Memory Lane 10

The "real" first trip to the Soviet Union.....In 1966 St Nick's started an O Level Course in Russian supported by the authorities in an attempt to encourage contacts between east and west. Twelve boys from St Nicks started the course, but it was rapidly whittled down to a handful. The teacher was Mr Emmans and he taught the diminishing group throughout the 1966/7 school year. Sadly he left after the first year, leaving the remaining bunch teacherless as no-one else on the staff spoke Russian. The answer was to send the remaining interested pupils to St Mary's where we joined the girls' class taken by Miss Betty Belton, a delightful teacher who managed to propel and encourage our interest throughout the whole second year up to the O Level exam. I well remember those trips, several times a week, across the great divide between the 2 schools much to the envy of many of my classmates.

At St Mary's, she organised lunch time "Russian Club" where all sorts of activities went on, and as pupils from beyond the divide, we were always made welcome.

There was an all-England trip to the USSR planned for the summer of 1969 which Betty Belton encouraged us to go on, and we duly set off on an overland coach trip to Lvov and Kiev and had an amazing and adventurous journey along the way, including being turned away from Prague on the first anniversary of the Soviet Invasion of Czechoslovakia.

They were good days, and the trip itself is another story, but you will forgive me if I claim the 1969 trip as the "First Trip to the USSR".

Mike Pipe. (1962-9).