School Trip

When I was in the 4th year juniors (year 6 to anyone under the age of 40) we went on a school trip. It was called a school trip and not a residential. The junior school trip provided life long memories.  The Long Suffering Husband went to Dorset and frequently talks fondly of Durdle Dore and Swanage as if they contain the holy grail of happiness.

My Junior School had four classes per year and usually went to the Isle of White.  Our teacher decided to do his own thing.

Mr Hanson was strict (all teachers were) and would catapult chalk across the room at naughty boys with a swift flick of the ruler.  He liked maths and science and was nice to me because he thought I was good at the subjects he liked.  It was a survival technique I had learnt the previous year in Mrs Thain's class.  She was terrifying and would call children to stand by her desk and ask them to lift their skirt or drop their trousers so that her smack on the the top of the thigh would cause the most public humiliation.  This was when I learnt to read the books she liked.  These were the good old days: the 'it never did me any harm' days of long hot summers and corned beef fritters for tea that we are heading back to post-Brexit (don't say I didn't warn you).  Anyway, back to Mr Hanson. Apart from being strict I remember him as a tweed wearing mustachioed man who smoked a pipe and would have days off in term time because he was Jewish. He enjoyed walking and some of the boys in the class, the football types, would tease him about walking not being a proper sport and suggest that he wasn't a real man because he didn't have a 'team'. Sometimes his response to this teasing progressed from chalk to board rubber. Thinking about it now, he would have made a very good fast bowler but I don't think anyone asked him if he played cricket. When it came to our school trip, Mr Hanson decided that he would 'show' those boys and organised a walking week in the Lake District. One of the other 4th year teachers was called Mr Bray. Everyone liked Mr Bray because he was young, fit and liked football. Mr Bray was always up for a challenge, so his class came with us.

When I came back, all I could talk about was how beautiful the place was.  In the end my dad had to tell me to shut up because I was waxing lyrical.  I didn't know what he meant but it sounded bad.

I've often suspected that my fond memories are just due to it being that rite of passage trip.  My children fondly remember their very safe and controlled residential, where they took part in activities that they would never choose to do now (like high ropes and zip wires).

We have only been to the Lakes a few times since.  Once for a wedding: a weekend of drinking and goat dancing, which remains one of our favourite memories and once with the children when it rained and we drove the whingers around the bleak landscape and I thought my memories of the place must have been mistaken.   Last year we went to the Scottish Highlands and did some walking.  We stopped at Penrith on the way and I realised that I wasn't mistaken because it's beauty is best seen on foot.

This summer we are going to explore some of the area on foot. Keep this to yourself because I haven't told the LSH. He is hoping to drive around, visit Zeffirellis for pizza and a film and maybe go to the pencil museum. However, I have decided to resurrect the planning Nazi and make sure we don't waste a second.

While researching walks the memories of this school trip have come flooding back.  I can't believe how brave these teachers were. We stayed in Borrowdale and took trips to Bassenthwaite Lake for swimming.  Mr Bray organised a football tournament in the evenings when they weren't shouting at the TV, as Argentina, who were generally considered to be bad, kept winning games. These evening activities were only for those that weren't nursing blisters, or writing long letters home about clouds reflecting on lakes and red squirrels.

We got up each morning and dressed according to the instructions in our kit list. "No jeans! Wet denim flares are no good for walking," we were warned.  Two pairs of socks, T shirt, Light jumper and waterproof cagoule. After breakfast we traipsed into the boot room to put on our hired walking boots  (Only Mr Hanson had his own) and waited for the coach or to drop us at the start of our walk.  We walked all day, eating our cheese sandwich, orange and packet of puffs sitting on top of whatever mountain we had climbed. Rations of dextrose tablets and Kendal Mint cake kept us going.

Walklakes.co.uk is a brilliant website that I have been using to plan this holiday.  The photos are just as I remember.  We walked up Grasmore, Green Glen, Great Glen, Skiddaw, and Whiteside.  We scrambled up rocky faces and walked along rivers.  We even climbed Scafell Pike coming down via Symmond's Knot, sliding sideways down the scree, some children on their bottoms. I remember some children crying but they were the ones that weren't looking at the clouds or the lakes or taking photos of red squirrels on the camera that they left on the top of Scafell Pike (I wonder if it's still there?).

Even if I can't get the LSH to walk up that many hills I remain forever grateful to Mr Hanson and his fearless attitude to making 60 children in borrowed walking boots climb the highest mountain in England, ignoring the complaints about twisted ankles and blisters.

A couple of hills to try - what could go wrong?