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About Me
I've spent my whole working life as a guide in one way or another.
I was born in London, came to Brighton to study French and Spanish and decided it was a great place to live. In 1975 I took a summer job as a representative in Lloret de Mar and then as a courier, escorting mixed nationality groups on coach tours of Europe. The 'If it's Tuesday it must be Belgium' type of tour, crazy, hectic, exhausting, demanding - and a great way to learn all the ins and outs of the job.
I was certainly thrown in the deep end, as I explain in my 'Tales of a Tour guide' talk, when my first such tour had a driver who spoke only Italian and I spoke none. since then, I've learned the language, although I don't often have the occasion to speak it. It was sink or swim. I survived for five years, followed by three years as tour manager on tours of Great Britain.
In cities such as Rome, Paris, Vienna, Brussels, Edinburgh and London the local guides conducted the city sightseeing tours, and I envied them. Their depth of knowledge was great, their job satisfaction likewise as they could concentrate on showing the beauties of their city to visitors. I wanted to be a local guide in London, not realising at first what this entailed!
I achieved my ambition to join the elite London Blue Badge guides (trained, examined, registered by the Tourist Board after an extensive and costly course of study) in 1980, and went through the training all over again a few years later in order to qualify as a South East England Blue Badge guide. I still guide tours to London starting from the local area, and now concentrate on tours in Sussex, Kent and Surrey and especially Brighton where I've created a range of off-beat walks.
Only Blue Badge guides are allowed to conduct tours in some of England's most prestigious and famous historical sites, such as the Tower of London, Westminster Abbey, St Pauls Cathedral, and Windsor Castle. We have to re-register annually with the Tourist Boards and are expected to attend ongoing Professional Development Programmes. As Michael Caine might say "Not a lot of people know that!" In addition, I'm qualified to guide in approximately sixty different sites and towns, including (in no particular order) Chichester Cathedral, Arundel Castle, Canterbury, Eastbourne, Oxford, Winchester, Salisbury, Battle Abbey, Hastings, Lewes, Tunbridge Wells, Stratford-upon-Avon, Stonehenge, Rye, and Portsmouth. For this a solid grounding in British history and culture is needed, not only in order to give a good commentary and explanations and hopefully bring the site alive to visitors, but to answer the many questions which visitors like to ask. If you're wondering how I remember all the different facts and places, well it's all in my memory somewhere....although I sometimes have to refresh it the day before a tour! My passion has always been travel, I've visited sixty countries and worked abroad (including a year in Africa). This has given me a great insight into differing cultures and has been a help in my work with different nationalities, as did backpacking around the world for two six month periods a few years ago.
When not researching and guiding the tours and talks, I enjoy drumming in a samba band, going to the theatre, and walking on the South Downs hills. My 20 year old rock guitarist daughter keeps me in touch with the Brighton music scene!
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