Four in trouble on the Common

From Alex Campbell.

Each "Field Day" the whole school [Charterhouse] would usually go off and do a day or weekend's trip outside the school as part of an extended extra-curricular activity. Chris and I were in the Scouts and formed an expedition group with two others, Oli Smith and Guy Parry-Williams. The plan was simple enough - venture scouts would split up into groups of four, navigate a pre-arranged route through the countryside, camp out in tents overnight and return to the school the following day.

Our group decided that we needed to camp somewhere near a pub so we could go drinking during the overnight camping evening. We ended up in Binscombe and chose to camp on either National Trust land (which was prohibited) or some Army training site (which was also prohibited) - I cannot remember which.

After woofing down some baked beans, we went off to the pub and spent the evening drinking Lowenbrau and chain smoking cigarettes. It was impressive that we got served as we were only about 15 years old. For some reason, we had attracted the attention of some local youths. I distinctly remember at the end of the evening that we had to run away from the pub, completely wasted, whilst being chased by locals, in the pitch dark back to our tent hidden on some common land. We fortunately made it in one piece and returned back to Charterhouse the next day with huge hangovers. Our Field trip had been a lot more interesting than anyone else's!