Continuing our 40th anniversary retrospective series. In Part 1, Robin Mitchell recalled meeting co-founder Colin Macphail and their first steps as a fledgling tour enterprise. In this next instalment, Robin recounts the business's coming of age, and how The Cadies came to add "... & Witchery Tours".
Our big break came when fate introduced us to James Thomson: now OBE, then an upstart young restaurateur who'd recently opened The Witchery on the Castlehill. Fate's agent in this case (as in many cases no doubt) was my hairdresser. While chatting away in the chair, as you do, I was asked my occupation. I proudly replied: "Starting up a walking tour business." The hairdresser, genuinely interested in my story, mentioned one of her other customers: Stuart Reid, who was launching his new business Scottish Roots, researching family trees. It was suggested I should meet Stuart, which I duly did. Stuart suggested arranging a meeting with a business support service called the Edinburgh Venture Enterprise Trust (EVENT), which I duly did. The advisor at EVENT suggested dropping off leaflets to a small antique shop in the Lawnmarket as they were on our walking tour route, which I duly did. The antique shop owners knew the owner of The Witchery and suggested I drop in to see him, which I duly did.
James had viewed our appearance on Pebble Mill at One and thought it would be a good idea to run a themed walking tour from his restaurant. The theme, of course, would be in keeping with The Witchery's own gothic aesthetic rejoicing in the Old Town's darker side. The rest is (still-being-written) history. And the moral of this story? Always follow your hairdresser's advice. Some years later, when invited to speak to tourism students at various colleges and universities, the 'hairdressing story' was a great example of always following things up.
I remember visiting a bank seeking funding to purchase ghostly costumes and props for our proposed new Murder & Mystery Tour. We presented our handwritten business plan (more a scribble, really) detailing our idea of themed walking tours. This included details of dressing up in ghostly costumes, wearing rubber masks and jumping out of dark doorways on unsuspecting visitors. The bank manager looked bemused. Can you blame him? We were shown the door. It would be improper to name the bank in question (The Bank of Scotland) and to be fair to them, it did sound a little odd. Thankfully, another High Street bank eventually supported our venture. It would also be improper, especially to the previous bank, to mention this really helpful bank manager (Mr Brooksbank of the TSB). Thanks to the aforementioned helpful manager (and the TSB), the jumper-ooter was born.
READ MORE: What is a jumper-ooter?
So, The Witchery Murder & Mystery Tour was launched on Halloween 1985, initially for guests dining in the Witchery Restaurant. We were called out to tour any time of day or night; even as late as midnight on some occasions. This clearly wasn't an ideal arrangement. We'd be sitting by the phone every night waiting for it to ring. So, we decided to schedule tours at set times earlier in the evening encouraging local clubs, social groups and societies as well as visitors to book the tour. This worked much better (not least for our work-life balance) and as the months passed, the tour became ever more popular. It's hard to convey what the Old Town of Edinburgh was like back in the '80s: compared to today, the expression "night and day" is appropriate and almost literal. Footfall was light in the daytime and minimal at night; several closes were unlit or unnamed; and some buildings were completely empty. Nothing beats a masked, ghostly character jumpin' oot from a dark corner in an Old Town close.
After running the Witchery Murder & Mystery Tour for a couple of years we added to our walking tour repertoire with the early evening Ghosts & Gore Tour. This retained the "jumper-ooter" but expanded their role to a speaking one, which meant the masks were abandoned. The business thereafter was to be known as The Cadies & Witchery Tours, and we found two interesting historical characters from the Edinburgh Room of the Central Library to lead our tours - Adam Lyal and Alexander Clapperton (both deceased).
READ MORE: The Ghosts and Gore Tour
In 1986 Colin and I both completed the Scottish Tourist Guides Association course at the University of Edinburgh, passing practical and written exams in tour guiding. It was an excellent course and allowed us to conduct coach tours in Edinburgh and other parts of Scotland, which we did on and off for a few years. By this stage, we had to start employing more people: initially to jump oot, followed by learning to lead our tours. This also reintroduced us to a little more of that forgotten thing known as "free time", which we were soon exploiting by coming up with new crackpot ideas to promote and diversify the business.
As early as 1988 we published our first book, Adam Lyal's Witchery Tales, followed by the following publications: About A Mile, The Secret Life Of Edinburgh Castle, What's Under The Kilt? and What Time Does Edinburgh's One O'clock Gun Fire? I was also lucky enough to have my first and only novel Grave Robbers published by Luath Press.
Also in 1988 we purchased at auction for £1,050 a small calling-card case made out of the skin of the notorious "body-snatcher" William Burke. Bidding over the phone, I managed to narrowly outbid Edinburgh's Surgeons' Hall Museum and give Colin -- with whom I'd agreed a very strict £500 bid "ceiling" -- a case of palpitations.
READ MORE: 35 years with a bit of a Burke
In 1990, we were Highly Commended by the Bill Heron Trophy for outstanding contribution to Scottish Tourism and we were awarded runner up in the Small Business Marketing category of the Scottish Tourist Board's Scottish Thistle Awards for Tourism.
Colin moved away in 1992 to pastures new, and I took over the reins with help from a variety of creative souls. We began to publish further books, write and produce films and make special bespoke ghostly appearances around Scotland for corporate incentive groups. We travelled to a number of locations to trade fairs and conferences. The most unusual trip by far was to Baku, Azerbaijan for a tourism conference. The event was organised by Professor Ian Buick from Queen Margaret University. And the big hit of this event: The Mad Monk of the Cowgate!
Talking about Queen Margaret University, 'A Ghoulish Delight' was the title of a case study written by Dr Keith Halcro in 1995 about The Cadies & Witchery Tours. It was compiled while Halcro was a lecturer at Queen Margaret University, prior to his present role as senior lecturer in Management at Glasgow Caledonian University. The case study was joint winner of the 1995 Scottish Enterprise. New Case Writing Competition. Then our former manager, Lorna Baxter, was awarded a certificate of merit by The Yellow Pages as a Semi-finalist in the 1997 PA of the year award.
Now, you might think that this all sounds like blowing our own trumpet ... and you would be right. Well, why not? It's a darned fine trumpet.