Letters Home from Camp

Cat on camp

Issue 6

Dear mum
Cindy has brought her cat on camp and Skip doesn't know. Last night she fed it with the leftovers from our chilli con carney and it was sick in our tent. Now Cindy's been sent to the sick bay and the cat has run away.
Love from Richard

Beer in the mess tent fridge

Issue 5

Hi mum
You'll never guess what?! [Leader] keeps his beer in the mess tent fridge so that it's cold but this means that our juice isn't so today we swapped them over. We were going to swap contents but in the end Steven drank two of the bottles of beer and refilled them with orange juice but then he started acting all funny and called [leader] a dick and he's had to go and sit in his tent but I bet that he's lying down.
Love Freddie

[The Germans] don't have roads, they have farts.

Issue 4

Hi mum and dad

We've met some scouts and they're from Germany. They don't have roads they have farts. We (not me, Eric) told them that in English a fart is a fart and made a fart noise. When we had our off-site day we went on a coach to London and when we were on the motorway one of the Germans said, "This is a big fart!" and everyone laughed but Judy, who was sitting next to him, couldn't tell him off cos she knew it was a road and the German didn't know what he was saying but he did know. A fart in German is a forts so we can now say, "Oh dear I have now fortsed" and no one will tell us off so be warned for when I get back home.

I love camp and meeting new people and learning new words. I can now say fart in five different languages. In Swedish fart means speedy so on the way back from London on the motorway Astrid said that we are now on a fart fart and we all laughed. Except Judy.

Love from Alan

Dear mum and dad

Andy has made me write a letter even though I told him that you had gone to New York. He asked me what would I do if I was taken really ill and I had to go home as he couldn't send me home with no one to look after me. I told him that he was the scout leader not me and so it was his problem and now I fancy being ill just to find out but I won't be very ill just a little bit so that only one of you has to come home. I just realised that you won't read this until you get home anyway but at least you'll know the reason if it wasn't planned.

Love from Hazel

You were right! Silver birch bark does burn well!

Issue 3

Dear dad

You were right! Silver birch bark does burn well! We found some on our hike and brought it back. We're not allowed to have open fires apart from gas but we thought it would be okay in our tent so when we went to bed we borrowed some matches from Phil to light the hob but we just kept them and he didn't ask for them back. We lit the biggest bit and it was flaming like it was going so mad. Fortunately Damian's plate wasn't plastic so we dropped it on his plate but we couldn't put it out and soon the tent was full and I mean FULL of smoke but we couldn't undo it cos someone would see a smoke signal and think that we were in distress. Well we were but we all got in our sleeping bags and there was no smoke down low and no one dared lift their head up and we stayed like that until this morning and I have only burnt a small bit of my new sleeping bag and you would rather that than I died of asfixiation.

Love Glenn

Dear gran

Happy birthday! I hope you've had loads of presents. If you have been given money and you don't need all of it could you please send some to me? I've learnt a new game called pontoon but it's been quite expensive and now I have nothing left and mummy said that she expected me to bring some money home unless there was an emergency and I don't think pontoon is an emergency, probably an addiction. Love from Luke

Please pick me up a day early

Issue 2

Dear mummy

Please pick me up a day early. On the first night Tim couldn't get to sleep because our tent has a huge lump of random wood under the groundsheet and it's right where Tim sleeps so he was very uncomfortable as you can imagine. Yesterday evening he decided to investigate. We were going to move the ground sheet but it's sewn in so Tim decided to cut a big slit in the sheet and pull the lump of wood up then duck tape it back and he said no one would find out if no one told [scout leader] which of course we wouldn't. He said that if he duct taped the inside no one would know because no grown-up comes in the tent.

So this morning he cut a long slit but unfortunately he soon discovered that it's not some piece of random wood it's a tree root from I've no idea where because there aren't any trees that close. He then thought that if he cut out a large square of groundsheet he could dig out the root with his penknife and then duct tape the square, well two rectangles actually because of the slit he had already made but it wasn't that easy to dig with a penknife and so we were soon all at it but then we had breakfast and activities and [scout leader] made us all go and have showers BEFORE breakfast because we had got so muddy. Now we have had ANOTHER shower and our tent is like a mud fest and Tim has lost the ground sheet patch and no one knows where the duct tape is and no one's going to ask [scout leader] and tonight Tim's going to be sleeping on top of a root with a hole and no insulation and [scout leader] will be watching the tents coming down on Saturday that's why I need picking up on Friday.

Thank you.

Dan

The choice of film is so important.

Issue 1

Dear mum

On Sunday for a treat we were allowed to watch a film. We were inside which was fun. We watched an old film that was called "The Great Escape" about some men escaping from a camp. I don't know why they couldn't just've walked out but Freddie said that we couldn't just walk out of our camp. Then he said that maybe we should try to escape. He got hold of a shovel from the mess tent. David [leader] said it was a toilet shovel for emergencies. We couldn't dig in the hut because it had a concrete floor and the leaders were in the bedrooms so we thought they might hear. We thought we could just dig in the field but then we would be seen then we thought of the woods but it was a bit scary so Freddie said we should start in our tent and then we could dig down and then go sideways under the fence. It was only about fifty yards because we measured it with paces and Freddie said that it wouldn't take long. In the film the men got rid of the earth by putting it in their trouser pockets and then emptying it down their trousers. On Monday night we were awake for hours and we took it in turns to dig and we dug a hole in the middle of the tent but first we had to make a hole in the ground sheet. We dug so much all our pockets were full up and we had nowhere else to put the earth and it was quite wet so David asked us in the morning why we were wearing dirty clothes but we didn't say. Then on Tuesday night we dug some more and we filled our rucksacks with the earth and Freddie could stand in the hole and he disappeared up to his waist then he found a branch or something so he attacked it with the other end of the shovel that had a pickaxe bit on it then there was a hiss and then water came spurting up like a fountain only in our tent and not outside like at Trafalgar Square and we put our coats on but it was like being in a shower only the water was coming up and down instead of just down and in the end we had to go and wake David but we're not in trouble because the hole had filled up with mud so no one else knows except you and we're now in a new tent but further from the road so there's no chance of escape now and I think I may need a new sleeping bag. And a rucksack. Sorry.

Love George xxx

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