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I remember Stibbington, Scarbourgh and Wye valley to not see some peregrine falcons. I also remember not being allowed on the big Belgium trip as I had been naughty. Not sure what I had done, but me and the other lad who didn't go, did then borrow the headmasters cigarettes from his desk 😆 All a distant memory now.
Where did you lot go?
Hadrians Wall, Edinburgh Zoo, National Museum of Scotland and Rhine Valley.
SS Uganda - of Falkands fame - "educational" tours of the Med. Very educational for convent school girls having their stomachs pumped after too much ouzo in Rhodes. That and the flick knife trade!!!
Residential ones...
Blue Peris (owned by the borough) near Llanberis - went many times
Netherswell Manor (owned by the borough) near Stow on the Wold
Swanage a-level geography field trip
Various trips to London for different reasons
Lower school ones...
Woburn Safari Park
British Museum
Standalone Farm
East Barnby outdoors education centre - twice
Danby Fryup
(That) London
Angers in France - shithole
Oh, and as part of the most random GCSE subject ever (Nautical Studies) a week on a 72ft sailing boat round the north east coast of the U.K visiting delightful places like Blyth and Hartlepool.
Not school but as a Cub Scout living in Singapore we went up to the Malay jungles for a few days.
Byker wall and left to get on with it. An interesting area to let kids from outside the area to wander around doing surveys.
Day trip to Calais, various kentish castles (Dover, Leeds, Rochester etc).
A riotous week on the Isle of Wight (aged 8).
London for the Tower, Science and Natural History Museums.
Field trips to East Cliff Folkestone and Hothfield Common. Ooh, and a camera club trip to York for a week.
Thornbridge Hall residential in primary school.
Memorable events:
1 - Mr Plant (head teacher) told us The Monkey's Paw and threw a paper towel soaked in lighter fluid onto the fire right at the moment when the monkey's paw is destroyed. Shit us right up.
2 - Miss Norris saw lots of horse manure on the road and went up later with some carrier bags to collect it for her garden. We all thought this was the most disgusting thing we'd ever seen.
We did a couple of residentials in secondary school somewhere around Mayfield Valley/Ringinglow/Whiteley Woods in Sheffield, but I can't find the place now.
Memorable events:
1 - I got stung by a wasp after spraying a can of Lynx Africa into a wasp hole in the house wall
2 - Muraf Ali got detention for creeping into the bathroom block before everyone else woke up and having a 90 minute shower, using up all the hot water.
Secondary school French class trip to Boulogne
Memorable event:
I got held up at gun point and had my spending money taken off me. Spent the entire day in Boulogne nick looking at photofits while everyone else was drinking cheap French lager in the town square. Told school I'd had £20 pinched and they gave me £20 back. It was actually £5 I had nicked. Result!
The best ever trip, and one I'll never forget was a few nights stay on the world's 2nd oldest floating warship training ship Foudroyant. We scrubbed the decks, ate at the long tables and slept in hammocks. Fkn brilliant it was!
I never went but our friend's son is currently on a trip to New York!
Also, obligatory school trip story:
NSFW language
Mallam in Yorshire (year 4 I think). Couldn't afford to do any others.
2 trips to London for Schoolboy International footy at (the old) Wembley including watching stock car racing at Wimbledon (MILES more better)
Numerous camping trips.
2 trips to Howtown outdoor centre, Ullswater. (including an ascent up Hellvellyn straight up from Red Tarn, on snow/ice in January all roped up.
1 trip to Thurston outdoor centre, Coniston.
A sailing course on Derwent Reservoir, 1 day a week for 6 weeks.
All between around 1968 & 1972.
Wouldn't happen nowadays, H & S & all that crap. More's the pity. 🙄
Bath - when I was in y5 or y6
Hotel got trashed
School trips were banned for several years afterwards
The Waverley paddle steamer, from the Costa del Stranaer around Ailsa Craig and back.....
Stronord outdoor centre at Kirroughtree - seem to remember looking at Roche Moutone and ice scouring on what is now McMoab...
And a fifth year drinking and smoking trip to Switzerland which was almost as awful as Richard Dawsons "The Vile Stuff"
The trips away were the best bit of school.
wouldn't happen nowadays, H & S & all that crap. More's the pity.
With the possibly exception of watching stock car racing at Wimbledon, kids still do all of those things.
With the possibly exception of watching stock car racing at Wimbledon, kids still do all of those things.
Not from a secondary modern school at age 12-15 they don't ( & paid for by the school/local council) Unless you can correct me. Love to know if it does happen cos it bloody well should!
Rugby - Various. Highlight being a trip to play in Hong Kong. Which was ace.
Skiing - Various, mainly France.
Outdoor - School had a house in Capel Curig, so we had many trips up there. Also did the Three Peaks, Ten Tors, that sort of thing.
Theatre/Opera/Music - Many, mostly in London.
I was quite lucky to go to France skiing, Iceland on a geography trip and best of all Hong Kong, Japan and Australia for 3 weeks on a rugby tour! If I'd been any use at cricket id also have had the opportunity to go to Barbados, but my parents wallet probably wouldn't have allowed it (and fair enough!).
My school was very good for trips, there were India trips, Atlas Mountains, Kilimanjaro and various other trips available to students of all different interests.
Oh man. The French Trip.
Most of my year, about 100 of us, went on a French trip for a week, we were year 8 so about 12-13. The first few days were standard issue, boring French trip stuff, trying to buy flick-knives and porn, avoiding fights with the local kids, asking random French people "Parlay voo Onglais?" and then doing all the quiz questions in English, that sort of thing.
Then on about the third day the crappy hotel were were in decided to liven things up by giving us all food poisoning. All of us. The entire year spent the night vomiting and shitting absolutely everywhere, as did most of the teachers. We were four to a room, so once one kid was barfing in the loo and the other in the sink, the bathroom was full, and the whole place got rather brutally redecorated in very short order. It was horrific. Quite a few kids soiled their beds too, so with that and all the spew-spattered walls and upholstery I suppose we exacted our revenge on the hotel. The last two days were spent recovering and then just arsing about at the beach before coming home with a deep-seated suspicion of French cooking and no inclination to utter a further word of their god-forsaken tongue for some considerable time.
I didn't go on any more school trips after that one.
Isle of Man day trip in choppy waters! I bought a blondie poster. And was seasick .
Chester zoo .
Wye valley- wetter than Cumbria !!
St. Cast & Paris . First snog.
We had run ins with the local kids at both the Wye valley and St Cast.ha.
Several trips to Muncaster bloody castle- always when raining !
& Some brilliant stays at Eskdale outward bound .
We didn't have enough money to do loads of school trips ,skiing etc.
Stockholm, Helsinki, Leningrad, Copenhagen.
Was a cool trip 🙂
Only one I ever went on was 3rd year juniors (yr 5 nowadays), Copt Oak youth hostel Leicestershire, had to walk there from Beaumont Leys, also in Leicester!!
Arthog
The Uganda! My wife and my brother did the "school cruise" on that one. They went round the Baltic capitals in the last year of primary school. 2 years earlier my trip at the same age was to Vigo, Lisbon and Tangiers. To this day the smell of curry (Asian domestic crew), disinfectant or puke takes me back to the crossing on the Bay of Biscay when it seemed to me that I was the only kid not being sick and wishing the open air pool was open.
It ws a big deal with kids from all over mixing. To me, meeting kids form other FoD schools was an eye opener!
Primary school:
St Fagan's in Cardiff, Northleach Church (brass rubbings!), a farm place somewhere and the Cutty Sark.
Secondary:
Bath and Bristol
Kilvrough Manor field centre on the Gower (GCSE and A Level Geography field trips)
Ypre (for GCSE history).I remember everyone being so well behaved for the entire trip.
Patterdale on an outward bound holiday
[quote=mattsccm said]The Uganda!
Yup! 1981, just before it headed off to the Falklands.
Day trip to Calais, various kentish castles (Dover, Leeds, Rochester etc).
the same (except I think it was Boulogne rather than Calais)
definitely remember Dover and Rochester castles, plus Lullingstone villa, and Battle
London Zoo, British Museum, Science Museum, Tate Gallery
Oh and Barry Island Butlins
Stayed with a German family in Heidelberg for 2 weeks on a language exchange. Their living room had wallpaper which made it seem as if it was in a forest. My exchange partner was into Pink Floyd and the family owned a chemist shop. Highlight of the trip was inserting fire crackers into the hard boiled eggs that had been given to us for the train journey back and lobbing them out of the train window as we waited in cologne station. My effort landed in a news kiosk and exploded with hilarious consequences. Oh how the teachers laughed..
Did anyone not go to Quarry Bank Mill, near Manchester? The wife and I both did, despite living several hours away in different directions. I think it was the law.
Dalguise Outdoor Centre in Primary 5
London Village by train in P7 which included a tour round the old Wembley, Madame Tussauds, Planetarium, tour of the Houses of Parliament etc. best part was waving goodbye to the crappy packed lunches left on the platform as the train pulled out of Kings Cross.
Secondary school we went to Lochgoilhead twice, two skiing trips to Aviemore and one to Andalo in the Italian Dolomites.
School trips these days for my kids are not as good and are bloody expensive £500 for 3 days in Paris!
Our school didn't do any trips abroad. Such things sound fantastical and exotic to a Glagow school boy.
In fact about the only trip I can remember was going up to Stonehaven to see the fishing museum. Oh and seeing the hydro dam at Pitlochry. Gripping stuff. 🙁
The Doon beach (4 miles from Kirkcudbright in Primary school 🙁 , was raining and miserable.
Didn't go on any other trips in the 4 High schools i was a pupil at. (sad sack - still traumatised) 😉
Lullingstone roman villa, first year of junior school.
Guess who pushed someone in the river.
What Primary did you go to Somafunk?
Johnston primary for p1, p2, then 4 others up in Argyllshire area for rest then back down to Johnston in p7. Kirkcudbright academy for 6 months 1st year then 3 high schools up in Argyllshire and back down to Kirkcudbright academy for last month of 4th year and 5th year. ****ing hated kirkcudbright academy with a vengeance, if you weren't a farmers son or lived up snobs hill then you were just an inconvenience to the school.
SS Uganda tour of the Med, with my brother, a month or so before she went to the Falklands. My parents were offered a full refund if they didn't want to send us as Israel and Lebanon were getting pretty close to war.
Even as a 10 year old I felt a bit afraid in Israel. It was strange seeing guns everywhere and tanks parked at the side of the road.
It was an awesome experience and I am eternally grateful to my parents for scraping the money together to send us.
Ones I remember ..
Wurzburg twice (I remember roaming the streets quite drunk in the small hours after a house party that my exchange student had refused to go to not being really sure how to get back)
Skiing , Austria and France
Theatre in London
Norwich including the open market when it used to sell all sorts of dodgy knives etc.
Grimes Graves
Cambridge
The one I remember as being most outstanding was going to CERN and being so tired I fell asleep and started snoring loudly in a lecture by one of Europe's finer physicists. I got woken fairly sharpish. In my defence I'd slept on a lab floor at Cambridge uni the night before and been on a 7am flight out of stansted and I really don't mornings. It was an incredible facility even then and this was 20+ years ago.
"Uganda boys" - can you remember dorm name - "Speke" for me, bro was "Wingate" 4 years earlier.
Some wicked girls on my cruise!!! And we loved sneaking into main part of the ship especially around tea time. We were young for the cruise (13-14) but allowed to explore each place in groups of 3-4 without teachers. In the (good old) days before H&S. Not that the parents of the girls expelled for drinking would agree!!! 😉
Lullingstone roman villa, first year of junior school.
Guess who pushed someone in the river.
rofl
actually we used to go to that river for geography field trips too. measuring stuff like flow rates in different positions.
probability of one person getting dunked was approaching 1.
**** hated kirkcudbright academy with a vengeance, if you weren't a farmers son or lived up snobs hill then you were just an inconvenience to the school.
^A fair conclusion! At the time I had nothing to compare it to, but it did nothing for me. I thought at the time having prefects and head boys/girls was totally pretentious and the school [i]Rector[/i] was a bully.
So not my happiest days either - shame cause I loved growing up there.
Florida !!
30odd 13/14 year old lads tearing it up in Disney Land, Bush Gardens, MGM and Epcot (for educational purposes :lol:)
Skate boards bought early (double cheap back then when in the US, I bought a Jason Jesse mini ... the sun god one) so we could session the hotel parking lots every evening.
But the best day of that two weeks was Teenage School Boys Heaven, also known as .... Wet n Wild
Massive water slides and girls wearing bikinis (uk girls NEVER did that in the early 90s) ... But there was some education.... Amy Spears from Louisiana certainly taught me something in the Lazy River. 8)
Primary 7 - 40 kids stranded on Arran when the weather took a turn for the worse and the ferry back to Ardrossan was cancelled until late in the evening. 39 hungry kids all staring at me as I tucked into a sausage supper on Brodick seafront provided by the bus driver who happened to be my uncle.
Toga party in the Loch Ericht hotel in Dalwhinnie on a weekend skiing trip to Aviemore.
No school trip was organised for the sixth years in my final year at high school. In protest, we had a whip round, booked a coach to pick up the entire sixth year at the school at 5:30 on a Thursday and pissed off to Blackpool for the day unsupervised. The School were not amused.
sausage supper...provided by the bus driver who happened to be my uncle
Real uncle or 'special sausage uncle'? 🙂