One day in 1973, holding my first best friend’s hand, we went on our first school trip. It was to Harvington Hall in Worcestershire, an Elizabethan manor house with lots of hidey-holes. These were the work of Humphrey Pakington, the recusant owner who built them 400 years earlier, and much appreciated by a number of terrified Catholics back then, as well as armies of thrilled and bewildered schoolchildren ever since. These days, the manor’s website asks: “If these walls could talk … what tales of PERSECUTION and DEATH would they tell …” This makes me wonder if the backstory of the place is entirely suitable for infant minds, but I don’t recall my teachers getting very deep into the dark side of the English Reformation.
We were captivated, no doubt, but as with all school trips the destination itself was of secondary importance. There was so much else going on that would widen our eyes with wonder. Outside school, together, with teachers, on a school day? What madness was this? And what on earth was this big thing we were being herded on to? A coach? Two by two, we boarded our ark. As we climbed the steps, I had to let go of my friend’s hand, but sitting down in our seats, I clasped it again. His name is Botty, by the way. He lives in Vancouver now, doing something complicated.
School trips are under threat. Is it just me, or are good things always under threat while bad things are forever on the rise? But whatever it takes, school trips must for ever be taken. An executive from English Heritage warned that the charity is struggling to carry on funding free school trips, adding: “Learning about the Battle of Hastings in a classroom can never offer the same depth of understanding as visiting the actual battlefield, seeing the landscape and even recreating the fight.” Quite so, but finding the spot where Harold took a Norman arrow in the eye won’t stick in the memory as long as the kid who cried all the way there, or the crisps you shared with a mate, or the shoes Mr Jones was wearing, or how flirty he was with Miss Smith, or 100 other things besides.
Lest I’m accused of copying my homework here, I should confess that this is more or less a direct lift from a brilliant piece by Laura Smyth, comedian and schoolteacher, on Radio 4. She spoke of one school group on their way somewhere who became mesmerised by Waterloo station, which made no sense to her until it turned out that not one of her flock had ever been outside their London postcode. She also recalled how she took some teenage girls to see the fancy headquarters of a big tech company as part of their outreach programme. She is quite sure that, even if their main memory will be of the beanbags and the free popcorn, they might someday go for a job somewhere like that, having once breathed the same air, if only for a day.
There are lessons for parents too, for those who go along as helpers, if only for confirmation that they haven’t got the nerves, patience or skills to be teachers. Being assistant shepherd to a couple of dozen primary school kids on the London Underground is up there with the most testing challenges of my life.
The biggest day trip my daughters’ primary school attempted was to Boulogne. The coach got stuck in traffic, the sea was rough and someone was sick, resulting in the total time spent in Boulogne amounting to barely an hour. An unforgettable experience for all concerned and another lesson learned – life is all about the journey, not the destination.
Adrian Chiles is a broadcaster, writer and Guardian columnist
