Chalking it up to the school trip experience

SIR – At primary school in Suffolk in the early Sixties, we trooped off to a Stone Age flint-mining site called Grime’s Graves for our school trip (Letters, August 3).

The entire class of 11-year-olds disappeared down a narrow vertical shaft deep underground. For two hours with no supervision, we wriggled through unsupported chalk tunnels barely able to kneel, let alone stand. Finally, most of us emerged covered in chalk dust and happily marched back on the bus.

I somehow doubt that such an event would be tolerated today. Chris Devine

Salisbury, Wiltshire

SIR – In 1982 my son was due to go on a school trip to Egypt on the Canberra, but it was cancelled because of the Falklands war, during which the ship was requisitioned by the MOD to transport members of the Parachute Regiment and the Royal Marines. I am more than proud to say that a few years later our son enlisted as a junior Royal Marine. Richard JC English

King’s Lynn, Norfolk

SIR – My first school trip was to a British American Tobacco factory in Nyasaland (now Malawi). My father punished me severely for smoking a cigarette I had “liberated”. But I ended up working for BAT for 39 years. Richard Duncan

Guildford, Surrey

SIR – Geoff Witte (Letter, July 31) was lucky to visit a sewage works after finishing his O-levels.

My reward was being taken to the local pig slaughterhouse and then on for a lunch of what was called “sausage slush”. Needless to say, nobody ate it. Liz Cowley

London SW15