Graham Mansfield (FS 61-66), who has kindly donated two films
of school trips from 1964-1966 to the archives, recalls them:"As far as I can remember, the Lichtenstein trip was Christmas 1964 to New Year for two weeks. Mr Broadhurst and the Fox family were there and both Anthony and Pru are on the film. We travelled by train and ferry to Belgium and then by train to Vaduz via Basel, then by coach. Prince Charles visited the resort to ski while we were there, but did not speak to us!
If you would like to see a copy of the cine films, please contact the OSB Office.
The Corsica trip was with eight pupils plus Gordon Dyke and Colonel Francis the Easter immediately following the above, so that would be in 1965. We took the sleeper from school to London, picked up a Ford Thames twelve-seater minibus in the morning, caught the Dover to Calais Ferry, which is shown loading at the beginning of the film. We drove down through Paris and slept at the roadside in our sleeping bags on the ground beside the van on the top of the Grande Massif with millions of stars and the Milky Way crystal clear overhead.
We drove down past Macon and down beside the Rhone and slept beside the van north of Antibes, where Gordon Dyke had previously worked on the crew of a private yacht, and then went on to Nice for a very hot afternoon. The van was loaded using the ship's derrick. We slept on deck on deck chairs and arrived in Ajaccio at first light. We drove up terrifying winding macadam tracks half way up cliffs at least 100 feet above the rock strewn river beds with occasional wrecked vehicles at the base. We had to fill the road with boulders where it had washed away and set up camp at 4500 feet, below Monte Cinto at 13,500 feet. We had a brisk climb to 8000 feet where two of us suffered mountain sickness and had to make our own way back to camp to recover. On alternate days four pupils and both teachers climbed on rock, snow and ice with crampons and ice axes and one lucky team made it to the top of Monte Cinto. At night, on the snow line, it was so cold that the lubrication in the cine camera froze. Early morning camera shots were lost as the shutter froze. We shared the camp-site with wild boar and heard lumberjacks calling to each other. Most of the road signs had been used for shooting practice.
After a week we had a cold bath in the river from freshly melted snow, moved to a new site on the north side of Monte Cinto and stopped at a cafe in Corte for a simple meal, replenished our supplies, including goat's cheese, which was ripe enough by the time we got to Calais to use as a weapon against enquiries from customs officers. We had to clear the road of logs on the way. The second week was even colder at night and we slept four to a tent to keep warm with snow all around us. Apart from Gordon Dyke's triple- burner curry, we survived everything in glorious sunshine, sunburn and dazzled eyes. We returned on the boat to Nice from Calvi, the headquarters of the French Foreign Legion parachute regiment and toured the Moorish castle. Again we slept on deck and at Nice the crane driver dropped the van the last ten feet leaving four dents from the scissor-lift in the side panels. Schoolboy French was used on the hardy Nicoise Dock Manager to make an insurance claim. On the return journey through France we stopped at Orleans to view the cathedral and magnificent rose window. We arrived at Calais intact and had our first minor traffic accident, with locals from the local cafe determined to call in the Surete (Special Branch) to have ‘the English’ arrested and garrotted. We returned home in fantastic health with a lifetime of experience under our belts.
The one greatest fear we had while high in the mountains was not knowing if nuclear war had occurred. The Bay of Pigs standoff between Kennedy and Khrushchev was so hot there might have been no world to return to. We avoided eating snow, in case it was radioactive!
Fifty years on I reflect with joy on that fabulous, if Stoical, Spartan and gruelling period in history, living with the end of the death penalty, the end of conscription, John F Kennedy's assassination, Senator Macarthy and his anti-American Activities committee, race riots, Martin Luther King, Chiang Kai-shek, etc, etc."
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St Bees, Cumbria, CA27 0DS.
Tel: (01946) 828093 Email: osb@st-bees-school.co.uk
Web: www.st-beghian-society.co.uk