Holiday Stories: Believe It Or Not!
 It's
fair enough to expect the unexpected on your holidays... but how would
you cope if you forgot your 12 yr-old at a motorway service station, or
if you had to spend £6,500 fighting your pre-teen's flying phobia?
Whatever you do this year, we bet it's not as
weird and wonderful as some of these real-life Holiday Hells (and Heavens).
Summer 20% less boring than school
A 2002 survey by the Birmingham Museum
of Science and Discovery has found that 77% of children find the summer
holidays boring, at least some of the time. However, this wasn't as bad
as school, which weighs in with an ennui-rating of 97%. We dread to think
what they're doing the other 3% of the time.
Playing hooky - at St Moritz?
A Cheshire headteacher has blamed his school's
high absentee figures on affluent parents who take their children out
of school for ski trips or winter sun holidays. Wilmslow High School has
truancy rates well over the national average and head Roy Lyon, quoted
in the Guardian. said 'this unauthorised absence is the sole reason for
these truancy figures'.
But when all the cheap holiday deals only available
in termtime, it can be tempting to take the children out of school and
risk the school's disapproval. This may
no longer be necessary, if a Sheffield scheme gets off the ground. Travel
agents are collaborating with the education department in offering discounted
family holidays to coincide with school breaks, in an effort to cut high
absence rates in the city. Lunn Poly, Thomas cook and Travelink joined
the scheme in Feb 2003, which could be adopted elsewhere if successful.
Holiday hell...
In Aug 2002, a 12 yr-old boy developed
a flying phobia while on holiday in Ireland. Not a big problem, you think,
until you learn that the family live in Sao Paolo, Brazil. The father,
Brandon McAuliffe, has apparently already spent £6,500 trying to get his
son on a plane, and hypnotism and tranquillisers have not worked. The
poor boy is sailed home from Genoa, Italy, a journey taking 20 days.
 ...
and holiday envy
Meanwhile, a family of 6 flew to Florida
and back for just £90 thanks to a website typing error by holiday firm
First Choice. Nick and Delite Dryer booked the peak season return flights
and prayed no-one would notice the mistake. The total cost should have
been £3,000. All credit to First Choice for honouring their mistake.
It was quiet, too quiet...
If your Easter Bank Holiday with the kids
went pear-shaped last year, you can still feel smug about the disasters
that never happened. Like the couple who drove 30 miles down the motorway
before noticing that one of the children was missing. The 12 yr-old was
collected safely, having been looked after by staff at Rownhams Services.
Well, it'll be a good story for his therapists in years to come...
Going it alone
An 11 yr-old German boy wanted to see his
estranged father so badly that he took his mother's car and drove 93 miles
by himself! Police were only alerted to the boy racer when he stopped
at a petrol station to fill up (Jul 2002).
Breaking the bank
School holidays cost, whether in money
or time. A 2002 survey of 371 parents for Abbey National came up with
an average spend of £2,400 per 2-child family on childcare and entertainment.
Just over half the parents were relying on family and friends to help
with childcare, 32% planned to cut working hours and 25% intended to stop
working over the hols.
 Where
in the world?
A lot of kids can't place New Zealand on
the map. Nothing too odd about that - except that these children are New
Zealanders. Two-thirds of 8 and 9 yr-olds can't find their own country.
Even by age 12, 40% are placing New Zealand in Asia, North America and
even Africa.
Flight attendant
Even though he's just 13, Zach Bjornson-Hooper
is a regular air traveller. And on a trip to New Zealand from California
his curiosity was aroused when he saw water being served from pitchers
instead of bottles. He started to take samples and found that there was
contaminated water from 7 of the 9 flights he tested. Zach's findings
included salmonella, e-coli, fecal coliform (don't ask) and, on one occasion,
even insect eggs.
His mother posted his findings on an online bulletin
where they were picked up by the Wall Street Journal in
Nov 2002, which put reporters on the case and backed up Zach's studies.
The paper says that if present in sufficient levels, the bacteria could
make passengers sick. Zach, meanwhile, has moved on. He is now growing
an E.coli colony in the refrigerator to explore the possibility of an
E.coli micro fuel cell that would power a car.
'Yeast is a sluggish bacteria, so I stepped up
to E.coli, ' said Zach . Let's hope Zach's is a 2-fridge family and there
is no cross-cultural activity between E.coli and the family burgers.
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