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After 50 years conducting tours, well-known local guide Geraldene Lowe will be retiring next monthShe knows the ins and outs of the country, has appeared in international travel guides and made a name for herself in the heritage and tour scene.迷你倉 But local tour guide Geraldene Lowe will soon hang up her tour guide badge.The Eurasian Singaporean plans to retire after giving her last tours this month and next. "I'm 75 - already very old - and my husband keeps nagging at me to retire. All our kids have migrated overseas too."She is married to Mr Ismail Ahmad, also 75, a retired government servant, and their three adult children live in Australia, Norway and England.Ms Lowe began giving tours almost 50 years ago - in 1965 - when she was approached by the tourism board to train local tour guides."I was a travel agent then and one of the few locals who had worked overseas in Italy, Jordan and Jerusalem. When you come back, you see Singapore with different eyes and you're more aware of what's interesting to visitors," she says.Back then, tourists would mainly arrive by ship, and tours would consist of taking them up Mount Faber, around the Padang, to Tiger Balm Gardens and then across to Johor for lunch, recalls Ms Lowe.It was during those early tours that she first hatched the idea of guided walking tours. "I just felt that people were not seeing the real Singapore. Tourists would go to Chinatown on the buses, but they wouldn't get off because they felt there were weird smells and rats."She then began devising her own tour ideas, organised loosely along certain themes. "I usually study the calendar and look at what's coming up. For instance, if I see Yom Kippur coming up, I'd organise a Jewish tour of Singapore, in which we visit the synagogues and explore the history of Jews in Singapore," she says.She has also organised Ramadan walking tours, and will soon lead a tour inspired by the Monkey God's birthday celebrations."I have all this information that I've accumulated over the years, and I try to dream up nice ways to introduce them to people."She has since been mentioned in many established international travel guides on Singapore, including Lonely Planet, Frommers and Fodor's.Today, she is mostly engaged by expatriate associations, clubs and corporations, although she adds that more Singaporeans are joining her tours now."They realise that there's a lot they don't know about S儲存倉ngapore. For instance, when we go down Orchard Road, I point out Cuppage and Cairnhill, and most people don't know the stories of the people they were named after," she says.Her tours have become known for their detailed, personal anecdotes, lively commentary and access to houses and places most people would not normally be allowed into.For instance, on a tour of black-and-white houses in Singapore last Friday, she ambled into four old colonial-style bungalows in places such as Evans Road and Malcolm Road, clearly on friendly terms with the tenants, who let her take her tour groups into their homes.She also enjoys free access to a joss-stick manufacturer here, whose factory she visits as part of her tour on dying trades in Singapore, and she is the only tour guide the manufacturer will allow on its premises.It is her distinctive tour style that has kept Ms Heidi Sarna coming back to Ms Lowe's tours. The American, who is in her 40s, has been on more than a dozen tours led by Ms Lowe, and was on the tour of black-and-white houses for the third time last Friday."Her tours are always unique. When I go on them again, I hear different things I didn't hear the last time," says Ms Sarna, a freelance writer. "I've met a lot of tour guides and Geraldene is different because you can tell she wasn't just trained to be a guide - she was born here. She's connected to the culture, and she's lived through a lot of what she talks about."Ms Sarna, who has lived in Singapore for 71/2 years, adds: "As an expat, her tours have improved my experience of the city. She helps you get underneath the surface of the city, and the history of Singapore is more interesting than most people realise."Dr Chua Ai Lin, a history professor at the National University of Singapore, met Ms Lowe through the Singapore Heritage Society, which Ms Lowe helped to set up in 1986. Dr Chua, who is now the society's vice-president, says going on Ms Lowe's tours helped her to appreciate Singapore in a new way. "It helped to kickstart my passion for Singapore heritage."Calling Ms Lowe "an institution", she adds: "She has that personal connection with what she's talking about. I hope there will be many other guides who will follow in her footsteps by having a passion for learning the lesser-known things about Singapore."jennanid@sph.com.sgE-mail Ms Geraldene Lowe at geraldenestours@hotmail.com for a list of her upcoming tours.迷你倉價錢