Wellingborough Grammar School Germany trip August 1967


Wellingborough Grammar School Trip to Schwäbisch Hall and Boppard, Germany August 14th to 25th 1967 (Click on images to enlarge, use Back button to return) Copyright: Please do not post any images from this website on social media or elsewhere without permission unless the photo is of yourself. Contact: schoolplays@hotmail.com









		This group list appears at the back of my 1967 diary. Dave Wrigley didn't make it on the trip.

I (Phil Smart) don't recall too much about this holiday unfortunately but it was a long time ago and I was only just 12 at the time. I do remember frittes in paper cones and miniature golf but not much more. Fortunately for us, Mr J.R. "Puss" Parkinson wrote it up very thoroughly and eloquently for the school magazine (the itinerary wasn't available when this was originally written). From his account we get a timeline: Monday 14th August 1967: 10:00am Depart from the School for Victoria Station in two coaches. 14:00 Arrive Victoria and get boat-train to Dover. 16:00 Departed Dover for Ostende in windy conditions. Departed Ostende station at 21:00. At some point on one of these rail change-overs, possibly at Ostende, we all dashed onto the train and were told to leave our suitcases on the platform to be passed through the carriage windows. It seems that all of the suitcases were successfully boarded, except for Ivor's! Arrived Schwäbisch Hall at 08:10 via Stuttgart (15th August).






Our group stayed at the Germania Hotel. I am reliably informed that the hotel is now a Pizzeria.		That's me in the right-hand photo.


(From Mr Cheale's scrapbook)


Wednesday 16th August 1967:
Morning: Rothenburg		Afternoon: Dinkelsbühl

		Thursday 17th August 1967: Free day. It looks as if hole 2 was a bit tricky.

Friday 18th August 1967: Heidelberg. We travelled up to the castle on the funicular railway.

On Saturday August 19th 1967 we moved to Boppard, on the Rhine, and stayed at the Bopparder Hof Hotel. The hotel no longer exists and hasn't done so for a long time. I visited Boppard with my Father on a business trip in 1979 and it had already disappeared then.







On Sunday August 20th 1967 we visited the Eifel mountains and Lake Laacher See. The left-hand photo was probably taken on this lake; Phil Ward at the front of the boat and Nick Frampton in the centre, rowing.		Monday August 21st 1967 was a free day. I think that the chairlift photo is probably of the lift at Boppard.



Just along from the Bopparder Hof was a shop that sold all sorts of stuff that a 12 year old might find interesting. It was probably on the day off that I bought the camera below:

I recently wondered why I didn't have more photographs from the trip and then remembered what happened. The miniature Homer camera was supposed to be fully functioning and took small rolls of film that were about 1.5cms wide. I must have switched to this camera from my old box camera from then on and when I got home had the film developed. Luckily a family friend worked at Barwicks the photographers in Wellingborough and he took the film to be developed. Unfortunately it came back totally blank. I remember being very disappointed. When I look at the camera now I can see that it probably isn't particularly "light tight". On August 22nd we went on a boat trip to Rudesheim; on the 23rd we went to Cochem and the Moselle valley; the 24th was a free day. On Friday August 25th 1967 we left Boppard at 07:43 by train and travelled towards home via Bonn, Köln, Aachen, Brussels and Ostende, arriving in Dover at 18:10. Then we took the train to Victoria and coaches to Wellingborough. We were back at the school at 23:15. (Most of the material is from Phil Smart's archive with some items from Mr Cheale's scrapbook. Please notify schoolplays@hotmail.com of any errors or if you have material that could be added to this page.)