This afternoon, the team undertook yet another of its popular school visits, when we visited Year 5, Aspull Church School, Bolton Road, Aspull, Wigan.

Attending in our Land Rover Mountain Rescue Ambulance radio call sign ‘Bolton Mobile 3,’ were our Team President (and a former Team Leader) Bob Hutchinson, accompanied by our Life Vice President Tony McNally.

The following report on today has been made by Bob Hutchinson;

This afternoon a visit was made to Aspull Church School by our Team President Bob Hutchinson and Life Vice-President Tony McNally.

The pair visited the school to talk to Year 5 children at the invitation their teacher Victoria Redfern. Ms Redfern had been teaching the children about mountains and thought it a good idea to ask the team to tell the class about our work in more local areas. It transpired that Ms Redfern had centred her lessons on the Rocky Mountains to where she had made a number of skiing trips and the differences between there and the Alps (with which she was also familiar). In the class was also a trainee teacher on assignment, Mr Neil Armstrong (I jest not!) who ably assisted later on when the class split.

After a brief chat to the whole class about the founding of the Team, the children were divided into 2 groups, one group went into the car park with Bob to look over the Land Rover (callsign BM3, and named after Miss Ellen Sykes, who bequeathed monies to the Team in her will). Naturally it was the blue lights and sirens which generated the most interest, along with climbing into the vehicle.The remaining half of the children stayed indoors with Tony for a question and answer session. The class had visited our website previously and had a host of very pertinent questions to ask. After 25 minutes or so the two groups switched around so all got to ask questions and see the vehicle.

We would like to thank Victoria and all at Aspull Church School for giving us the opportunity to visit the school and tell the class about our work. We should also mention how impressed we were with the children who behaved impeccably and showed much interest in the Team and its workings.