Snow stop for students
by Angela Cole
acole@thekmgroup.co.uk
While their counterparts were shivering at home in the snow last
week, schoolchildren from Maidstone were braving blizzard
conditions while on a school trip.
Almost 60 pupils and teachers from St Simon Stock RC School
in Oakwood Park, Maidtsone, were stranded in France when
temperatures of -10 hit and thick snow came down.
The 59 Year 10 students and six staff were on a trip to
northern France when the weather struck.
They had left Paris at 10am last Tuesday but at 7pm that
day, when they should have arrived back in the UK, they found
themselves marooned 120 miles south of Calais as police shut
the motorway due to a blizzard.
Luckily, they had ended up close to a service station, so were able
to use the toilets and shops, but many other drivers had to remain
in their cars.
At 1pm the folowing afternoon the police and Army cleared
the roads and reopened the motorway. The group arrived back 34
hours after they had set out.
A spokesman said: “Although tired, the students viewed it as quite
an adventure. The staff on the trip were praised for their
professionalism and care for the students.”
18/03/13
- Click here for more Maidstone news...
- Click here for more news from across the county...