Melvin makes move on tourist market

A MUSIC producer at BBC Scotland is diversifying: to provide visitors to Edinburgh a personalised audio tour of the capital’s key attractions.

Richard Melvin produces Jim Gellatly’s Music Bed on BBC Radio Scotland every week and wrote and released the two novelty hit records, ‘Scotland, Scotland… Jason Scotland’ and ‘Santa’s a Scotsman’.

A third novelty song, ‘The Ashes with Phil Tufnell’, might not be faring as well as his first two, but he’s hoping to register a success with ‘Real history talks’.

Richard is working in collaboration with his cousin, John Melvin, and John’s father, Eric.

Says Eric, the tour’s author and narrator: “On my regular trips up and down the High Street, I am regularly struck by the number of visitors trying to make some sense of the scenes around them from a guide book.

“There is very little in the way of information boards to help them, nor is there any interpretive centre that ‘sets the scene’ for visitors.

“I don’t think that the visitor, particularly the independent visitor, is well-served by what is available to them.

“With ‘Real history talks’ we want to change that and give visitors accurate edutainment. I love Edinburgh and want visitors to get an idea about why this city is so special.”