Scarred For Life

Deep Dive: The School Trips That Scarred Us for Life

Scarred For Life

Show Notes

School trips were supposed to be fun, weren’t they? A day away from the classroom, a packed lunch, a coach ride and the promise of something vaguely educational. But for many of us, they came with a healthy dose of fear, embarrassment, danger… and occasionally someone throwing up into a sandwich box. For this Thursday deep dive, Andy Bush, Dave Lawrence and producer Nikki take a trip down memory lane to explore the creepy, chaotic and downright traumatic world of school trips.

From terrifying public information films and being trapped on questionable 1970s coaches, to quarries, creepy churches, red lakes, wasps in Coke cans and the ever-present fear of the sick kid on the bus, the team revisit the things that could turn an innocent school outing into a childhood nightmare. Nikki recalls taking a school trip to the London Dungeon — and the time she found an actual human skull while working at Highgate Cemetery. Dave remembers a particularly traumatic geology field trip involving a quarry and a blood-red lake, while Andy recalls the legendary school-trip disasters that have stayed with him for decades. Plus, we hear your memories of school trips gone horribly wrong, including vomiting on fairground rides, dead sheep in Snowdonia, disastrous hotel rooms, seasickness, accidental nudity and a school cruise involving vomiting teachers and a child apparently being left in Lisbon.

So pack your soggy sandwiches, grab your cagoule and make sure nobody gets left behind… This is Scarred for Life’s deep dive into the terrifying world of school trips.

Sleep well. Do have nightmares.

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