September 2010

HISTORY TRIP TO THE SOMME

by Claire Bell Year 12

After what seemed like an eternity, the 10^th of September had arrived.  The day marked on all our calendars with thick red pen - the day of our school History trip.

We scraped up every moment of sleep we could possibly grasp before the dreaded rising at 1 o’clock in the morning. The persistent beep of the alarm clock seemed dramatically out of place at a time when we should be soundly sleeping. Nevertheless, all twenty-eight of us, plus the drowsy teachers, managed to catch the bus parked outside dark, deserted PortadownCollege. We were now seven hours away from arriving in the third of four countries we would be travelling through throughout the next day - Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland, Belgium and France. And even though this group of teenagers was a little sleep-deprived, we were still eager to commence on what we thought was a holiday – but, ironically, turned out to be one of the most profound, life- changing trips of our lives.

After a whole lot of sleeping, eating, laughing and singing, many hours of travelling passed and we eventually arrived in Belgium. We were on the road for around four hours, setting off for Vimy Ridge Canadian memorial in France.  On the way, we could already see the vast amount of white stone crosses becoming prominent among the distant stretch of green. Little did we know, this war grave would only be a grain out of many, many more to find- it was just a quick glimpse of the sleeping soldiers and only the beginning of our realisation of the sacrifice, heroism and death due to one war.                             

At the Vimy Ridge memorial, we could soon see the perturbing signs boldly stating “Warning: Unexploded shells may be around this area” and since anything could trigger them, I think I had never walked so cautiously in my whole life! Here we got our first look at a dug-out World War One trench that had been authentically rebuilt. Unfortunately, the original was long demolished by time, but the gigantic craters in the ground caused by shells were still evident and astoundingly real.

We got an amazing insight into the bloody Battle of Vimy Ridge, to a point where you were virtually there - right in the middle of the atrocity of 93 years ago. You could almost see the soldiers living and dying before your eyes; the pungent smell of mud and rotting bodies, the penetrating bangs of explosives from every side.  Lastly, we took the long walk up to the memorial - twin, white pylons 30 metres in height. Altogether, 11,169 valiant names are neatly, painstakingly inscribed - the lost who have no known grave. It was an emotional experience and one which stayed with us on the journey to our accommodation for a long, deserved sleep.                                          

It was a new day- another early rise to the busiest day of our trip. Our first stop was Talbot House in Belgium, not just an accommodation but a home for the soldiers to stay in during the First World War as well as the World War Two. Even though the house was furnished the way you’d expect with period chairs, tables and beds, there was a great sense of amazement that soldiers actually sat on those chairs, ate at those tables and slept in those beds. I could also gather a sense of humour from the house, with framed verses decorating the walls and bearing such words as:  “If you are in habit of spitting on the carpet, please spit here.”  At the very top, there was a small church room - a sacred place offering comfort to the soldiers in a world of terror and unthinkable cruelty.  In this room, we played the old organ, sang a joyful hymn tune and then left.

Later on that day, we went to Ypres in Belgium to visit the In Flanders Field Museum. Here, there was an explosion of information to absorb through videos and diagrams describing many battles of the Great War, personal experiences from soldiers, the conditions and the aftermath. But also the touching and beautiful moments of the Christmas truce in 1914 where the Germans and British exchanged gifts and sang together which I found particularly moving. This truce showed the sense of friendship without enemies or weapons or death - soldiers without blood stains, a horizon without heavy smoke. It portrayed innocent human nature, not knowing what the fighting was for, but longing for it to stop. Unfortunately, the truce had to end. One display at the end of the museum summed up the entire war- “It achieved little but loss.”                                                          

After a poignant visit to this museum we travelled to Tyne-CotCemetery - one of the largest war grave cemeteries containing almost 12,000 soldiers and 101 unknown burials. Around a staggering 8,000 of the grave stones were marked:  “A soldier of the Great War” with no name. Looking from stone to stone as I walked row by row, I could get a clearer understanding of how many lives were stolen from just one year in one area. I couldn’t help but feel frustration on behalf of the naïve, young men led to their death in a war that should never have happened. A thick wall guarded the sleeping soldiers - this wall had the names of the missing.                                    

 That night, we went back to Ypres to observe the memorial service under the Menin Gate that takes place every night without fail. Back home we have a service just once a year which made me realise how dedicated  these people must be to pay back what they could to our heroes and be adamant that they were never, ever forgotten. The service lasted a while, and even though I couldn’t see much due to the eager crowd in front, I can still remember the haunting melody from the brass band that played for several minutes before silence…                                                                                                                              

 Next on the agenda was a visit to the UlsterTower where we were given a tour of the trenches where some of our relatives fought and died in the battle of the Somme. The magnificent tower was symbolic for Northern Ireland and our group had a special and emotional service in it to remember the courageous souls who never returned home to our country. We visited many more war graves this day, each one appearing so similar to the next but having very different individuals lying under each white stone. However, some had inscriptions without a body and others had a soldier that bore no name.

I find it hard to believe that under this field and others where they had fallen, were people who lived, laughed, loved like you and me. I think of their personality, who they knew and who they left behind.                            

After five days, the History trip had come to an end- it didn’t seem long enough! Now we could go home and after this incredible experience hopefully never forget all those who gave their lives during the Great War.

 PORTADOWN COLLEGE GERMAN TRIP

A group of Portadown College students recently enjoyed an educational visit to Berlin.  On arrival, they were accompanied by their guide, Angelika, to places which were of particular interest to students of German: Checkpoint Charlie, the Brandenburg Gate and the Reichstag, the seat of German Government.

On the second day, the students experienced the U-Bahn on their way to the Olympic Stadium, built for the famous Games of 1936.  The students’ appreciation of the history of Berlin was further augmented by a trip to one of the main museums where they saw, amongst other items, a bunker built to withstand an atomic bomb.  One of the main testimonies to the darkest aspect of German history in the twentieth century, the former Nazi labour camp at Sachsenhausen, was the main focus of the third day.  This gave students an invaluable insight into misery inflicted by humans on each other and the danger of political ideologies. 

The College students also visited a ‘living history’ museum where they experienced a sense of how life was under Communist surveillance before the fall of the Berlin Wall.

The pupils, accompanied by their teachers Mr Andrews and Mrs Nelson, were fortunate to experience a visit to places which brought to life the broad sweep of European twentieth century history.  The distorted ideals demonstrated in the Olympic Stadium in 1936 were just one factor which led to the Nazi labour camps and, ultimately, the division of Berlin exemplified by Checkpoint Charlie.  The remnants of the former regime meant that they could also freely enjoy the city as tourists and experience the shops and restaurants in their free time. 

VICTIMS OF HUMAN DEPRAVITY GIVEN A HUMAN FACE AS COLLEGE STUDENTS MEET HOLOCAUST SURVIVOR AT AUSCHWITZ

A group of A level Religious Studies from PortadownCollege recently confronted the remnants of mass genocide and the worst of human depravity on a trip to Eastern Europe.  The students were visiting Krakow and Auschwitz in order to examine, in tangible form, philosophical questions about the co-existence of evil and an all-loving God.

On their return, some of the students spoke to a captivated audience in Assembly when they described their experiences and the profound impact which visiting a Nazi death camp had on their collective and individual consciousnesses.

The trip to Poland allowed the sixth-formers to experience a new culture and they were very grateful to have Weronika Janson from Year 11 as their guide and interpreter.  They enjoyed the architecture and varied culture of Krakow, their main base, and the reality of the Jewish experience became clear when they toured the Jewish Quarter from where the first Jews were taken to Auschwitz.  In the evening, the students enjoyed traditional entertainment at a Jewish restaurant which had been visited by Stephen Spielberg when he was making Schindler’s List which was filmed nearby.

The students spent a day at Auschwitz and were very privileged to meet a Holocaust survivor, Mr Shmolin, who had designed the museum.  They benefited from hearing about his experiences first-hand and they were able to experience vicariously how he was arrested at eighteen because he was part of the resistance movement against the Nazis and how he did not see his mother for another four years.  On his first day at Auschwitz, he was made to stand absolutely still in the baking sun for the entire day as a precaution against potential escape.  Mr Schmolin believed that his job registering new prisoners saved his life.

For young people to hear first-hand accounts of such a significant aspect of world history was an amazing experience and one which will be impossible in years to come.  Mr Schmolin described his most vivid memory of the screams as families, children and friends were separated and people’s sense of the ultimate betrayal as they realised that they were not there for the better life which they had been promised by their captors.

Mr Schmolin studied to be a lawyer and was later involved in the trials which led to the conviction of many of the Nazi soldiers who had previously tortured him and others.

The College students visited the museum and they found it profoundly moving.  History was brought to life in the most macabre way as they saw rooms filled from wall to wall with people’s shoes, glasses, kitchen utensils and suitcases with names on them.  They struggled with the horrific sight of a room full of human hair, cut from the heads of about 140 000 victims, which the Nazis used to make rough fabric.  A visit inside one of the gas chambers was also part of the experience.  At the second camp, Birkenau, the scale of the “final solution” became all too obvious as there were workhouses as far as the eyes could see in all directions.  One of the students commented that when you step into Birkenau “you step out into a very strange atmosphere with no birds singing, no flowers and it is as if all the colour has been drained out of the world.  The sensation of being somewhere where the sadness is almost suffocating will stay with me forever”.

The staff who organised and led the trip, Mrs D Speers and Mr D Wright, must be commended for giving these teenagers such a valuable experience.  Through listening to a survivor of the Holocaust, history was brought to life in the most dramatic way: facts and figures became real people and faces.  In addition to experiencing the diverse culture of the city, they witnessed what is left of the depths of human depravity and the ease with which a society was led into the darkness of human morality by a dictatorship.

The students found the experience very rewarding and they certainly inspired their audience. Their understanding of heinous human behaviour was reinforced and they expressed not only a renewed appreciation of their own experiences, but a sense of collective responsibility for the decisions of society and the direction which it takes.

As a reminder of this, it was a sobering thought that the Principal, Mr Harper, briefly related his own experiences of visiting a museum dedicated to the genocide in Rwanda in more recent times.   

CAMBRIDGE TRIP

Having not really known what to expect when we arrived, our doubts were instantly erased, as along with 40 other students from schools across Northern Ireland we were warmly welcomed by several undergraduate students, college lecturers and fellows. With temperatures during our stay reaching 29ºC, in the hottest week of the year, our exploration of the enchanting city felt like we were walking the cobbled streets of an Italian town, yet an unmistakable and omnipresent sense of wisdom and learning pervaded the world-renowned English city. As well as Corpus Christi we also got to see most of the other 30 Cambridge colleges, and had several notable experiences including a punt in the river Cam. A ‘high table dinner’ in the magnificent ‘Hogwarts-styled’ dining hall and a ‘Quiz Night’ were amongst the many highlights of our experience; and the friendships formed between students from across the country made for a memorable and fun trip. 

However it was the subject sessions that were the primary focus of our stay, splitting into five groups corresponding to what we actually wanted to read at university. I was I in the Medicine group, and for two days had the pleasure of learning from a world-leading expert. Mentally challenged to a new level, the intensity and sheer detail involved in understanding a second year, eight-week topic in such a short space of time was exhausting, yet immensely rewarding. To complete the process, we also had to make a presentation to the other subject groups and teachers in the Lecture Theatre adjoining the pub ‘Watson and Crick’ first announced their double helix structure of DNA, a fitting finale to a demanding and stimulating few days.

The Corpus Christi initiative was an enlightening occurrence that not only affirmed my passion for studying medicine, but provided coveted reassurance regarding the daunting unknown that to most prospective undergraduates is Oxbridge, and indeed ‘university’ as a whole. Essentially it was an entirely invaluable, exciting and exceptionally enjoyable experience.  

Rachel Calvin

PC students with other visitors to an open day at Cambridge University in July 2009.

WORLD CHALLENGE JOURNEY TO PERU

- written in collaboration with Alanah Heyburn

This summer a group of students from PortadownCollege, led by Mr R Hunter, undertook an expedition to Peru with World Challenge who were represented on the venture by leader Carolyn Smith. World Challenge is an educational organisation which aims to help young people to develop by taking them out of their comfort zones and making them more aware of their strengths and weaknesses as they engage in a series of mental and physical challenges. The main focus of the trip was to undertake projects to help the local community in a poverty-stricken, rural part of Peru and they were joined on their four week venture by six students from Boroughbridge in North Yorkshire.

After a year of doing their own fund-raising with the help of friends, family and school, the Portadown students finally made the journey to Lima on 9^th July.  The  onward journey into the countryside provided the students with their first experience of the poverty and dusty environment of rustic Peru which contrasted starkly with the city of Lima.  The community which the Portadown students were going to help consisted of only a handful of people and most of them turned out to greet their visitors at the school which was to be their base for the next week. 

The students found it difficult to acclimatise as they were at an altitude of just over 3000 metres and even simple things like getting water from the well and climbing up and down the hill literally took their breath away.  A few of the students spoke Spanish and were able to teach the locals some English.  The others interacted by playing games, drawing, making bracelets and playing football.

Project

The main aims of the project were to build a pier down at the lake, improve the school buildings and interact with the locals.  The pier was not a traditional structure but involved hurling boulders into the water until the pile became tall and steady enough for people to walk on.  This proved to be a very challenging task at such high altitude.  The purpose of the pier was to enable the locals to trade with other communities on the lake and the College students felt that the inhabitants could not have completed the task without their help. The locals blessed their new pier in a traditional ceremony, giving their visitors a privileged insight into traditional Peruvian culture.

In the very run-down school the girls sanded down the walls and painted a mural in the library.  The boys got busy making three doors for the toilet block, a job that was well appreciated afterwards! According to one of the students, “The new doors and the colourful mural really lifted the appearance of the building; the locals couldn’t get over the change it made.”   The hosts were really grateful and had gone to a lot of trouble to welcome their guests who thanked them with colourful posters and books for their newly painted library.  In addition to this they gave a donation of money which would turn the kitchen of two benches in a dusty room into a brand new, fully equipped kitchen.

The pupils found it challenging to adapt to aspects of  a totally new culture such as ‘Peruvian time’ – a lack of attention to time which was welcomed by young people whose lives had recently been so dominated by bells and deadlines.  They also experienced the “nightmare” of Peruvian transport in the cities of Cusco and Arequipa, with no traffic lights, road markings or signs.  Elsewhere they were amused by the ubiquitous presence of llamas, even in the towns. 

Another exciting aspect of the World Challenge experience was the treks which often brought them past intriguing Inca ruins.  These treks were hard work in the heat and at altitude but the outstanding scenery of the stunning AndesMountains was more than enough compensation.  On the main trek they followed a river up a valley and found themselves surrounded by awe-inspiring snow-capped peaks rising up to over 5000 metres.

The students tried white water rafting before setting off on the long journey home and there were emotional scenes at ManchesterAirport as they said goodbye to their co-travellers from Boroughbridge who had been their constant companions for the previous four weeks.  As one of the Portadown students put it: “Definitely lifelong friends.”  The challenges which they had faced collectively had made them into a strong team; they had bonded very quickly and got along brilliantly for the whole expedition.

One aspect of the World Challenge ethos is to take young people out of their comfort zones and make them face a challenge.  It was a shock and very humbling for the PortadownCollege students to live amongst people who are “scarily poor” with none of the luxuries we take for granted.  It was perhaps more surprising to see how these people lived so contentedly in conditions we would find it hard to imagine.  The pupils packed in an amazing amount of travelling and activities in four weeks and felt that it exceeded their expectations and more than lived up to the ambitious ethos of World Challenge.  The experiences, friendships and opportunity to “soak up a country in every way possible” were described as “brilliant” by the students.

ROME

The History students who went to Rome in September.

A group of twenty-two students and three teachers from PortadownCollege recently set off on the History/Politics trip to the beautiful city of Rome, fully bedecked in “Tudor T-shirts” depicting their favourite characters from their study of Tudor history.  The trip was a real opportunity for the pupils not only to immerse themselves in Italian culture but also to indulge in, and get first hand experience of, a real mixture of ancient and modern history.

The itinerary was busy and intensive, with visits to the Colosseum, the Vatican City, the Catacombs, the Spanish Steps, the Cistine Chapel and the Trevi Fountain being a few of the many highlights.  To see these celebrated, historical monuments was an amazing and humbling experience for the students and they were particularly interested in Michelangelo’s masterpiece on the ceiling of the Cistine Chapel.  The Colosseum invoked images of Russell Crowe in Gladiator and the Catacombs brought home how difficult life would have been for the early Christians in Rome.  Apart from visiting these main tourist sites, the group also dipped into other parts of Italian culture, attending an extremely entertaining opera dinner evening and having the opportunity to taste a wide range of Italian cuisine, particularly the countless flavours of ice-cream.

The trip was a very enjoyable and educational experience, with many highlights and memorable moments including the awards given out to pupils on the last night.  Examples of these were Laura Stevenson’s award for ‘blonde’ of the trip and Michael Abraham’s achievements in the field of international relations.  There were also many amusing and memorable quotations such as Matthew Hewitt asking if the Colosseum was inside or outside!

Thanks must go to the three teachers who organised the trip and made it a once in a lifetime experience.  The students are also to be commended for their excellent behaviour.  Hopefully, having thrown coins into the Trevi fountain, the pupils and teachers of the Portadown College History/Politics Trip ’09 will one day return to the “Eternal City” and relive this unforgettable trip.

Victoria Biscomb

  History students outside the Colosseum in Rome.