This year marks the anniversary of David Dunn’s boarding at the SS Nevasa from Sunderland.
Today, David kindly shared his memories in Tenerife, Casablanca, Madeira and Lisbon with Echo readers.
David, now 64, said: “I was 14 at the time and I was at Barnes Senior School. My parents paid 60 euros because they gave us a discount to come from a giant family.”
David recalled that he had been dizzy in the Bay of Biscay and added: “A nurse presented me with a bun and a tablet, which is strange.
He later discovered that eating bread and taking the pill did wonders. The finest main points are the most productive if not explained!
David also recalled some other incident that happened during the holidays and it was a joke they made to one of the teachers.
“The bedroom we were in made a joke to our instructor by hitting a bucket of water in the arch of the front door, so that when the door opened, it would lead to soaking the instructor.
The joke failed, as David explained.
“We were punished through the captain of the ship through ourselves in the garage closet.”
The bloodless punishment caused the boys to be sent back to their dorms “with doubts about our movements from there.”
A wonderful sight for many of the boys was a stopover at the Benfica football stadium in Lisbon and David said: “At our age, it was a day.”
David still remembers a local market in Casablanca and said: “I went to buy an orange and gave the stand holder the equivalent of about 10 pence that, in my house, would have been given you about two oranges.
“It started with a carrying bag and when he discovered one, he filled it with about 20 oranges.”
He also recalled “having to stay our Americans from the school to identify us and in Tenerife we almost melted in the heat”.
David’s memories also included a trip to Teide, a volcano in Tenerife.
What are your memories of the school in Sunderland? Have you boarded one of the educational boats or been to one of Sunderland’s summer camps?
Have you recorded a video of your absence and would like to share it with our readers? If that’s the case, we’d be very happy to hear it.
And to remind you of school travel reports, here’s a sampling of what our readers have already said about your school trip.
They also told us all about them in summer camps like Middleton Camp.
Take a look and contact yours by emailing [email protected]