Wednesday had come around again and we were all ready for another (exciting) orienteering expedition to Waddington Fell. Once on board the minibus we reversed slowly carefully avoiding the Head's car (nobody elses mattered - they'd never notice) and then sped down to the gate, by this time already in top gear. We left school with a crunch of gears, a cloud of smoke and tyre marks which all added to that rally atmosphere.
We came across one of those little old ladies driving a Morris Minor near Waddington. She was obviously a little bemused and this meant she could't tell her right from her left, or else she would have indicated to go left when she was going left. However, she wrongly indicated right which meant we thought she was going right, when she was actually going left.  After a few seconds of the little old lady wrongly indicating right and left Mr H. began to overtake. It was all clear until, as if by magic  (remember Mr. Ben) a car appeared on the bend ahead. The speed of the lady could not be bettered and we spent a few anxious moments cruising beside her. Anyway in the end we braked hard and pulled in behind her - we all agreed that she was reckless!
We quickly arrived at the summit car park and were given a briefing. On starting our run we came to an abrupt halt when we found the field to be full of a brown cloudy liquid. On further investigation by the rest of the group a quick conclusion was reached.  The liquid was............water! Once again we set off but soon had to stop to help Peter who had made an attempt at jumping a large bog, but sadly had failed. His right leg was submerged to the thigh and the rest of him was covered in
a brown    material vaguely resembling canteen gravy.  His face was also half covered and the smell took me back to the days before Haze 'Tiny Tim'.  Eventually we did get back to running but made sure we steered well clear of Peter who was now being given names such as Lindow Man and Pete Marsh! After an hour on the fell and a few minutes in a bog for one person everybody was glad to reach the minibus.
We had a funny feeling Mr H. was in a hurry to get back to school as we were just breaking the Motorway speed limit! After braking violently at the 30 mph zone into Waddington we picked up speed again through the centre of the village. After killing six hedgehogs, three cats, two children, a cuddly toy, a conveyor belt, the sliding doors and Larry Grayson we met another slow car. It was the same little old lady I'm sure, except she must have bought a new car and had plastic surgery since our last encounter.  We could tell that we were back at school when we watched the speedometer drop below 50 mph. At this point I wish to say that Mr H. is an excellent driver but usually he is wearing his spectacles when doing so.

Ian Haythornthwaite

(1988) 

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