School trips

[Martin1988]

I know we've had this thread before but quite a while ago. Does anyone have any overriding memories of school (or college or university) trips that they went on- particularly the bus and coach related aspect? I (like most others) liked the back seat of the coach and so that was always part and parcel of every trip in Primary and Secondary school.

Remember in my first year of A Levels going on a trip to London to see Jerry Springer The Opera. One of the other students sneaked out of the theatre to smoke Cannabis, got really unwell and ended up being sick during the journey back.

A few years later when I had just started at retaking my A Levels at a Sixth Form College in Bristol we went on a trip to visit Birmingham University. I ended up on the back seat of the coach with some popular students who were clearly annoyed about my presence. On the return journey they claimed they felt unwell and insisted on sitting up the front with the staff leaving me with the whole back row to myself.

Went on another field trip as part of my AS Level Geography course which utilised the college minibus. Our tutor informed us "there is not enough room so one of you will have to sit in the front". I immediately volunteered to solving the problem for them.

 

[Sun Chariot]

A mid-80s school trip to London's Barbican theatre, from our school 40-ish miles away, went a little awry when the hired-in coach broke down just as it was about to bring our school party back.
A long wait for a replacement - and a very late return home!

 

[Pyewipecarshed]

A few spring to mind. I remember going on a trip from school in Hull to Kirkstall Abbey in Leeds and the five rise locks in Bingley, including a trip on the "water bus" (a narrow boat) on the Leeds and Liverpool canal. For me the most notable thing was the bus that conveyed us, an East Yorkshire coach-seated Leyland Olympian complete with antimacassars and almost new, it would have been circa 1985. I also remember seeing a West Yorkshire PTE Olympian as we passed through Shipley and thinking how odd it was that it was on a local service, as EYs operated interurban routes.
Then there was a local trip to Hull New Theatre on board a KHCT Dennis Dominator "Turbo Decker" coach... and the added excitement of finding it had been swapped for a 1969 G-registered Atlantean when we came out - the other kids were gutted but I was well happy!
Another local trip used an ordinary service bus to go to the offices of the Hull Daily Mail newspaper c.1986, the bus was Daimler Fleetline/Park Royal 866 (RAT 866G) of East Yorkshire, and the other passengers faces as twenty-odd kids piled on were a picture!
Finally I vaguely recall going to a summer holiday club at a local church when I was very young, the highlight of which was a trip on a Good News Travels coach.

 

[Gloster]

We had an annual day when we went off on a various trips that had been organised. When I was fiteen I and one of my friends were kicked off our chosen trip because boys with influential parents made a late decision to switch to that one. We ended up on a trip that was primarily intended for final year geography students: a walk along the coast. At lunchtime there was a lengthy stop at a pub: the masters overlooked the fact that some of the final year were only seventeen. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, so my mate and I got ourselves a beer as well: my mate was quite tall and I sort of hovered behind him. We wisely stuck at one each.

For O-level we were taken to Bristol‘s now renamed Colston Hall to see the Merchant of Venice. Two of the party sneaked out and managed to see part of a Queen concert that was on the same night.

As far as the bus and coach travel was concerned, all our trips were done on the same Bedford SBs (and Thames, I think) that were used for end of term travel and were available when not carting school kids to school and poultry to market. Later on we got a few slightly more modern buses, possibly no more than a decade old.

When I was on a course in Sweden there were various trips included. Most people couldn’t see why I chose the one to the museum of folk costume. As soon as it was over (which seemed to take ages as I am not interested in costume) we had some free time in the town, so one of the girls and myself separately headed for the bookshops, which was the only reason we had chosen the trip. The three other girls were interested in folk costume and spent the time talking to the lecturer, while the other bloke got very bored: he had mistranslated the purpose of the trip and thought it was folk singing.

 

[Ex24Driver]

Ah the memories, school trips to swimming lessons on elderly Bedford SB's and other vehicles from that maker, then when I switched Primary School Alder Valley with a selection of flat front Bristol VR's some of which had leaky wheel arch seams so in the wet one learned not to put one's legs by the front of the wheel arch cover on the seats at the rear of the lower deck.
Trips to London to the Science Museum on Farnham Coaches superb vehicles and also other locations ( best no comments even now geography teachers still weep at that one) and then finally at University the obligatory trans*it mini bus which is was noisy it sounds like two bluebottles beating on each other in an empty lager can. Also to embarass someone from University someone aka the idiot who decided to drink a pint of lager through a straw at a pub in Richmond and then re decorated the side of the minibus with their vomit on the M4.

 

[joieman]

On the penultimate day of November last year, my college photography class (and the other photography classes at college) took a jaunt from Leicester to Skegness for an assignment to photograph scenes of the seafront "out-of-season".
All the classes got jammed onto a single Scania K400EB6/Berkhof Axial 100 of Ausden Clark of Leicester; curiously, it had two staircases!

During the outward journey one of my classmates reportedly vomited onboard the coach; admittedly, I was not feeling too well myself, which resulted in me drinking quite a lot of water. After being unable to shut the toilet door properly onboard the coach, I was forced to use the exorbitantly-priced public conveniences (40 pence!) in Skeggy.

I can't say the rest of the trip was particularly eventful, apart from as a side activity looking in random shops for new diecast vehicles in vain.

I got back to Leicester quite late in the evening; with the next service 127 terminating in Loughborough town centre, quite a walk from my house, instead of Shepshed, I took the considerably faster Skylink to Loughborough town centre, where I quickly changed to an earlier 127 for the final leg of my journey out of Loughborough town centre, for which I was quite thankful as I was quite exhausted.

Here's a photo of the coach I took (my photo):

BIG Coach

Leicester-based Ausden Clark's Scania K400EB6/Berkhof Axial 100 BIG 9829 is seen on the Grand Parade in Skegness on Friday the 29th of November 2024. Notable feature: this coach has TWO staircases. How cool is that?!

flic.kr

 

[Harpo]

Weekly half hour coach trip to swimming lessons.

A huge assortment of AECs (including the odd Burlington Seagull) Leylands, Bedfords (including a VAL 6-wheeler) and, my favourite, two stroke Commers with their superb thrash.

Back then, a new Plaxton Panorama Elite was a glimpse into the future.

 

[Martin1988]

Seems from the responses so far that everyone has had some pretty interesting experiences of bus and coach travel on school trips.

For me my interest in buses and coaches really kicked off in Year 5 and Year 6 when I transferred to a private school a few miles away from Yate. Every Monday afternoon we went to Yate Leisure Centre for swimming and sports on a coach from either Eagle of Bristol or their sister company Kestrel Coaches. When I started at the school in September 1997 it was initially a double decker bus but we subsequently switched to single deck coaches. It was suggested by one of our teachers that the coaches were preferred due to the fact they had seatbelts. We mainly got either high back seated DAF Plaxtons or Van-Hools and very occasionally we got Plaxton Leopard bodied vehicles including one that was in ASDA livery (For an ASDA Free Bus service that the company ran at the time). Also did a couple of trips on Eagle and Kestrel vehicles including one to London on an Eagle Van-Hool.

My classmates were not the most pleasant of people and on the weekly swimming trip, made it their utmost duty to ensure I never got to the back seat and then when they realised I liked sitting near the front they made a point of trying to stop me sitting there too. Remember one or two occasions where they really wound me up to the point where I got really upset over it resulting in someone offering a seat swap. From Year 6 the problem more or less got solved as senior pupils started coming with us and they were given the run of the back row so problem solved really.

From Tuesday to Friday I went home on the school minibus (my dad normally took me in on the way to work in the morning) and remember it being a rather tatty old Ford vehicle. During the journey we went down a road with speed bumps and we all used to love the feeling of being thrown up in the air when we went over them (although the first time it took me rather by surprise and I was also not feeling very well that day so perhaps not my best introduction to that road). One week we all had a bit of a falling out with each other and the driver refused to take us down that road again as punishment. Also remember my dad taking me down that road in the family car once (Austin Montego) and I was disappointed it wasn't the same feeling as traveling on the school minibus.

 

[GusB]

I don't recall having too many school trips. There was the occasional jaunt to Inverness for the pantomime at Eden Court Theatre in Inverness, usually at the hands of R.W. "Bobby" Love, a local coach hirer. He had two Bedfords, one with Caetano bodywork and the other with a Duple Dominant body.

It was the weekly swimming trip (seems to be a common theme in this thread) that provided the most interest for me. We had to go to the nearest high school to access the swimming pool.

Vehicles would usually be Fords or Leyland Leopards, either with ubiquitous Y-type bodies or Duple Dominant coachwork, but there was a time when they started using coaches from the Citylink fleet, and they'd always carry the 'A' (Aberdeen) depot code. Presumably there was a gap between express duties and anything sitting spare was considered fair game!

The most common type was the Duple Dominant II Leyland Tiger, but occasionally there would be something that was different from the norm. I remember when a brand new Alexander TC coach turned up and being fascinated by the operation of the plug door! The Tigers would turn up fairly regularly, but there were a couple of one-off appearances. The first was one of the early MCW Metroliners (the boxy one) and I can remember how quiet it was. The other was one of the six Duple Goldliner Tigers from the London fleet, carrying the blue and white SCOTTISH livery. These coaches would normally be used on cross-border services at the time and would have been a rare sight in this neck of the woods.

 

[Western Sunset]

When I taught at a primary school in South London, we did a project on "Transport" - I wonder whose idea that was? So I took my class of 7/8 year-olds on a bus into Woolwich, then across the Thames on the free ferry, to the North Woolwich railway museum. Well, I enjoyed the day.
We'd also use public transport (train/tube) if visiting museums in central London. Had to be wary I didn't lose any on the Underground, mind...

One morning, though, we didn't need to make a visit anywhere to see a train, as a "Networker" coach was parked on a low-loader outside our school. I assume it'd broken down. I took all my class outside so I could get a picture of them alongside the coach. I never found out why it was there, but the school wasn't far from Hither Green depot.

And when I worked at a school in the Derbyshire Dales, I took my class to the Crich Tramway Museum. Though not sure if my parent-helpers were all that enthusiastic riding the trams all day.

 

[Pyewipecarshed]

We were shuttled between the two sites of my secondary school for PE by East Yorkshire subsidiary Cherry Coaches. The usual vehicle was Leyland Leopard/Plaxton Supreme MAG 162P, although a similar ex-United JGR-T bus turned up occasionally.
Whilst most kids squabbled over the front or rear seats I quite happily positioned myself near the engine inspection hatch in the middle to get the full thrash!!
Incidentally my father had driven 162 regularly in its younger days on National Express work.

 

[JD2168]

When I was at school I remember a trip on open top Atlantean SWB 287L in Mainline livery, on the outbound journey some were upstairs & on the return part it was swapped over so all of us travelled in the open top section on the journey.

When at Secondary School for a few years we had buses running between 2 parts of the school. We would get Metrobuses, Dominators & Leyland DAB Articulated Buses on these journeys.

 

[SteveHFC]

All my school trips - primary and secondary - were with Lucketts Travel who are now part of the National Express Group. No idea what types the coaches were - I didn't pay a lot of attention to coaches.

Buses to/from secondary school were public buses operated by People's Provincial, initially Iveco/Robin Hood minibuses on routes 21, 22, 23, 24 and 25, then Leyland Nationals (plus the ACE Cougar occasionally) on routes 50/50A and later the 60. College transport was also by People's Provincial, initially on regular services to the pick up point of either the 659 or 660 contract buses to Portsmouth College.

 

[TheManOnThe172]

As a 17 year old (50 years back, before risk assessments ) I took a group of 26 school colleagues and one very laid back teacher from Croydon to the Worth Valley Railway for the day. We used a bargain schools rate on Midland Region that allowed me to route us home via Manchester, which I planned to reach by catching the last bus from Oxenholme over the moors to Hebden Bridge. I was good at research, but low on common sense: the bus did show up, but was almost full. I was saved by the extremely accommodating driver, who took pity on me and let us all on, regardless of the capacity rules and discomfort for other passengers.

I learned my lesson, and when I organised a subsequent trip to the Severn Valley, I took care to warn the bus operator of our planned itinerary: they obligingly replaced single deckers with double to accommodate us.

 

[John Webb]

When in the 6th Form (1962-64) the LCC school I was at near New Cross was picked on for an experiment in letting the 6th Formers choose to go Ice-skating as an alternative to the more traditional field sports. We were taken by coach once a week to Streatham Ice Rink. (I've no idea of the company nor of the coaches used.) This worked very well until the last day of one term when our coach driver was a rather deaf gentleman. We were due to take some proficiency tests at the rink, and got rather concerned when we realised we were not going the right way. It turned out that our deaf driver had somehow misheard 'Streatham Ice Rink' given to him verbally as 'Clapham High Street'!

A Summertime journey to the Lake District in 1963 by the older members of my church's Youth Club was enlivened on the northward journey when a rear tyre had a blow-out on the way up the M1 as we (fortunately) were approaching Newport Pagnell service area, which we pulled into for the tyre to be changed. The fitter refused to fit the spare tyre as he thought it in poor condition, and our driver had to ring his boss up at 2am to get authority for a new tyre to be obtained and fitted. The upshot was that while this was all going on most of the youth club members gathered with a couple of guitars on the pedestrian overbridge between the two halves of the service station singing folk and other songs!

 

[MikeFromLFE]

It's not quite a School Trip report but our school in the 1960s was in Hornsey, North London, and the sports ground was in Winchmore Hill. We had 'games' one afternoon a week - and were given prepaid London Transport tickets.
Quite a black market developed in these tickets - from which I profited nicely - as I was happy to cycle to Winchmore Hill, and later on I negotiated to do 'Cycling' instead of freezing my bits off pretending to play football or cricket (which mostly involved cycling home with a report submitted of the weekend's cycling club route instead).
As for Swimming lessons - all I remember is an ancient coach that stunk of diesel which made a lot of us feel sick every week.

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

In the words of the 1985 song, I had a Life In A Northern Town that was quite small and compact so I walked to school. However, my school did serve quite a rural hinterland so in the mid 1980s, you would have a busy bus park where fellow schoolkids would be dropped off. Some were extensions of regular bus services so poppy red Bristol LHs, VRs and REs plus the odd Leyland Leopard. Dedicated school contracts were done by a number of local indies and at one extreme, you'd have a mix of 10-15 year old coaches - often Leyland Leopards but a few lightweight Fords (but not Bedfords oddly) and almost all with Plaxton bodies. However, some of the indies would also have their frontline coaches working over the winter or filling in, and that would mean exotic stuff like a Jonckheere Bermuda bodied Daf.

Nonetheless, my school was located across two sites (though not any more) and so you'd have buses to shuttle you from one to another, or to/from the swimming baths (at another location) and they would be more NBC era Bristol LHs and REs. The REs seemed venerable at the time... they were about as old as me (12/13). Things change!

 

[M803UYA]

I'm assuming the OP isn't referring to buses to/from school.

At my primary school, Wakes of Sparkford/Wincanton were the go to for a coach for our trips out. Most if not all the fleet would be turned out. Most memorable trips:
Two consecutively registered coach doored Duple Dominant Leyland Leopards to Bristol (WYD103/4W). There was a boat trip and we ended up in the Zoo.
The first new to them (KYA284Y) Leyland Tiger/Plaxton Paramount on a trip to Monkey World and Poole.
The first new to them Volvo B10M coach (F555 FYD) on a trip to HMS Victory in 1992.

Later on I moved schools to one in Yeovil and we then got familiar with the fleet of Bakers of Yeovil.
Most memorable was two trips in a DAF/Caetano (B85 ACX) to Weymouth and Langdon Hill (outside Chideock) and a day out in SCD 887R, a Duple Dominant Bedford. A few years after that it was withdrawn and I wound up with a seat from the coach living in my bedroom. My late father decided to dispose of said seat once I'd left home for University. I'm still unhappy about that.
Those trips are more memorable as my other half was at school same class as me and we were on all three. There's photos of everyone but me in the Bedford.

My first trip 'abroad' to Disneyland Paris at 16 in a former Moor Dale 1983 Bova Futura which travelled down to Yeovil from Hartlepool specifically for the trip. That started a love of long distance coaches which remains to this day. The year after we went to Northern Spain in a Siesta of Middlesbrough M reg Berkhof Scania double deck coach - procured by the same tour company that did educational tours. Presumably a North East tour company if they liked using North East coach operators. What was especially amusing was meeting a Clapton Holidays Beulas at the Spanish border and better still at Montserrat, R372 XYD from the Bakers Dolphin fleet.

I remember little about the destinations themselves, save for Langdon Hill and the climb back up Golden Cap from Seatown. A 10 year old me almost expired. Goodness knows how 41 year old me will get along.

But most of my school trips weren't about the destinations, rather that we got to ride in a coach. Even today I'm more excited about the journey than where we'll end up. Possibly why I drive the things!?!

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

I'm assuming the OP isn't referring to buses to/from school.

Indeed - I just didn't get many school trips

For the few I did have, it was usually a Burrells (Barnard Castle Coaches) Leopard of which one was new in 1980 to grant spec, being used on the Barnard Castle to Richmond service. WUP961V stayed with the firm all its life and is now preserved.

 

[joieman]

Indeed - I just didn't get many school trips

The one I mentioned previously was my only such trip to date. Being home-educated meant that any educational trips were done on public bus services, which is obviously beyond the remit of this topic.

 

[Eyersey468]

A trip I remember going on was a trip to Belgium then onto Berlin in 2003, we saw some of the WW1 trenches near Ypres, some of the cemeteries, the Menin Gate and the Last Post, in Berlin we saw the sights such as Checkpoint Charlie, the Berlin Wall, The Reichstag, a museum in the former Stazi HQ and various other places. Really interesting trip and my first time abroad. One night the teachers took us to an imax cinema to see a film about Scott of the Antarctic, the only problem was it was the one film that didn't have English subtitles so we all struggled to understand it