The A level group prepared for their field trip to the Derbyshire Peak District with a faint sense of loss. When the trip was planned there were thirteen geographers, but by the time we left there were eight! The others had decided that their best interest lay in other areas. The last member of the team to “miss the bus” withdrew on the day before departure! Despite (or maybe as a result of) this rather downbeat start the trip was a fantastic success. Both members of staff agreed that the group though small was the most mature and

None of the students felt that they could endure four hours of maximum volume speed garage music so we just filled his car with bags. On arrival at Eyam Youth Hostel we found that no other school or college was staying so we had the whole house to ourselves. No queuing for breakfast! The food was excellent even after the hostel manager was helicoptered to hospital with two broken legs after falling from Stanage Edge, whilst climbing.

The weather was dry, but cool enough to encourage the wearing of the traditional bright yellow waterproof suits. The River Derwent was relatively low and we were able to spend the day timing the progress of soggy dog biscuits without filling our Wellingtons with cold water. The peat bog on Hallam Moor was also very dry which meant disappointingly few opportunities for sixth formers to sink up to the thigh in sloppy mud.

Some of the most memorable moments of the week were spent sitting in the cold damp grass of a roadside verge listening to anti-quarry protestor Joyce Critchlow, Doctor of Theology and vicar of Kingsteighton. She was a fearsome woman with the larger than life fascination of a Dickens character. We felt sorry for the large multi-national company that had been foolish enough to take her on.

On the last morning we visited the Blue John Mine near Castleton. Our guide, a miner with aspirations to alternative comedy, delighted in pointing out tiny holes and tunnels into which the public did not go but in which he and his colleagues spent many happy hours, “up to their waists in wet clay”As always, this trip was a great learning experience. It is essential in enabling students to succeed in the practical module of the A2 examination