Lessons learnt or ‘There and back again’

Well, we did it. We went, we saw, we conquered. What an experience. 

For those of you who didn’t catch the tale of how I was setting up our groups first trip to London, I’ll summarise it briefly: two nights and two full days in London, five Leaders, five Cubs and nine Scouts and all for £38. That’s it, doesn’t sound much does it, but it took eight months to plan, on and off, and I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.

Being the 10^th Birkenhead Scout Group we reside, as one would expect, in the quaint hamlet of Birkenhead on the Wirral, on the banks of the beautiful River Mersey opposite a small place called Liverpool.

To get to London, we would need to take a train under the river to Liverpool’s intercity station. With cross river trains every five minutes, we just had to make sure we left Birkenhead by 17.45 on the Friday evening to be in time to catch the 18.15 London train. I planned to get to the station early to buy the tickets then stand around waiting for the party to arrive. This was to be the easy bit.

My son and I got to the station early, as planned, only to be greeted by one of the other leaders, “The trains aren’t running. There’s a problem with the lines”

What! After grilling the station porters, all we knew was that there was a cable down across the line in Liverpool and that the cross river trains had been suspended, “They should be back on shortly, but we can’t say when.” was their cheery response to further questioning.

Twenty-five past five... I knew it would take twenty-one minutes exactly from station to station, but there were no trains. How many cars would we have? What time did the tunnel buses leave, where from and how long did they take? What about taking the ferry and then walking?

We were stuck; we could still probably make it by car if we left at twenty to six, but only if we had enough cars.

Half-past five. The group started to arrive, still no trains.

Twenty-five to six and we get news that the trains are back on. Worried? Who me? No, not for a minute, plenty of time. 

The London train was packed, luckily our contact at Virgin Rail had reserved seats for us. The journey took around two and a half hours, but I’d planned ahead and brought games. The boys, we didn’tt have any girls in our Cub or Scout sections at that time, behaved themselves reasonably well. Arriving at Euston we met the train driver, Jim Pattern, who was great and showed the boys around the drivers’ compartment, allowing them sit in his seat. The photographer Virgin had promised us never arrived so, it was out with the cameras and we took the photos ourselves, no problem.

As I said before, five leaders and fourteen boys, or rather four leaders and fourteen boys, as one leader was to travel independently across to our lodging. I had allocated three boys to each leader and split the fifth leaders group for the first evening. Each leader therefore had only to count his three boys. It worked like a dream, with London echoing to the calls of “I’ve got mine”. In fact, had we undertaken the trip with the boys mingling as one large group, it would, in all probability, have been a disaster, as we found out in the Science Museum when we allowed the boys to walk around as a group for a while, for around fifteen minutes in that ‘safe’ environment, we found we spent all our time trying to count the massed hoard, enough of that, back to the groupings. Anyway, the control measures worked.

Did everything go to plan? Well, on the whole yes. My estimated timings were unbelievably correct, with plenty of time for photographs of the sights. We had arrived in Whitehall one week after Remembrance Day, a stroke of luck, so the Cenotaph was still wreathed with poppies. 

Disappointingly there were no Horse Guards on parade with their Busbies, although there were members of the Household Cavalry performing the Changing of the Guard within the courtyard just as we got there, undertaken with plenty of gusto, shouting, swinging of rifles and stamping of boots, “Make way for the Guard...”, fantastic.

We even managed to squeeze in a visit to BP House on the way to the Science Museum. In the museum we had no problems except for one lad mislaying his coat at every exhibit.

Dinner Saturday night was supposed to be at KFC at Oxford Circus, their website says, plain as day, this is the nearest outlet to Piccadilly Circus, but when we emerged from The Tube there was not a KFC to be seen. I asked one of the people who could be guaranteed to help and direct you in situations like this, no not a policeman, a street cleaner, they know London better than anyone, the nearest KFC was apparently fifteen minutes away so, change of plan, it was off to the nearest establishment of a well known purveyor of meat in bun products, emerging forty minutes later, sated and ready for a walk down Regent Street, past ‘Hamleys’ and into Piccadilly Circus (past a KFC would you believe) then Leicester Square, where one of the lads had a tambourine thrust into his hand and was led away dancing by a band of chanting Hari Krishnas’. He seemed to be enjoying himself but after tossing a coin we decided we’d retrieve him.

Sunday was always going to be difficult, with the District and Circle lines down for maintenance but I had it all planned out, train to Brixton, out the station, walk around the corner to find the right bus stop then catch the No. 133 to London Bridge/Monument. A short walk down Lower Thames Street and we would be at the Tower of London. We found the bus stop no problem and waited. As we stood and talked we caught sight of a Double Decker caught up in traffic, its signage said “London Bridge – Rail Replacement Service”, that’ll do I thought and flagged him down, the driver was kind enough to stop and let us on even though it wasn’t on his scheduled route, he dropped us off at London Bridge Station where we then walked past HMS Belfast and over Tower Bridge, not exactly as planned but great anyway.

Into the Tower of London and lots of photo opportunities. How many Scouts can you fit in a Sentry Box? The boys loved it and so did the tourists watching. Plenty of time to see everything, then it was a short fifteen-minute walk up to Aldgate Station for a train over to Euston.

Once inside Aldgate Station, we were collecting our thoughts and the boys when all hell broke loose, bells started ringing everywhere, faces appeared at windows, everyone looking around and not knowing which way to turn. At first we couldn’t see the reason for the alarms but then I caught sight of No. 1 son sidling up to us, his face glowing bright red and looking sheepish. What had he done? Well, he saw what he thought was a phone box fixed to the wall and curiosity got the better of him, he opened the front cover to peek inside and set off every alarm in the place. The box turned out to be a first aid cabinet and the station staff were very good and said not to worry as it happened all the time. I tell you it’ll take a while for him to live that one down.

The return train from Euston was packed, and I mean chocker, people standing in the end corridors and every seat taken, including our reserved seats. So, armed with my reservation list and starting at one end of the carriage, I politely proceeded to turf nineteen people out of our seats to replace them with our boys. Oh, I was very apologetic about it of course, but in the end I had fourteen boys on a five-hour train journey and they were going to sit in their reserved seats. Everyone was generally very understanding and moved without problems (possibly due to the embarrassment of being caught out I suspect), one gentleman though, thought we should have been on the train much earlier and remonstrated quite profoundly for some time but, being in full uniform I thought it inappropriate to do anything other than smile and apologize. I even gave him my name and group details when he asked for them, fine by me.

Considering it was a five-hour journey, our boys behaved themselves impeccably. We returned them to their grateful parents fifteen minutes late, the only time throughout the whole weekend where the schedule was wrong and that was outside of my control. 

So, lessons learnt...

• Could we have done anything about the suspended cross-river train service? Not really, I suppose I would put an emergency plan together for future trips, but you can’t take into account an ‘Act of God’.
• DO take plenty of card games like Top Trumps or the latest craze at the time.
• DO split large groups, with two or three Scouts/Cubs being assigned to each leader. Make sure the youngsters know whom their Leader is, and keep chasing them back into their groups.
• WALK SLOWLY. It amazes me how some leaders, when put in front of a walking group, will step on the gas and stride off. Look back regularly and let the stragglers catch up if necessary.
• As the trip leader, or guide, make sure all the other leaders are aware of which line and direction the next train is departing from. Make sure all the leaders know which stop to get off at. Make sure no member of the party boards a train until everyone is ready. Last one on checks the platform. Last leader off a carriage checks the carriage. When getting off trains, regroup immediately by a wall and do a leader group count.
• No matter how detailed your plan, be prepared to change it if necessary, be prepared to grab opportunities as they present themselves. Be cheeky, if you don’t ask, you don’t get.
• It is impossible to please everyone all of the time. The only food our boys are guaranteed to eat is clown food. I think I would have gotten away with the KFC had we found one but in the end it’s only a trip, don’t make too big a deal about awkward tastes.
• Boy’s will be boy’s so if something happens but no damage is done, be prepared to smile and apologize then move on and forget it, unless the boy is your son then you can hang him upside down by his toes down the nearest escalator shaft.
• If you travel with reserved seats then be confident, have a list of the seats on full view in your hand, wave it around a bit so everyone can see it. If one seat out of a pair of seats is reserved, don’t even think about it, turf the interloper out of the seat, politely but firmly or you’ll be one seat down and probably set a precedent to let others get away with it. Don’t argue, just state that the seat is yours, end of story. I didn’t have to, but you can always call on the Train Manager who will vacate the seats for you.
• Do your research, for instance, how many people know why Westminster Bridge is painted green and Lambeth Bridge is painted red?
• The Tower of London doesn’t have a left luggage room. Either take along someone who’s seen it all before, like me, and is prepared to sit in one place minding the bags, or set up a bag watch rota.
• But above all, have fun.

Would we do it again? Of course, bring it on!

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