Collenswood School visit to Europe 1976

By Pauline Maryan

Collenswood School visit to Europ 1976

Where did these pupils visit on their trip to Europe in July 1976, and were you among them?

This page was added on 31/01/2011.

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  • Lovely photo! Brings back lots of memories. I’m the mad scientist waving from the bonnet of the minibus.Love to everybody!..John Tomkins

    By John Tomkins (15/12/2023)
  • Jim, remember the angle of attack? Run at the back of the bus, right foot on the step, left foot on the bottom door-hinge, right foot on the handle, left foot on top hinge and, hup, swing yourself over. It wasn’t just us two, it was the whole gaggle. Then driving back to Farmer Jones’s place across to top of the dam, high above the village, the words of “Knees up Mother Brown” reverberating from the valley walls, as Charlie banged out the beat on the horn… BTW, Mr Westcott would have “donked” you for that.

    By Graeme Innes-Johnstone (12/01/2021)
  • Dear Kathryn,

    We knew your dad was one of the good ones when he very first rocked-up driving his gorgeous Triumph (TR4A?) convertible. And, down to him, I still remember my drumlins, erratics, margins of subduction, node points etc. However, never did get my head around those bleedin’ adiabatic rates.

    By Graeme Innes-Johnstone (11/01/2021)
  • Kay: Remember the beauty of Le Puy, despite the infested mattresses and “interesting” latrines at the hostel? The beauty of the Massif Centrale. The purple salt-lakes, white horses and egrets of the Camargue? Walking the ancient city walls of Carcassonne as the sun sank behind the Pyrenees, to then, after dark, walk into the centre of town to watch the street performers doing fire-swallowing acts etc? Next stop, the hostel in Lerida where the graffiti in the dorms was written in faeces and menstrual blood? We were booked for two nights, but left after one and drove to the coast to find a camp site. The hostel in the Vall d’Uixo, Sierra Nevada, run by the charming German who we suspected was a Nazi in hiding? He took us to those wonderful flooded limestone caves and introduced us (urgh) to tea brewed from fresh lavender. The architecture of Granada and Toledo? Louis the lizard (RIP)? The shouting frogs and screaming cicadas? The huge swallow-tail flutterbys John was keen on? The squirting cucumbers? Night-time dipping in the Atlantic in Biarritz? All during the infamous blazing summer of 1976…

    By Graeme Innes-Johnstone (11/01/2021)
  • Drove, not drive!! 🤦

    Mr. Westcott would be well impressed!! 😂

    By Jim Eblett (31/12/2020)
  • That was the school minibus, that in 1978, Charlie Dixon drive back from the pub in the Brecon Beacons with me and Graeme Johnstone on the roof. Mad really, but great fun and a memory I’ll never forget. Top teacher Charlie Dixon. 😁

    By Jim Eblett (29/12/2020)
  • Wow I remember this. I taught English at Collenswood. My friend Barbara Clark nee Russell is the woman in the white dress. Wishing Charlie Dixon a happy retirement. Carole Jarrett

    By Carole Jarrett (09/09/2020)
  • I’m the same age now as my Dad, Charles Dixon, was in this photo. He is furthest on the left. He left Collenswood to teach at college and university level and is retiring later this year (after 47 years of teaching!)

    By Kathryn Dixon (07/08/2020)
  • I’m sitting on the roof rack second from the left.

    The trip was a geography and science field trip, led by John Tomkins (Science teacher) and Charlie Dixon (Geography). We were away for 3 weeks travelling down through western France into Spain, as far as Granada and then back up the eastern side of both countries back home. We collected a few specimens of plants and rocks. Stayed in hostels and camped. It was a fabulous trip.

    Kay Whiting (nee Henderson)

    By Kay Whiting (30/06/2020)
  • I am the last one on the right sitting on the roof-rack

    By Graeme Innes-Johnstone (26/06/2016)