“BEING a tour guide is like doing a PowerPoint presentation and each building is a bullet point.”

Dave Crosby is one of the newest members of The Oxford Guild of Tour Guides (OGTG) and he has already figured out how to get his message across.

The group is the professional association of freelance tour guides which provides tours of Oxford, exclusively to the Tourist Information Centre in Broad Street.

Mr Crosby, who works in advertising three days a week in Newbury, said he found out about the opportunity to become a guide through a man he met at the pub.

His luck was in when he found out about the opening as the six-month intensive course to become a recognised guide, is only held every five to six years.

After passing the course in August this is his first full tourist season.

The 60-year-old from Botley describes the job as a mixture of informing and entertaining.

He said: “I like to get people as enthused about Oxford as I am."

“I get feedback from the audience a lot like a musician playing to a crowd of people.

"I know it sounds corny but I like to think of the people on my tour as friends. By the end of it, we’ve spent two hours together.”

Tour guiding in Oxford grew in numbers throughout the 1970s and was then conducted by informed people with connections to the university.

More than a decade later the popularity of Oxford created a need for a more formalised body of well-informed guides, which is when the Oxford Guild of Guide Lectures was formed, represented by a dark blue badge worn by all qualified guides.

The green badge which is now worn by all guides who have qualified since 2012, was introduced as a new category of accreditation to accommodate the demand of city-only guides.

Green badge holders go through a rigorous process of written and practical examinations throughout the six-month course.

The OGTG has two patrons, The Mayor of Oxford and a representative from the university, currently David Palfreyman, the Bursar of New College.

Both patrons award the institute of Tourist Guiding (ITG) green badges to newly qualified guides.

Mr Crosby, who moved to Oxford in 1975 as a student, said he faced two major challenges.

He said: “The information you need is a considerable amount to talk for five minutes. You also need to be able to string the information together in a coherent way.”

Mr Crosby chose to talk about the Italian city of Herculaneum –destroyed by the same eruption of Mount Vesuvius that buried Pompeii – for the task of a five-minute presentation during the interview and selection process.

He said he makes his tours different by 'adding an element of humour and storytelling and making old information relevant.'

Tickets are available at experienceoxfordshire.org