkshire Vet about three years ago - although according to John, the footage from that visit "sadly ended up on the cutting room floor".
However, his small screen ambitions are not over, and he's slated to appear on an upcoming episode of Bangers and Cash.
Joking about whether the fame has gone to his head, John said:
I’ve been stopped in the street before by people who say, 'I’ve seen you on TV'. Now I know how Noddy Holder feels.
John Wynne first joined the Mother Shipton's team in the 1990s.
Returning visitors to Mother Shipton’s Cave will know that staff in costumes are a regular occurrence at the attraction, and even John hasn’t been able to avoid it over the years.
He remembers Halloween as his favourite time of year when he first started at Mother Shipton’s. His tours would take a ghostly spin and he would lead up to 20 people through the woods in the pitch black, something he now recognises as a modern day "health and safety nightmare".
His role as Dracula was short-lived however, as he was deemed to be "too friendly" to be scary, and he was assigned comedy characters from that point onwards. That included many Christmases spent as a certain someone - the identity of whom John still keeps a closely guarded secret.
After taking a 15 year break to pursue other career paths, John returned to Mother Shipton's in 2014, and fell immediately back into the swing of things.
He said:
I thought I haven’t done a tour in 15 years, how will I remember how to do it?
But once I started talking it all came back, like the last one was only five minutes ago. It sums up my career though, a lot of it has been 'get yourself down here quick'.
In one way it’s been better the second time around because I don’t have the pressure of being manager anymore, I can just drive everyone mad.
I never thought I would still be working here years later but it’s because I love the place and the story of Mother Shipton. The staff are like my second family.
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