Nothing could match the joy of a young school child being let out of the classroom and allowed to experience the outside world.
School trips were a break from the drudgery of multiplication tables and tracing paper in the bathroom.
Here, we remember some of the most common school trips for Hampshire kids.
God's House Tower
This was home to the city's archaeology museum. As well as looking out of the windows and pretending to shoot people with your imaginary arrow, a common task was to draw some of the artefacts. If you were lucky you were allowed to handle a piece of a Roman wine jug or such thing, usually pretending to your friends that you were about to drop it, just to wind your teacher up. The building is now empty, although there is talk of it being used as an arts space.
Maritime Museum
In the Wool House until the Sea City Museum, this had a massive 3D model of Southampton at the rear. It always looked slightly odd - until you realised it was Southampton in the 1930s.Upstairs there was a massive model of the Queen Mary - which everyone said was the Titanic. The Wool House is now planned to become a traditional brewery and pub.
InTech
Lots of science things going on here at the King's School in Winchester, but invariably the main thing any child remembers was the chance to make their own badge featuring the InTech parrot on it. The charity run centre moved in 2002 to a much larger site including a planetarium. They sadly no longer have the badge machine.
Fishbourne Roman Palace
Located down near Chichester, was a great introduction to how posh people lived in Roman times, with a dazzling array of mosaics throughout the remnants of the place. On your way there, depending on how old you were, you may have even thought that Portsdown Hill was the White Cliffs of Dover, simply as you were so far away from home.
Historic Dockyard in Portsmouth
Boats and guns. The Victory made you stop and stare, even though as a child you were at risk of whacking your head on the low beams.The Mary Rose sounded amazing in class, so it was a bit of a surprise to find some damp bits of wood as you stood in the freezing cold. The Mary Rose is now no longer being hosed down and is housed in a museum which has been built around it.
Le Harve
Southampton's twin city in France, and scene of many a French exchange. YOu probably went on day trips to the picturesque Honfleur or bustling Rouen, or the massive Pont de Normandie, which no matter how you looked at it, was a bridge in the middle of nowhere. Meanwhile, the french kids got to see Marwell Zoo and the Tower of London. The ferry journey was long and unrelenting, but the excitement was almost too much when you were told to change the time on your Casio watch.
There's nothing like being made to stand in front of peers in a silly costume. At Tudor House, it was the dress as a Tudor merchant, as you imagined yourself as the sort of person who would have lived in a house like this. Like all Southampton museums, you were encourage to visit the shop, where you would invariably purchase an eraser shaped like a book. It closed for a number of years for multi-million pound project to protect the building and upgrade the exhibits.
Winchester Cathedral
You learnt about the deep-sea diver who saved the cathedral from the waters, Old Minster which was on the site beforehand and the legend of St Swithun and the 40 days of rain. None of these things you got to see when visiting.
Winchester Castle
King Arthur's legend offers so much - Excalibur, knights, a lady in the lake - you knew that going to see the Roundtable would be good. You probably weren't expecting what looked like an oversized dart board. That dartboard however is almost 800 years old.
Manor Farm Country Park
Animals, mud and fancy dress. Basically, an eight year old's dream. You'd be taken into the old Victorian farmhouse, dressed up like someone from the 19th century and made to experience the hardships of pre-industrial farm life. Then you'd be let loose to run around and draw stuff you found, from cows to staddle stones.
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