Educational visits

In early June 1977, we travelled from Walton-on-Thames via Victoria and Waterloo to Folkestone and then by hovercraft to Boulogne-Sur-Mer France.

This was Deborah's first view of a French port.

Giuseppe, who had an Italian father, found the Latin element of French very easy to cope with.

He was quite confident about buying postcards and clothes and was ready to help his friends.

The shopkeepers in La Grande Rue were used to visits from English school children, so they got a degree of help with their transactions.

A somewhat different challenge was identifying the products in a French hypermarket. It was big by 1970s' standards; the products were not quite the same as you would find in England. It was also a rich environment for reading the French names on the packaging and the hypermarket signs.

Now for the hard part. Mixing with French pupils whose English was no better than my pupils' French, perhaps because of the very formal textbooks they were using all over France in 1977 - based on grammar/translation as opposed to our direct method structural syllabus.

They kept in their separate groups for a while, but finally they did communicate!

There was more communication with the French pupils we met on the bus to the forest of Desvres. At first insults such as "cochon" and "frog" were exchanged, but 2 of my group exchanged addresses and made follow-up exchange visits with 2 new French friends.

We picnicked and played rounders in the forest and visited the famous pottery factory at Desvres (10 km SE of Boulogne)

They were very kind to us at the pottery. They provided an English-speaking guide and each pupil was given a souvenir of hand-painted work.


It was also market day in Desvres so we had a good view of rural France before taking the country bus back to Boulogne.

At the upper end of La Grande Rue, you can see the cathedral of Notre Dame within the ramparts of the old part of Boulogne. The Youth Hostel where we stayed for one week was just outside the east gate of the ramparts. The pupils could wander within the ramparts or walk around their perimeter without meeting busy traffic.

The visit to Boulogne needed classroom preparation and follow-up. I spent my Easter holiday there making the necessary contacts and taking photographs of the venues, the accommodation etc. to present before parents who wanted their children to participate in the visit. The model of Boulogne's ramparts was no master-piece, but the visit was about people and language rather than plaster.

I led two school trips to Boulogne during my period as Head of French at Mayfield County Middle School. The first in June 1976 was a day trip involving about 24 children out of the 200 children to whom I was teaching compulsory French. I had the help of my colleague Miss Heathrington. On the second occasion (13th-17th June 1977), I took 15 children in their final year (aged 12-13) on a visit to Boulogne. I depended on the help of 2 parents (Mrs Blair and Mr Laybourne). The only crises were (1) I had to take Pauline to a French Doctor - a minor case of thrush and (2) the youth hostel warden foolishly accommodated a group of German rugby players in a room adjoining our girls' dormitory on the ground floor. While I was soundly asleep in the men's quarters, my deputy leader Mrs Blair - who fortunately had a command of German (she was partly of Danish descent) - had to deal very bravely with an incident when two of the rugby team entered the 13-year-old girls' dormitory. The warden was very apologetic and presented Mrs Blair with two bottles of French wine the next morning, but the trouble my deputy leader had to deal with marred the last day of the visit. There was a great cheer when we all arrived back at Walton-on-Thames station where the parents were anxiously waiting. We were diverted via Dover and had to take a slow ferry boat since our hovercraft had ripped its skirting in high winds. We all arrived back somewhat late.