An association of volunteers who have been giving free Royal Mile tours to festival-goers since 1947 will enjoy a special commemoration from Edinburgh’s Lord Provost.
Councillors today agreed a motion from Culture and Communities Vice Convener Cllr Amy McNeese-Mechan to congratulate the Edinburgh Festival Voluntary Guides Association on their upcoming 75th anniversary.
The Association has offered free walking tours of the Royal Mile since 1947, with generations of local knowledgeable and enthusiastic volunteers bringing the fascinating history of the area to life for visitors.
Meeting with representatives from the organisation, Councillor Amy McNeese-Mechan, Culture and Communities Vice Convener, said:
The Edinburgh Festival Voluntary Guides Association have been an institution on the Royal Mile during the Festival for almost 75 years. Their dedication and enthusiasm for the Royal Mile and positive work should be celebrated.
Not many community organisations are able to say that they have been in operation for more than seven decades, and it is a great credit to the determination and wider efforts of the team of volunteers, committee and supporters that these fabulous tours continue to be highly valued. Their work has continued to be supported over the years, with Cllr Neil Ross and many of the city’s Lord Provosts being directly involved with the volunteers – Cllr Donald Wilson is even an honorary guide.
Bernard Heavie, current chairman of EFVGA, said:
We are very pleased to hear that the Association and its members are to be officially recognised by the City of Edinburgh Council. Over the years our guides have enjoyed taking visitors down the Royal Mile during the Festival season. We have a wonderful city and it is a pleasure to be involved in spreading the word far and wide. With our upcoming 75th Anniversary year we believe we are the only organisation to have had a presence on the Royal Mile at every Festival since 1947. We are looking forward to presenting a special programme of tours for 2022.
Wording of congratulatory motion
By Councillor McNeese-Mechan - The Edinburgh Festival Voluntary Guides Association 75th Anniversary
"The roots of the Edinburgh Festival Voluntary Guides Association go back to 1947. That was when Sir John Falconer, the Lord Provost of Edinburgh and the driving force behind the first Edinburgh Festival, appealed for local people to volunteer to run walking tours of the Royal Mile for the many visitors that were expected to attend the Festival. Twelve volunteers stepped forward. The tours, which were advertised in the Festival's official Souvenir Programme, attracted large numbers of visitors and received favourable mentions in the press.
Further volunteers were recruited for the 1948 Festival, at which point the group was officially constituted as the Edinburgh Festival Voluntary Guides Association, with John Bowman, a former City Water Engineer, serving as its first president. In 1998, in order to increase their public profile, they became officially part of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe rather than the International Festival. They have been running tours as part of the International Festival and the Festival Fringe ever since.
Since 2003, the Association has been entirely self-supporting. They receive no public funding of any kind but are, instead, financed by donations and by the charges they make for custom tours outside the Festival season.
In 2013, they were obliged to move their base out of Cannonball House - after 67 years. Thanks to the support of the City of Edinburgh Council, they now use the City Chambers as their meeting point.
In 2019, the Association became part of the Edinburgh's Open Streets project, in which most of the Royal Mile and other streets in the Old Town are closed to traffic – and therefore open to visitors on foot - on one Sunday afternoon each month. These afternoons have provided them with an excellent opportunity to run their tours in a traffic-free environment.
In acknowledging the positive work of the Edinburgh Festival Voluntary Guides Association, Council requests that the Lord Provost, who is the patron of the Association, marks their 75th Anniversary in an appropriate way."