Past masters take city in their stride

'PEOPLE say to me have you lived in York all your life?" Syd Heppell gives a disarming grin. "I say no, not yet." We are in the Museum Gardens, and the spry 79-year-old is giving me the official guided tour of York. I have lived here four years and pride myself on knowing a thing or two about the city's past. But as we walk around the rain-dampened city walls and through Museum Gardens, Syd effortlessly brings the past of the city he loves vividly to life.

We pause briefly by the Anglian Tower, tucked away behind the city walls at the back of King's Manor. The tower, Syd says, was built by King Edwin, who reigned from 616 to 632 AD. He was a pagan. "But he wanted to marry Ethelburga, daughter of the King of Kent, who was a Christian. She said she'd only marry him if he was a Christian," says Syd. So Edwin converted, and the pair married in a small wooden hut on the site of what is now York Minster. It was Edwin, in fact, who began work on York's first stone Minster - though he was killed in battle long before it was completed.

A few minutes later, we enter the courtyard of the King's Manor, a magnificent Tudor building built in the reign of King Henry VIII as home to the Council of the North. "It was set up to manage the unruly north of England," says Syd. "In other words, it was the northern parliament."

Over the entrance Syd indicates the great coat of arms of Charles I. We pass through the arch and inside to the inner courtyard. There, over another entrance, is a second magnificent coat of arms - this one a monument to man's folly and vanity. It belonged to Lord Wentworth, who was later dragged off to London, convicted of treason, and beheaded. One of the charges against him, says Syd, is that he had the temerity to have his coat of arms put on a royal palace.

Next, as we emerge into Exhibition Square, there's time for a quick diatribe against the Victorians. Syd gestures at the Victorian City Art Gallery, and his much-preferred mock-Tudor building next to it, built also by the Victorians as the headmaster's house for the Yorkshire School for the Blind. "I always say the gallery is what the Victorians built when left to their own devices," he says. "The building next to it is a copy of a Tudor building." He pauses for effect while the contrast between the two buildings sinks in, then turns to fellow volunteer guide Roy Howard: "We've nothing to thank the Victorians for, have we Roy?" he asks.

For more than 50 years now, come rain, shine, snow, sleet or hail, volunteer guides like Syd and Roy have been introducing visitors to York's hidden delights. For Syd, a founder member of the Voluntary Association of Guides to the City of York and voted an honorary Ambassador of York at the city's tourism 'Oscars' last year, it is a labour of love.

"I got my inspiration from my father," he says. "He was illiterate - he couldn't read or write. I had the job every day of reading the Evening Press to him. But every Sunday he took me walking around the Minster, along the walls, through the streets. 'Just look at this, son,' he would say, and he'd show me things I wouldn't have noticed. He left me with a wonderful legacy - a love of this city."

It was a love Syd wanted to share with others - and so when, in 1950, a public meeting called by city librarian Raymond Doherty decided an advert should be put in the Yorkshire Evening Press asking for people willing to act as volunteer guides, Syd was one of the first. He's been doing it ever since.

The free walking tours leave from Exhibition Square at 10.15am every day of the year except Christmas. From Easter onwards there's a second daily tour at 2pm - and in the summer, an evening tour.

The route takes in the Multangular Tower, St Leonard's Hospital, Museum Gardens and St Mary's Abbey, before returning to Exhibition Square. Visitors are then shown round King's Manor, before being led to Bootham Bar and along the city walls to Monk Bar. Visitors are also shown around Holy Trinity Church and Shambles - though tours of the Minster are left to the Minster guides.

There are almost 200 volunteer guides who lead the tours - and they're all motivated, says Syd, by the same love of York. "They're people who love the city, and love sharing it with others," he says. "We want to make people aware of what this city has to offer. We can't show them York in a couple of hours - but we can show them enough to make them want to come back and see more for themselves."

The emphasis is on fun and enjoyment - bringing the city's past to life without weighing visitors down with too many dates. "We could quote dates, but we tend to stick just to the centuries when something happened," Syd says. "People can remember if we said something was 400 years old, but not that it dated from 1625."

After a chat and a look around Museum Gardens and King's Manor, we join up with the day's official tour, being led by Roy Howard.

He's just about to lead his guests - a man from the Isle of Man and two young women, one from Korea and one from Peru - up the steps to Bootham Bar.

Fine rain is falling and Roy warns them the steps may be slippery. But after a short stop in the Bar itself, they are all soon striding along the section of city wall behind the Minster and Deanery gardens. Laughter floats back on the wind as he treats them to his own oddball account of the city's history.

Abruptly he stops and slaps his hand against one of the mossy embrasures - the gaps in the turreted wall through which medieval archers would have shot at attacking armies. The archers would originally have been protected by wooden shutters, he says, indicating the worn grooves in the embrasures where the shutters would have pivoted to allow archers to shoot out.

Further along he pauses and points. "Can you see the long brick building in the distance?" he asks. We peer through the fine, steady drizzle.

"In this historic city, we're not entirely dependant upon tourism," he informs his audience. "We do have some industry. We make chocolate."

The building they're looking at, he informs everyone, is the Nestl factory.

"How much chocolate do you think they make every day?" There's an expectant silence. "They make chocolate at the rate of five tonnes an hour!" he says triumphantly.

"Oooh!" says the Korean girl, looking up at him impressed.

There's something for everyone on the official guided tour of York.

- Tours are free, and during the winter they leave at 10.15am every day from Exhibition Square and last about two hours

Updated: 11:06 Tuesday, February 06, 2001