Random things you’ve done in your life that’s brilliantly bonkers

Back in the 90s I was asked by a friend to be an extra member of staff for an “Outward Bounds”school trip for 13-15 year olds to the South of France. Thinking it would be a good (free) opportunity to have a week of healthy exercise, canoeing, climbing,no drinking, and early nights, I agreed. We travelled down from Wolverhampton on a double decker coach. The staff on the bottom deck with fancy seats and tables, all the kids upstairs. First stop after the ferry from Dover, was a hypermarket, where case after case of wine and beer was loaded onto the bottom deck of the bus. The next 8 hours through France are a bit of a blur.Vague memories of playing drinking games and kids popping downstairs to check the progress of their teachers getting hammered.
That set the tone for the rest of the week, teachers misbehaving and it culminating in a cunning plan by one staff member, who decided to wind up one of the kids, saying that on the last day we’d all be doing a parachute jump. What started as a daft story, turned into rumour, with kids one by one starting to believe it. By the end of the week, not only were the camp staff in on the joke, but so were the staff from other schools.
By the Friday a complete air corps training base had been set up. We were training the kids in packing “parachutes” jumping onto crash mats from increasing heights, Counting 1000, 2000, 3000, etc. We had a huge zip wire set up to get them used to the feeling of flying through the air.
It got to the point where nearly all the kids believed they were doing a parachute jump.
My friend, who was the lead teacher on the trip realised that it had gone too far, when a queue of kids was forming by the pay phone, many of whom were wanting to call parents back home to say they didn’t want to jump out of a plane.
I can’t remember how she wangled out of it, but i do remember that it was quite a relief to get home without having to face the wrath of parents.
Pretty sure that the member of staff who started the rumour got away with it - but didn’t get away with the shenanigans going on with another member of staff though. I heard his wife kicked him out.
I don’t think school trips are what they used to be!

 

I agree it was irresponsible and it shocked the hell out of me that any alcohol whatsoever was allowed. My pal who was in charge of the trip was ultra professional in every other way and was becoming increasingly worried as the week went on.
I think the trip down drinking was a bit of a tradition, and for my part, I was a bit of a lightweight back then and so I didn’t really bother after that.
Put it this way, I’ve always had second thoughts about my kids going on trips, based on what i saw.

 

As an aside, I spent an entire summer in the USA at the age of 19, in charge of six ten year old girls who were on Summer Camp for 8 weeks. Back then, you could write what I knew about life, parenting and looking after kids, on a stamp. Yet millions of US parents a year entrust the care of their kids to young students on a cheap trip to the States. Bonkers.

 

Yes, I was in New York State, not far from Woodstock.
Was a good experience, but I dread to think how naive I was back then.