Summer is also the time of year when new "jumpers-oot" learn to make a haunting impression on tourists; a time of year that can be really enjoyable or incredibly stressful for me, or often both at the same time. I'm often asked what qualities a good jumper-oot needs. The first one has to be a pulse. Real ghosts are just so unreliable. Vital signs aside, the ability to run at a brisk jog-trot at very least is necessary, as is imagination, but the absolutely essential quality in a good jumper-oot is a sense of humour. Nothing will come together without that. After all, walking about town in a maxi dress needs a certain panache to carry off the look, especially if you're a guy who's over six foot tall and sporting a beard.
Everybody's first tour is a little nerve-wracking. They wonder if they will remember the route, the cues, what they're supposed to do. And so do I. Everybody makes at least one mistake on their first tour, and it's my job to step in and make it look as if that's the way things are meant to be when it does happen. Add to the mix the fact that the tours take place on the streets of St Andrews where truly strange things can (and do) happen, and it's very much a case of "expect the unexpected".
Strange things? Well, several years ago I approached Martyrs' Monument to tell a story about the persecution of witches and noticed three figures sitting on one of the benches that used to be at the base of the monument. It looked as if there was a woman in a tweed coat and a headscarf with a young man (students?) either side of her. This was in November, and it was dark. I led the twenty-or-so Scouts on the tour to the base of the Monument to tell the tale before I saw that the "woman" was wearing a duck mask under the headscarf. I never did find out why but, whatever the reason, the Scouts stared at her unblinkingly for the next four or five minutes before I could finish my story and move them on.
Martyrs' Monument was a scene of consternation another time when the fire alarm went off in Patrick Hamilton Halls just as I approached the Monument. My jumper-oot realised with horror that the fire point where people would gather was... yes... right next to the Monument, and he was desperately trying to tell people to "shhhh" so he could hear his cue. I think the answers he got that night were pretty robust. He did hit his cue, though.
There was also the night on the Bow Butts when I looked at one of the windows across the road and realised that four Santas were dancing in a circle in somebody's living-room. To my eternal shame, I got the giggles and forgot what I was saying.
Over a few tours, jumpers-oot find their own way of doing things to make people on the tour scream and laugh. By the second or third tour they are usually enjoying their work. Such was the case with Jamie. Hi, Jamie, if you're reading this! Jamie was very shy when he started as a jumper-oot. A quiet, polite boy who you would never imagine could want to frighten anybody. Jamie got through his first tour without a mistake until the very last "jump-oot" when he came out of an alley dressed as the Beast and wearing a snake-head mask. He did what he was supposed to do, and then ran off.
I started to laugh, and couldn't stop. I couldn't stop laughing long enough to say my lines, couldn't see for tears of laughter. In fact, I could barely stand for laughing. It must have been over a minute before I could compose myself enough to explain to the baffled tour what I found so funny. Just out of sight of the group, the alley Jamie ran down had a dog-leg turn. Jamie knew this, but his view was limited by the mask, and, perhaps because of nerves, he had run off and straight into the wall. The long snout of the mask had stopped him from hurting himself, but he had bounced off the wall with an audible, if muffled "Oof!"
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