School trips

[Martin1988]

Does anyone have any memories/tales of school trips(or even college or university trips) by bus/coach that they have been on?

My over-riding memory of most school trips that I went on was everyone making a mad dash for the back seat of the coach. One such example that sticks out in my mind was when we were all rushing to get on first and a member of staff commented that they were filling up from the front. The result- a load of us went to the back of the queue and then when we boarded it turned out the staff were joking.

Does anyone else have any memories of school trips like this?

 

[theblackwatch]

We had a school minibus when I was at secondary school (and rather scarily I can remember its reg!). It had inward facing bench seats, so we would all fly forward when it braked. I'm surprised any of us lived to see out secondary school, nowadays we'd all be expected to die if we travelled in such a dangerous vehicle.... :P

 

[Bungle965]

School trips for me would have been for me either trying to get the front seats (rarley happend) or making a mad dash for the back seats where all of my group of freinds could talk together instead of being split up. For my school bus we had almost consistantly a volvo olympian which was hiddeiously overcrowded ahhhh the fun days.
Sam

 

[bnm]

Usually one of the older vehicles from Berry's Coaches fleet in Taunton. An AEC Reliance or Bedford with Plaxton Panorama or Supreme body.

Lasting memory is of a trip to Hinkley Point Nuclear Power Station around 1988. Kissed a girl. We hooked up again some 25 years later.

 

[Welshman]

I remember a trip in the 1960s with my geography class from West Yorkshire to Inglebrough.

There were about 30 of us, accompanied by 4 members of staff, who bagged the front seats of the coach.

Just north of Skipton, we stopped outside a hostelry and were surprised to see two members of staff disembarking, leaving the 30 of us, and the remaining two staff members to escort us around Malham Tarn.

After a half-day's hiking, we rejoined the coach and collected the original two from the pub on the way back.

It was a quiet journey back - we were all exhausted and quickly fell asleep, though for those two, it was not through excessive exercise!

 

[Bayum]

I used to take a cohort swimming on a weekly basis with an HLTA. I'd like to think the children remember those journeys, more so with my bulldogg attitude to ensuring that the group filled up from the front! They soon learnt to follow their own idea of my instructions to their peril!

 

[Welly]

My old boarding school in the 80s had the use of an ancient 1960s Plaxton Bella Vista bus. It was slow and noisy but one day a sixth form lad actually stole that bus and drove it at 85mph on the motorway whilst being pursued by the police! (because the twonk forgot to turn the lights on at dusk!) He did crash the crate into the central reservation which wrote it off.

Amazingly the lad was not expelled from the school, though he did leave soon after to start a trade course.

 

[HMS Ark Royal]

Been on many school and college trips, and two stand out for me which I'll describe to you below

1)

Arrived at Hull College for a trip all the way to Thorpe Park - just south of Heathrow Airport! Before we set off in two LDV minibuses, the Club 16-18's vehicle/s of choice, two of the group were rejected due to being drunk and so a danger to us and themselves. As I was a trusted person and a skilled navigator with a map, I was allowed to sit up with the two club staff members. After making a stop at Woolley Edge services for a cig break and toilets (I purchased the by now traditional tube of Pringles which was a running joke on the trips), we set off down towards the theme park. Almost as soon as we got on the motorway, two voices at the back asked for the driver to pull over as they needed to go. The driver's reply was "What the f*** do you want me to f*****g do? Pull over on the hard shoulder so you can have a b*****d p***?" and made them wait until we got close by. After an hour and a half of begging and pleading, we turned into a little side street just up the road from Thorpe Park where these two were allowed out to have a pee behind a tree. Now whilst this is normally rather bad, there seemed to be nobody around - until I started laughing and pointing to the building near to the tree. When asked why I was laughing my head off, I replied that they'd just gone against a tree inside the grounds of a ladies only care home - and all the residents were gazing out the window!

2)

Not as much to say for this, but I went with the same club as above to the first ever Rugy Challenge Cup Final to be held at the new Wembley Stadium. A single LDV minibus was obtained and we set off all the way there with everything going well until we got stuck in traffic and couldn't find any signs pointing us to the place. My solution was to tell the driver to follow the trains as they said "DEPOT" and I knew there was a Wembley train depot round the back of the stadium - problem solved. After the match, everybody tried to get out at the same time and it took us nearly two and a half hours to leave the car/coach park alone. Stopped for cig/toilets/food at Watford gap where I pulled off my party trick of eating soup in a crisp white shirt without getting a single drop on it. As, by this time, it was nearly 8pm, the driver asked if anybody minded if he floored it all the way back and we replied no. As I was sat in the front again, I looked at the top speed we were doing and we clocked just over 100mph according to the speedo! i must say that certain parts of the vehicle did drop off - mainly the overhead lights and some inside trim. We didn't drop below 90 until we got to the M62 turnoff!

Marvellous days and and i wish i could do it all again

 

[Y961 XBU]

I remember in Primary School we went on a School Trip to Caburys World, On the way back one of the tyres popped so we had to wait for a replacement coach and arrived back at School 3 or 4 hours late, I remember everyone on the Coach cheering when they found out what had happened!

 

[Peter Mugridge]

My old boarding school in the 80s had the use of an ancient 1960s Plaxton Bella Vista bus. It was slow and noisy but one day a sixth form lad actually stole that bus and drove it at 85mph on the motorway whilst being pursued by the police! (because the twonk forgot to turn the lights on at dusk!) He did crash the crate into the central reservation which wrote it off.

[pedant]Bedford Duple Bella Vega.... [/pedant]

I remember the evening well. It was a Sunday ( boarding school... ).

Most of the boys were watching TV and the local news was on and the police pursuit was being described. Someone said "That looks like the school bus!" That person was quickly shouted down and told not to be so silly.

2 minutes later:

The door to the TV room bursts open and another boy comes in, puts the lights on and yells: "( Name redacted) has stolen the school bus!!!".

Pendemonium ensued...

 

[HMS Ark Royal]

"( Name redacted) has stolen the school bus!!!".

What an odd name for a person

 

[Lrd]

During senior school, the French department organised a trip to France every year and I went when I was in years 9, 10 and 11. One year, I think it was year 10 (so Feb 2006), we had the worst trip possible.

It started off with Calais harbour being closed for some reason, so we were on the ferry out in the channel in rough weather for a number of hours with no indication of when or if we'll ever get in to Calais. We did and we made our down to Paris.

Part of the itinerary was to go ice skating and a riverboat cruise down the Seine, neither of which we could do due to the ice rink being closed and I can't remember exactly why we couldn't go on the river.

Coming back, there were long delays at Calais and we were unable to get on a boat for some reason. We ended up using the tunnel instead and ended up arriving home at something like 1 or 2am instead of 9pm.

Each year they hired a double decker coach which was huge and one year, me and my friends overslept on the last day, we were all fast asleep in our hotel room with staff knocking on the door and ringing the phone for a while, when we finally arose, we had to quickly pack our things and get on the coach, we were the last ones on and saw the back seat upstairs was free but when we got there, there was a teacher asleep across all seats, she wasn't happy when she realised she had to move as there was no other seats available.

 

[Martin1988]

I went on a couple of school trips to France during my time at secondary school.

First one was in year 8(about May 2001) and the vehicle was a plaxton premiere from Turners Coachways. I remember that trip for several reasons. Firstly because before setting off, several of us were arguing about who was sitting on the back seat with a more cockey/loud mouthed pupil insisting him and his friends were sitting there. It turned out a girl in my tutor group who I was friends with needed the seats from a medical point of view(she had mobility problems) and as such I got to sit there as well. I did however get shifted from the driver's side to the passenger side after the other people I was sat by discovered that I had more legroom and better air conditioning.

The journey back was also rather memorable. The ferry was delayed meaning we were sat waiting at Le Havre ferry terminal for nearly 2 hours(or so it seemed like). Then we had to suffer a 10 hour ferry crossing in extremely rough seas(amazingly none of us were sea sick!) only to get woken up by a member of staff telling us to hurry up and get dressed as we were getting on the coach in 5 minutes. Turned out we'd overslept and missed breakfast.

When we got on the coach the same staff member stood up at the front and said "To those of you who overslept and missed breakfast- I enjoyed my waffles and my bacon and eggs!"



The other trip I went on a couple of years later was the same week that the second Harry Potter movie was released on video/DVD and the principle member of staff coming with us on the trip made a point of telling us that she was going to Woolworths to buy a copy of the film for us to watch. On the outward journey she announced "We're going to watch Harry Potter" but then added "Its the first one" to which everyone booed. We didn't watch the second movie until the return journey a few days later.