Slightly earlier in the year than usual, I have just returned from another school trip to York with 90+ kids. A week of museums, walking around shops, ancient buildings and sitting on open top bus tours is sometimes tiring. The York Minster Education Centre is interesting, but as I have heard the talk 4 times before, my mind began to drift as I sat at the back of the room in the shadows. The drift turned into sleep and only as my head flopped down did I wake up and realise it. The thing is, so did all the kids who had spotted it and passed it along the line, so when I woke up they were all laughing and staring at me. I tried to pass it off as a moment of prayer but the snoring was a give away. These kids have eagle eyes and nothing gets passed them. Like today for example when we were on the city walls and the same kids came to tell me there was a naked woman in a window. Sure enough there was, so if you are that woman who lives next to the walls, perhaps you could get some curtains to preserve your modesty. Another great sight "It's the best thing I've seen in York" as one kid put it, was the arrest of a vagrant. Those same kids said, "Mr Taylor, that man is getting arrested for peeing up the wall". My doubts were ended when sure enough a bloke was stood peeing up the wall as he had his collar felt by the local plod. He then resisted arrest so the wrestling began. Arm locks, head locks, pindowns and all but the Big Daddy Splash were being used to restrain this drunkard. The poor officer of the law looked up to see a whole open top bus full of kids all watching, taking photos and getting very excited. It was great entertainment and we even got to see the back up arrive and throw him into the van.
The itinerary had a few changes. The Viking re enactment bloke 'Leaf' from Danelaw, and strictly not Danelaw Dave invited us to his place instead of coming to us. Danelaw is a mock Viking village with long houses, livestock and everything you would expect to find in a viking version of a Wimpy housing scheme. So we got to hear 'Thor's Hammer' sat around a fire in a smoke filled long house, in near darkness. You can't really get that experience across in a text book and I was impressed. This man never ceases to lose his passion for telling these stories. He told me that if you cut his veins, living history would bleed out of him. It's who he is and watching him tell stories is like watching a master craftsman at work.
Also new for 2010 was Poundland! Yes having been ripped off in all of Yorks crappy museum shops, I thought a visit to a quality retailer might go down well. It did as most of them bought their own body weight in chocolate and sweets and still had money left to buy branded junk at the National Railway Museum. Finally the journey back was okay too. The nightmare of getting all their bags off was eased by the help of a guard who had not noticed all of our bags had ribbon on them, whereas the nice silver suitcase she offloaded at Dunbar did not. As the train left and everyone had collected their bags, we realised that some poor soul going to Edinburgh was now without luggage, because I was stood at the platform holding it!
Favourite quote of the week on the ghost tour. Q: (Ghost story teller) Does anyone know what arson is? A: (kid) It's when your messing around.
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