Marjorie (Marj) Bannister, Homerton, CHV 1966, commenting on October 2016 update

First of all, apologies for taking so long to reply to the article I read in the Homertonian magazine last summer. It was good to see those photos but I think you’ll find that one has been labelled incorrectly – I am the one in the middle of the three in the photo with the caption ‘Judi Venner walks in the woods with two children’!!

Despite pretty miserable weather for the duration of our time in the Black Forest in August 1966, we had an interesting time. The things that stick out most in my mind are:

1. The loo tent blowing down in a storm one night…with me in it!

2. Spending the night in a sub-camp, our tents mysteriously collapsing in on us (an annual antic, I gather) ~ at the time, we suspected the extremely innocent looking cows with their lovely bells in the adjacent field!!

3. Thick fog coming down immediately after children had been deposited at various points around the camp area with maps and compasses in order to engage in an orienteering exercise and we having to set up a rescue mission, both on foot and in minibuses. I recall some children finding the whole thing a great adventure: they had hidden from police cars, etc. and some even spent the night in a farmhouse, after which they bragged about sleeping under duvets!

4. Cries from the children of ‘England hat gewonnen’ after we beat Germany in the World Cup!

5. Hornets which we found nesting in a hole on the mountainside and whom we christened ‘Prima’ and ‘Nix’