School trips were so much better in 1971
Aged 13, 'educational' school trip to France. We visited the local wine caves and all us 13 year old British kids who had never touched it before were given a half pint glass of rose. I downed mine quickly and had a couple more from kids who didn't like the taste. I was fine in the cool underground caves but walking out into the sunshine was like walking into a brick wall and I was instantly drunk. I spent the rest of the day snoring gently in the back of the coach. Later in the week we went to Paris for a couple of days. Once we'd been booked into the hotel, four of us 13 year old girls decided to explore. This was made a bit easier due to the fact that the art teacher was 'getting to know' a very pretty sixth former who he later had to marry due to the fact that she was expecting. We didn't know this at the time but managed to work out later why we had been so lightly supervised. Anyway, we bought unlimited travel metro tickets and off we went. I recall finding the Moulin Rouge and various other tourist hot spots before we decided it was a bit dark and we'd better get back as we'd been gone for hours. Amazingly, we hadn't even been missed and the teachers seemed quite unbothered that we'd found so many interesting things to tell them about. Educational? More like a free jolly for the teachers, I'm only amazed they didn't lose more kids.
( The Cat's Mother Not a People Person., Mon 11 Dec 2006, 21:21, Reply)