'Six One Goes to Glasgow' - 28 June to 1 July 2004 - during the School's summer activity week.

Click on the thumbnails to enlarge. Thanks to Phillip Richardson for the photos.

On three days in January 1919, mass demonstrations occurred in Glasgow with a brisk battle in George Square before the army arrived on February 1st. Within 11 days, the strike was over and the leaders in jail.

Some years later, and not quite on time for a re-enactment, Six One and a couple of lags from Six Two, arrived. Their purpose was not to preserve the differentials, nor to spread a revised social order but to explore a part of the UK very different from the calm and simple life that Saffron Walden presents to the world every Monday evening. Their mission - or rather the mission of their accompanying teachers - was to spend time in a real student Hall of Residence, to view the University of Glasgow, to enrich the soul with displays of fine Art without any undue expenditure. This was the place for a Limited Budget. This was the place for Public Transport. This was the place for …. the second best Shopping in Britain..!

One of the joys of teaching is the spontaneity of children, nay students or even Young Persons to strike free from the confines of Programme and to spread free their wings of Hedonism. Rumours to the contrary notwithstanding, Glasgow proved quite a good place to be indulgent. Fears that this group of Southerners (by which I do not mean English alone, but Japanese (lower latitude, so south), Koreans, Chinese) would attract a Mel Gibson version of Pictish loathing were quickly quashed. We walked, we talked both in quantity and, hopefully, quality without a single hint of spittle. The atmosphere was friendly and the pace of life was slower and less frantic than what has become so common in London Society.

Art there was aplenty. The best was the Burrell Collection. Sir William Burrell was a Scottish version of William Randolph Heart (Citizen Kane to everyone except the lawyers) in that he spent loads of money on anything of beauty that caught his eye. The differences are 1) he operated on a Budget and 2) everything he collected is now free for anyone to see rather than the San Simeon approach of lock it up, mark it Private and charge large sums of money for tourists to go oooh and aaaah over. A Good Man. There was the World Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition at the Hunterian Art Gallery in which all wannabee photographers could realise their own limitations. There was the Mackintosh House, the Willows Tea Room with its Macintosh chairs and there were umbrellas because, being the West coast of Scotland, it did rain every day.

Different people enjoyed different highlights, and that is as it should be. For one it was the white room in the Macintosh House; for another it was running onto the pitch at Hampden Park through the players' tunnel. For one it was the Degas collection and for another it was the sixth formers cooking communally. For yet another it was seeing You Got Served at the UGC. Sitting four rows from Van Morrison performing was yet another take on what makes a good sixth form trip. Somebody probably enjoyed the Science Museum a lot.

Personally, for me it was the organisation that made it: the thrill of wondering where to go next, contemplating the rain, the need for translations required from broad Scots, the anticipation of who would be run over or assaulted, who would lose their key, or set off a fire alarm, lose their passport or ticket, their sense of responsibility or of restraint. Would we run out of money? Would we get food poisoning? Get lost? Become bored and fractious? Tired and emotional? Strangely enough, I was disappointed.

Thanks go in particular to Len Mead, Phillip Richardson and Sarah Westerhuis, but also to all others who gave their bit for the future of the world.

John Searle-Barnes