Primary 4-7: Diary of a Trip to Tiree

A group of children from Arinagour Primary School went to Tiree last November to enable them to visit the Readiscovery Book Bus, a peripatetic reading initiative, which was on Tiree at the time. It was also a chance to make new friends on Tiree and to get to know a nearby island a little better. This very detailed diary is a combined effort by all the children - it is so detailed that I just wonder why they failed to mention that Lawrie Neil's Mum forgot to pack his pyjamas!

Tuesday November 3rd

We had to go to school early because we were going to Tiree. When we got to school we gave our bags to Miss Allan to put in the boot of the jeep. At quarter past nine we drove to the pier and waited for half an hour.

Then, when the boat came in we went on as foot passengers with John. Miss Allan had to reverse onto the boat (she made a pig's ear of it!). When we got on the boat Miss Allan bought us all breakfast: sausage and bacon rolls, tea and hot chocolate.

When we got to Tiree we all went to the Hynish Centre where we were staying whilst we were on Tiree. It's big and very nice inside. We drove to Tiree school. It is huge compared to here and there are a lot more children. We talked with the children in the Gaelic class, then it was time for lunch. In the lunch hall you could see roughly how many children there were in the school. Faye and Laura and Helena sat with some nice girls at lunch. After lunch we went out to play for a while and made more friends.

In the P6 and P7 class we talked with the teacher and the children about Coll and Tiree. Some of the children had come to Coll at the time of the Coll Show. There was a book bus called the 'Readiscovery Bus' which was why we went to Tiree. We went to look at the books on it.

There were lots and lots of different books by different authors. We bought some for the school and some for ourselves.

When we had all said goodbye we drove back to the Hynish centre to meet the author Frank Rodgers. He writes and illustrates books for children. He showed us how to draw cartoon characters, told us a bit about himself and read us one of his stories, 'The Gorilla Granny'.

Frank Rodgers had flown on the plane and was staying at a Bed and Breakfast, so John dropped him off. At about six o'clock we had tea: sausages, beans and chips.

We went for a walk to the end of the pier and onto the beach. Then we went inside and watched TV and played some games. Miss Allan told us a ghost story and we all laughed at it. But... When we got back to Coll she told us that the Hynish centre was haunted. OooooooH!!

Wednesday November 4th

This morning we woke up at half past seven. We went downstairs and watched cartoons before breakfast. After breakfast we went upstairs to get our coats. We drove to the shop to see if it was open to get play pieces. It wasn't. We went on a slight detour (John's fault!). When we got to the school, Primaries 4-7 had a talk from Frank Rodgers (again!) and another author and illustrator, Sue Heap. It was really interesting and we learned how to draw decent cartoon characters.

At five past twelve we had lunch. It was strange because there was a choice of food. After lunch we designed story characters and book covers. When we left school we went to Skinners. In Skinners Miss Allan got some dog chews for Amber, John got some hen food and we all spent our pocket money. Then we drove to Caoles where we went for a wee walk to see Gunna and Coll.

When we got back to the Hynish Centre we went up to the top of the Signal Tower. It was cool. We signed the visitors book and we went to eat tea: spag bol!

After tea Miss Allan forced us to watch a Francie and Josie film but only she laughed at it. Lawrie, Jamie and John went to a fishing sale in the Centre. Another ghost story ...then bed.

Thursday 5th November

After a little lie in (for a change) we had breakfast and packed our bags.

We drove up a sickeningly steep hill to the giant golf ball (radar centre) to see if we could have a look around. There was only one RAF man on duty (a bit like All Along the Watch Tower!) and we couldn't go in.

On the way down the sickeningly steep hill Miss Allan joked that this would be a good time to test her brakes. Luckily they worked!

Before we left we visited the Co-Op and the butchers for some last minute shopping!

Just in nice time we drove to Scarinish to catch LOTI back to Coll

We had a really good time on Tiree and made lots of new friends.