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When you went on a school trip, how did you get there?

On a coach obviously. All the children in one place, safe and simple. Not any more. Schoolkids in London go on the tube. They’re noisy and unruly – as they should be, they’re on a school trip – and the teachers look so stressed. Their charges are all clad in identical hi-viz tabards, so it would be quite easy to lose a couple en route. Which is why they’re constantly worried, constantly counting heads. For commuters, it’s a nightmare because the tubes are crowded enough as it is. But the real shame is that kids are denied that “back of the coach” behaviour in which we all indulged. The rowdy malarkey that would elicit murderous scowls from the fat, grumpy driver as he puffed on his Woodbine. Still, not long now until this song is sung loudly and lustily. Not by schoolkids but by commuters on the Northern Line.

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