Trip to Russia 1966

In 1966 there was a school trip to Russia. The trip was led by "Gert" Tromans and Miles Carter.

Students

Students on the trip included:

Recollections

...all foreigners watched the World cup stood up in a long room with an impossible-to-see lone television at one end, and we got to know the score by observing whether it was the Germans who were jumping up and down when a goal was scored or the rest of the room.....

David Wortley

My memories of Tromans are RE lessons discussing the sexual exploits of Catherine the Great, enjoying caviare aboard a Russian submarine in Boston Docks and the school trip to Moscow and Leningrad. The expedition to Russia took us by train through Germany and Poland, including crossing the Berlin Wall and having fresh fruit confiscated by armed guards.

We visited Lenin's tomb in Moscow and had a trip on a hydrofoil in Leningrad and we came home by boat via Helsinki and Copenhagen.
I also remember one of my room mates in the hotel in Moscow vomiting into the sink after an alcohol excess and being called "a conical headed apple cheeked twit" – a description which has stayed in my memory ever since. I would love to be able to recall who used the expression.
The trip was in 1966 and we watched England beat West Germany on a black and white TV in the hotel lounge in Leningrad.

David Wortley

I was on the Russian trip and remember the world cup and the Russian cheers when we won - I also remember someone being sick in the sink and stirring the detritus round with his finger to flush it down. I still have a photo of me on the SS Baltica complete with Balalaika.

I remember selling the cardigan my girlfriend knitted me and also some biros on the black market.
I remember Lenin's tomb and drinking Kvass from water carts on the street.
I even remember recording a vinyl disk in a booth on Waterloo station also selling that.

Ray Millard

...what a trip: working out the speed of the train by timing the distance between the diddly domps; travelling through East Germany in the carriage with the mailbags; the funny buses with the strange smelling brakes; "Gert" Tromans and Miles Carter feeling the worse for wear.

I was in love with a High School girl called Hilary and after drinking lots of vodka I apparently staggered around declaring my love for her. However, Miles Carter's wife was also called Hilary, and he thought I meant her! Oops!
On the journey home we were on the SS Baltika. Several of us took part in the ship's concert. I remember John Hilton, myself and others doing a rough rendition of Sloop John B.
Then there was the night England won the World Cup...

David Wortley

...the fabulous school trip to Moscow and Leningrad (now St Petersberg) in 1966. It was my first holiday abroad and we travelled by train to London to catch the boat train at Victoria and then through Europe to West Berlin and across the Berlin Wall where armed soldiers confiscated all the fresh fruit we had. We went on through East Germany and Poland to the Russian border at Brest before continuing on to Moscow where I believe we stayed in the Rossiya hotel overlooking Red Square.

We had 5 days in Moscow before travelling by train to Leningrad where I remember watching the 1966 world cup final on a black and white flickering TV in the hotel with the Russians cheering the England team on.
Our journey back to the UK was by boat to Tilbury via Helsinki and Copenhagen. I didn't appreciate how lucky I was that my parents saved up so much to give me a trip of a lifetime, thinking I would not get many such chances in my life. Ironically, since 2002 when I had the chance to go back there, I have been a regular visitor to Moscow to speak at various conferences.
It was in Moscow that I heard one of my school mates describe someone as a "conical-headed, apple-cheeked twit" - a description I have never forgotten.