Turning the tables

Non-stop shooting, cameras at work as Embach's youngsters approach Tower Bridge

This blog is usually a Londoner’s view of life in an Austrian mountain village.  But this time the tables are turned to view London through the eyes of 27 schoolchildren from in and around Embach, visiting London.

Ask any of them what they thought of the city after a week-long school trip and the answer will be a single word: cool. But take a look at their cameras, each loaded with some 500 pictures, recording their memories, experiences and activities, and deal with questions about how long the horses must stand still at Horse Guards parade, or the depth of the Thames, and you begin to get an idea of their true level of interest.

 

Is the Queen at home? Buckingham Palace in the viewfinder

These are 13 and 14 year-olds who have grown up in a small village and rarely, if ever, visited a city. But the speed at which they come to grips with travel on the underground, the bewildering crowds of people rushing in every direction, and the very hugeness of the city is astonishing.

Although they have been learning English for a few years, the confidence with which they marched into shops, found whatever they wanted to buy and paid, was impressive. Huge supermarkets, and fast food outlets, were handled with aplomb. At Camden Market, to watch a lad from Embach bargaining with an Asian shopkeeper (whose English was not the sort taught here in school), and paying less than half the asking price, was, for someone who has helped with his English lessons, a source of wonder.

 

How long do they have to stand there? Horse Guards' Parade

Strangers remarked on their good behaviour (and the braveness of the teachers for guiding 27 youngsters around the city, even late at night). The self-confidence the children will have gained probably outweighs the improvement to their English language abilities. The knowledge that they can communicate with English people in England and that their lessons here have made this possible, is invaluable. The experiences, such as that of an unknown fellow passenger laughing, singing and dancing with them on top of a London bus, will last a long, long time.

For me as a Londoner , I was proud to be able to show them my home town. As a “born-again Austrian” I was even prouder to show off these 27 youngsters to London and its people.

 

The school party from Embach and surrounds, in the London Eye