It’s very near the end of my tour guiding season and again what a season it has been. I really can’t believe sometimes how lucky I am to be able to meet such wonderful, wonderful people from around the world. I finally landed on my feet after my chequered career.

It may be interesting to some folks to hear about my chequered career. So hang on folks here we go!

I was never academic. As a kid I was a bit of a dreamer and I was naturally good at sports. I played on the first rugby team and cricket team and was good enough to win my junior golf championship and I could run a half marathon in 1 hour 26, ski well etc

But I hugely lacked confidence and was shy and a dreamer and I was in the very bottom of my class throughout junior school. So it was a huge surprise to everyone when I got into St Andrews University in 1979 to study maths and physics in my first year. That is still a huge surprise to me to be honest. However I was far too green for all this and had no world experience and I didn’t make the most of this opportunity by a country mile.

I really often wonder what I would have done hadn’t I gone to St Andrews then. It would have been a whole different story.

I probably should have followed my instincts after St Andrews as I went to Val D’Isere as a ski guide and had the time of my life. But I didn’t know my mind and I didn’t think things through. I went to London and had miserable years trying to pass exams to become a chartered accountant and get a career in finance. Of course I failed. My heart wasn’t in it.

I then went back to Edinburgh and got a job in administration in an investment house and had a lot of fun but was never an investment administration type of guy. I chucked it after 2 years and headed back to the Alps and Val D’Isere to work as a rep for a season. I had great fun but eventually got sacked for not following protocol enough.

Back to Edinburgh in my thirties I floated around for years job gardening and began ski teaching at the local dry slope. I was happier doing this. One summer I spent in Marbella working for Club Med teaching golf which was superb. I taught beginners in my limited french and so if you ever do come across a french person with a wacky golf technique you could always proffer Marbella, Club Med, Keith?

Anyway I then started a flower business and built it for 14 years and the offshoot of this was that I started a cafe in an adjoining shop which morphed into a Sicilian restaurant which I tried to run but it lasted nearly 4 months as we didn’t know what we were doing. It was a disaster and I licked my wounds and headed to St Andrews to caddie.

I caddied for a good few years (now in my early fifties!) and did a bit of writing and worked in the Fairmont as a concierge which led onto the food tours and where I am today. And the tours are going swimmingly. I seem to be able to do this. Albeit I have had to do a rather intense crash course in Scottish and British history.

But as everyone who knows me I have always had a problem with alcohol and I am still battling it ongoing if I am honest.

The essence of it all I think is the issue that every single person in my situation will have at times. They will have ongoing urges and this will indeed last throughout their future lives (I know a remarkable guy who stopped for 19 years and then got drunk once and has been off it for 22 years now!). The basic fact is that there will come about times and situations when one is tempted and that is THE huge precipice.

It is the lucky ones who are on the edge of that precipice and know they have to do something for sure. But these lucky ones know and make the decision that that one thing is not to drink. And do something other than drink. But they are the lucky ones

I met Bart and Katharine and Geoff and Raylin for an Edinburgh tour last week in the foyer of the Virgin Hotel and we all struck it off somewhat from the start. They are on a tour of Scotland taking in the delights of the country and getting up to all sorts of stuff such as falconry, sheep herding (herding), my Old Toun tour and afternoon tea in an author’s house in Heriot Row (more of later).

Geoff was a big guy in Macy’s and Bart a dental surgeon, Katharine an emergency nurse and Raylin something in sweets. But what a charming and fun foursome. And it transpired that they were golfers too and were booked into the Old Course Hotel a few days later. So we arranged to hook up.

I had mentioned to Bart that I was having implant surgery in a couple of days and he was very interested indeed. He is big in implants, in fact massive. So I thought he would love to meet my incredible dentist, Amanda, and come to visit the Gentle Dental Practice in St Andrews. And he was more than enthusiastic, in fact I would see he was very, very keen. So I duly arranged a meeting, after hours, to meet Amanda, and Chris the owner. I think they must have googled Bart Silverman, as he is no average dental implant surgeon! Like Gentle Dental is no average dental practice.

Anyhow the slight issue was that they were playing on the Jubilee at 12 and it was going to be tight. Also I had a 4pm tee-time on the Old with 2 friends and I was committed to starting at least. So I had to just play the first three of the Old and then hoof it across the 18th of the New to meet them off the Jubilee, to jump into a taxi which I had phoned while hoofing it across the 18th of the New, to get up to Gentle Dental just in time. Such is an average day in the life of a tour guide.

The meeting was a massive success. Bart was fascinated to see the Gentle set-up and meet the also very impressive Amanda and Chris, albeit Amanda was slightly wrong footed when Bart suggested we should just do my op then and there! And I think he was serious too! This is a man after my own heart.

Anyway we then had a lovely dinner at Tailend and had many laughs. They regaled about their afternoon tea at the author’s house in Edinburgh which transpired to be the Robert Louis Stevenson house on Heriot Row, now owned by Johnnie and Felicitas McPhie. Interestingly I know them from way back through my connection with Donald Galbraith, with whom I set up Highlander Golf 20 years ago and who I played with on the golf team at St Andrews University. The halcyon days indeed.

Unfortunately though, Johnnie has apparently not upped his repertoire overly and continues to be excessively verbose and still verges on inducing likely and probable death through his awfully boring chat. I do remember listening to him for about half an hour once and it was most painful. Geoff kind of agreed and when I asked him how long it lasted he said ‘2 hours and 2 hours too long’. Enough said. Poor Johnnie, he just can’t read the room. But I suppose some people are just incredibly dull. And that is an awful affliction.

They were talking about the equally interesting character of Felicitas. One thing was that she addressed Johnnie (her hubby) as Mr McPhie which is really quite incredibly strange. And I really don’t know what to think about that. Apart from thinking that it wouldn’t happen in downtown Niddrie or MacMerry. And essentially that it’s an awfully strange way to address your betrothed, unless I suppose you are acting in some Edwardian period drama. But this is 2026.

Anyway Felicitas apart from calling Johnnie, Mr McPhie, told the party that she was taking in 4 festival shows that day and that she was a member of The Really Terrible Orchestra. And much to the surprise of everyone I exclaimed that I had once been a member of The Really Terrible Orchestra, 2nd strings violin !! Geoff at that point gave me quite an incredulous look. But it’s all true folks, even though I took the really terrible to really very terrible levels.

So as I said the tours are going swimmingly. I have picked up a few new clients this year and now do the Edinburgh Castle too. I must be doing something right.

I have been very lucky in this though and if I hadn’t met lovely Blue Badge guide Johnnie in the Fairmont that day or Martin on the number 11 bus going to play golf one morning in Edinburgh, then I really don’t think I would be in the extremely fortunate and privileged position I am in today.

Fare forward passengers.