Today, my daughter's whole class is going to stay on a farm in Devon for a week. There was a two page list of all the stuff we needed to have:
Sleeping Bag,
Torch,
Soap Dish,
Swimming costume & towel in their own plastic bag,
Spare swimming costume,
Another towel,
An extra plastic bag,
...Etc
We've got it all covered now, except for 'Four pairs of old trousers'.
- Still struggling to get these.
When I was a nine year old, or maybe ten, my class did a similar trip. Back then, it was to a place called 'Yenworthy' -also in Devon.
I can still remember it now; weak tea in the morning, army-style assault courses in the afternoon, trying to get lost on the moors & sheep with poor hygiene.
Picture the scene.... It's our first night away from home. The boys lodgings were two adjacent rooms upstairs in this old farm building. There was a bunk-bed in each corner of each room.
I remember, most of us in our room were still larking about at around midnight, when one quiet kid who was quite posh (Edmund) spoke up...
"Is everyone aware that we must be up at 7:15 in the morning, & the minimum recommended daily amount of sleep for children our age is 9 hours?"
(After much laughter & cruel ridicule, he would later become my friend.)
Then the party was cut short by the sound of sad moaning coming from the other room, across the landing.
At first we snickered at the idea of Kevin crying for his Mummy, but we soon realized, this might be more than just pathetic homesickness. It became wailing pain, primal anguish, then shrieking horror nightmare stuff.
Teachers were hurrying up & down the creaky old staircase and in & out of Kevin's Room '101'.
Suddenly our room wasn't so brave as everyone pulled their blankets up to their noses & hid in the darkness.
The noise went on for ages and we could hear the teachers voices quivering with anxiety, but more so than usual.
I think we all fell asleep to that sound that night, I know I did.
When we woke up in the morning Kevin was gone.
...
About Me
- Rob
- Life's pretty sweet mostly. I spend my days stoked, doing really gnarly shit. Sometimes shit gets really, really gnarly & I've scored some sick wipeouts, but I just get back on my board, & do something really gnarly.
6 comments:
Ah, the pleasures of dorm life.
I went to an all-girl's catholic boarding school in Headington (I know, I know, I have told you this before, sorry I am VERY repetitive). I slept in a dorm from the age of 12 until 16 when I magically got my own room.
Was the only person in my year to organize midnight feasts (too much Enid Blyton -- did you know that she purportedly hated real children?).
Got my hair caught in the winch/rope when lowering someone out of a window during a fire drill. The R.E. teacher but my hair so that the kid could get lowered to the ground.
Got rank; lost it for dorm-hopping (which was the only way to talk to your friends after "lights out"); got it again later (and much, much later was hahahahahah ahahahahah ahaha a ha Head Girl).
I don't remember anyone disappearing after screams in the night, but people did get expelled for not much more than wearing short skirts. Certainly a couple of girls got sent back home at the beginning of term for having short skirts and bleached hair.
Was so naive that, with some friends, I pulled grass out of the ground, rolled it in paper, and tried to smoke it. And we wondered why it wouldn't light properly.
Never took a shower or bath without either facing the door or having a chair up against it (or both) because, oh yes, it is FUN to throw socks from the sock hamper at someone who is naked. I *still* look up when I am in a toilet stall, convinced that someone will be looking over the divide at me. Who wants to watch someone else peeing? (Don't answer that one.)
Read letters twice before ripping them up because there was nowhere private and you knew that other girls (or staff) would read your letters.
Got into a lot of trouble because, according to SOME PEOPLE, the boy who asked me to dance at the school dance did so BY ACCIDENT and was really meaning to ask SOMEONE ELSE. Uh-huh. That would explain ONE dance, Melanie.
About a year after I arrived, someone in the year above me shoplifted something from a shop in Headington and the ENTIRE SCHOOL got grounded. We were grounded for a couple of years and then let out again (in pre-designated groups, depending on age) and someone in the year below me shoplifted, getting us all grounded again. It's no wonder I went berserk when I got out. It was prison.
I hated it with a passion. I am not in touch with anyone from that era. Not a one.
I never went back officially, but when I was in Uni. I took a boyfriend up there late at night and…well, made the place a little bit more my own.
Was in Scouting, so had several summercamps. Blurred memories, pattly because I wasn't quite the most populair one.
Still remember the nightly activities, the taste of tea in not too heat resistant mugs (Who also tasted like soap!) and the inevitable campfire-songs.
At school it wasn't any different, untill we went to Paris in 85. First experimewnts with alcohol and desperately dreaming of slipping into the bunkroom of your favourite female classmate.
Berlin 87 and sailing in 88 were drenched iun alcohol.
I can clearly remeber me naively drinking half a bottle of Wodka in my shared bedroom in a rundoewn Berlin hotel, before thinking I could proceed to go to the nightlife without any trouble.
2 stairs down, I was dragged into a teachers room to calm down, getting coffee and Gitanes to clear my head.
Or getting annoyed by some utterly unattractive prostitutes around the corner, who got more desperate as time ticked away without a customer.
Never went on camps again, as life turned in different directions few months later.
WHAT HAPPENED TO KEVIN?! Did he not get his quota of recommended sleep for 9 year olds?
What did you have for dinner the day of the dissapearance of Kevin? Lambchops and spareribs? Isn't it true that only the German teachers were with you on camp? You are aware of big cat sightings in Devon? Wasn't Kevin an annoying little ****? (to the German teachers anyway). Why do you think Edmund required silence that night? A torch, plastic bags, clean towels, what could a German teaching serial killer do with that? When you think carefully about that night, what were you doing? Where did the blood on your hands come from? Isn't it true that since then the chords from ' Mary' have constantly been repeating in your mind? Are you still gonna let your daughter go on camp?
Now that you've mentionned it: can't you remember scenting a peculiair smell right before you fell asleep that night?
Or some strange tasting drink you hád to drink before going to bed??
Remember now that I had a moment I wanted to go home every camp. Felt lonely and in some degree misunderstood. Just wanted to pack my things and walk off home. Maybe thar's what Kevin did, after some teacher put him outside to calm down. Ever seen kevin again, I wonder?
SWIMMING COSTUME! XD
in Canada, it's a "bathing suit"
yay on British terms!
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