Monday, August 10, 2015

Bellingham International Camp: a memory

Out of the blue, a memory popped up. I'm sure I've written about our sixth-form school camp at Bellingham in Northumberland before. French, Belgian, German and Norwegian students also attended. We were given disgusting gristly pork pies for picnic lunches that we buried in the sand at the beach one day; the Norwegian girls accidentally bought Flash floor cleaner to wash their jumpers and one of the Norwegian lads had bought a second hand suede jacket that smelt so bad that swarms of flies followed him wherever he went. The Norwegian boys fed the Belgian chaps laxative chocolates and stood outside the toiled block all day laughing. Naughty.
But what I suddenly remembered was the little cafe in Bellingham village that we made pilgrimages to; there was a jukebox on the wall that played pop songs while we crammed in there together. The earnestness: we talked intensely, all staring deeply into each other's eyes, about our different cultures, the things we cared about, our families, the future. There was no time like the present, yet nostalgia was there too because we knew the moment that we were savouring was the fanfare to the end of our teenage years.

4 comments:

(Malcolm) McClaren said...

'NO FUTURE' The Sex Pistols

Eileen said...

For some reason I decided to google 'Bellingham International Camp' today, and found this link... I was there in 1979, 1980 and 1981. Many, many happy (and some weird) memories. x

John Robson said...

I was a student at Bellingham in 1973 and 1974 then a leader from 1976 to 1981, they were fun times and I made some great friends there.
Rods cafe in the "willage" was the collecting place for most of us, with Dot ruling the roost and keeping us in check.
As Eileen says some very happy memories and some very peculiar ones too!

Vigdis said...

In 1965-1967 Bellingham was the highlight of my life