022 - Chapter 22:

(Illustrations: activities at the camp:)

Bellingham International Camp was a superb holiday for students to meet with other students of a similar age, not only with dances and sport, but also through social events and excursions. We were expected to make our own entertainment, and were encouraged to do so.

Each dormitory housed students of different nationalities, and conversation flowed effortlessly between them, even though we all spoke different languages. In fact, English spoken by some foreign students, was often more easily understood than some of our own students, who spoke with strong Geordie dialects! (Bedlington and Ashington in particular.)

There was a television in each dormitory, but no-one switched it on and there were no mobile phones to distract us. There was a volleyball court, a tennis court, a football pitch and a freezing outdoor swimming pool., that's all, but there was so much to do.

Students were able to take a short walk into the village of Bellingham in their free time, where they could meet over a cup of coffee and chat in Rod’s Café. There was a pub there, but students knew this was out of bounds, drinking was not allowed.

There was a lovely rapport between the townspeople and those in the camp, and the town provided a football team to challenge our international team each year. Before the camp came to a close, we provided entertainment for them in their village concert hall, and David Featonby organised this too.

We first performed our concert in camp though on the second Wednesday, allowing time for a few rehearsals beforehand. Members of Northumberland Education committee were guests that day.

David gathered together musicians who could sing and play instruments, and we met in the concert hall to rehearse, preparing songs to perform together in groups, as well as separately.

Stu Luckley and I, along with Elaine Wilson and her brother Edgar got together as one of these groups.The camp concerts were always a great success and great fun to prepare for.

Each country also put together short sketches, which were hilarious, even more so in the rehearsal stage. Benny Hill and Dave Allen couldn’t have done a better job.

Bent Onsager, the Norwegian leader, came up with a Norwegian dance each year for the concert, telling us, in all seriousness, which century it came from, but it is thought that he simply invented the dances himself. His party also sang a drinking song, which cropped up every year and everyone in the camp was keen to learn it: It began, ‘De var en googleman bunderman?’ Even the villagers knew that song off by heart, they’d heard it so often!

David also organised community singing, with songs like ‘She’ll be coming round the mountain’ but one or two songs like ‘Oh Sir Jasper do not touch me’, were quite risqué, yet we all found them hilarious at the time. Some of these songs were part of the concert too.

Throughout those sunny days of the camp, students could be found sitting on the lawn, relaxing in small groups everywhere, chatting and singing with guitars. What a great atmosphere it was, an absolute joy to look back on as I write.

Some of our boys from Northumberland decided very early that first week, that they wanted to learn a swearword in a foreign language, so they approached their Norwegian friends for a really crude and offensive word. The Norwegians were rather reluctant to tell them one, but having consulted with each other in their own language, they finally came up with the word, ‘Oppvaskluut!’

pronounced ‘opp vas cloot’!

Please don’t you repeat this word either!

These boys were told not to say it too loud around the camp, as it was a very bad word, and especially not in front of the Norwegian staff!

Well of course it was one of the most frequently used words that holiday, there was no social media then to check it out, but by the end of the camp our boys found out that they’d been had!

Oppvaskluut is the word for a ‘dishcloth’, so the laugh was on them!

The camp provided three coach trips, so that our friends from abroad could see local ‘places of beauty’ and of historical interest. We visited Alnwick and Bamburgh. (Some of the German students had never seen the sea, until they journeyed to England)

There was a trip to Edinburgh, and later to Bowness and Keswick, to show our foreign visitors our lakes and mountains. (There may even have been some of our own students who’d never visited the Lake District before!) The Norwegians were highly amused that we called them mountains, these were mere ‘hills’ compared with their mountains.

One French boy, whose nickname was ‘Le Mouton’, (the sheep), who wore a sheepskin coat much of the time, was forever getting into trouble with WAB for breaking the rules. On one trip this boy kept us all waiting by turning up late for our coach, sauntering in as if tomorrow would do.

We overheard WAB admonishing him fluently in French, and I was well impressed!

Bobby and I climbed the hill beyond the camp, and sat gazing at the entire camp one day. Unbeknown to us, WAB had his binoculars trained on us, keeping an eye on us! We sat for ages, simply chatting, looking out at the camp below us.

There were two very sweet Belgian leaders that year; a couple who were married, and they were very popular with everyone. They had separate dormitories in order to supervise their students, and one morning, as Bobby and I passed by, we greeted them outside of his dormitory. We asked politely if they had had their breakfast.

The husband replied in a beautiful broken English, “Mais non, we live on love and fresh wat-er!”

The highlight of the camp was the camp ‘Sports Day’, a day that visitors could come along and join in the fun, and Bobby was in charge of it.

It was held in the field behind the outdoor swimming pool. It wasn’t exactly an Olympic event, more a silly sports day with colourful wacky races such as the egg and spoon race, the sack race, clothes race, the chariot race, the Viking raid, a welly tossing event, and finally the greasy pole! For this, a flagpole was stretched out on top of two boxes; and two opponents sat astride the pole, armed with pillows. Only boys participated, not girls.

Big Tom, from Norway, their version of ‘Goliath’, remained unseated on the pole throughout this contest, victorious! No-one could knock him off the pole. Our boys, one at a time, had tried their best, they kept falling, but he sat firmly ensconced on the pole.

But it isn’t only brawn that wins a competition of this kind, you need brains as well, and the right technique. The boys all called for Bobby to take a turn, and I was proud to see him step forward. Being a leader he was actually taking the risk of being floored by the Viking, and perhaps losing face in front of everyone.

Big Tom swung his pillow hard, Bobby dodged it, and hit back. The momentum of his swing brought Tom off his balance! Down ‘Goliath’ came within seconds and everyone cheered!  The historic raids of the Vikings, whose ancestors raided our North-East coastal towns a long time ago, finally had their comeuppance! We had our revenge!

A fancy-dress show and dance followed the sports event later that day. We all had to be quite resourceful in order to come up with ideas for costumes, when there was so little material or equipment. But there were some fantastic creations around. I’m sure someone dressed up as a flying pig? Three Norwegian boys came as a wedding party; husband, wife and bridesmaid.

I went as Nell Gwynn, what on earth was I thinking of dressing like that? Besides, foreign students wouldn’t have even known who Nell Gwynn was!

The first half of the dance was given over to a costume parade. We all had to walk around the hall in a large circle, so that the judges could decide who had won.

Afterwards we all flew over to the dormitories to change for the rest of the evening.

I was so happy, what a wonderful holiday it was turning out to be.

On Sunday evening of the second week, there was one final dance in the concert hall, before the camp closed down.

I was fortunate, as I would be seeing Bobby when we got home; we only lived only a couple of miles away from each other, but many of the students were extremely upset. They had formed excellent friendships; and one or two couples had also fallen head over heels in love with each other! The final song was, ‘What becomes of the broken hearted?’ Who was rubbing salt in the wounds there?

On the Monday, when the coaches arrived, quite a few of the students were distraught.

They all knew that it was hardly likely they would ever see their friends again. So parting that day was not easy. But, as was the intention, camaraderie between the nations had been achieved!

Many couples who met at the camp remained good friends over the years, and some got married. Bob met  Svein Kristoffersen, a Norwegian, at an earlier camp, who later became a leader too. He remains our close friend to this day.

As the German bus began to pull away in their bus, I could clearly see the face of one young blond boy, sobbing his heart out and wiping his face with a handkerchief. His English girlfriend was inconsolable too, as she watched his bus pull away, and disappear round the corner. Then it was the turn of the French coach to pull away, followed by the Belgian coach, and there were even more tears. It was so sad. Then it was our turn to leave, and we all said our goodbyes promising to meet up some time in the future.

But there was one more night’s grace. As the Norwegian ferry didn’t depart from North Shields until the Tuesday, so the Vikings were given a taste of Northumbrian hospitality, for one night only, in the homes of their new found friends.

When we got home Bobby came with me to visit my dad, who was in hospital. I was so proud to introduce them to each other. I had already been to see dad once when I was at the camp; Roy Todd had kindly driven me all the way there and back.

I got to see a lot more of Bobby Hamil that holiday, the summer of 68, before I went to teacher training college.  Then it was my turn to take my leave, and cry.