Supported by the Courier
2011
Branksome Bugle Issue 9
Your magazine, your opinion, your school!!
Bugle helps Britain’s health On the 2nd March 2011, 5 members of the Branksome Bugle assisted by Mr Tearney and Mrs Hickerson and went down to London to hand in a petition to stop people from smoking in cars if there is a passenger under the age of 18. We were going on this trip because last June we went to Darlington Memorial Hospital and we supported the launch of the British Lung Foundation’s children charter. Since then the BLF have received over 15,000 signatures. Here is the story of our day at London: After our long train journey, Rebecca did a Metro radio interview at Kings Cross station. After that we got 2 tubes to Westminster station where we were equipped with British Lung Foundation T-shirts. We then walked to the gates of Downing Street. There were lots of press there including BBC London. We met schools from Liverpool, Birmingham, Charfield and Surrey. It was then the time, 5 of us were chosen to go into Downing Street and hand in the petition. The walk down to number 10 was long and when we arrived at the huge black door everyone was very nervous. We then knocked; a security guard answered and took the petition box off us. Everyone was happy but even more nervous because we had a TV interview with Newsround. After that we were lead back to the gates and had some more photographs taken. After a short walk from Downing Street to Westminster we arrived for the British Lung Foundation reception. We walked down past Oliver Cromwell. After having a photo id taken, we had our bags scanned and we were searched. We walked down through the great hall, which had fabulous detail, and collected our name badges. We entered room A, which had been assigned to us. We then lined up for Westminster’s finest cuisine. After we were all stuffed, Dame Helena got up onto the plinth and said a touching speech about why we were all gathered. Once she had finished The Health Minster got up and gave us all of his and members of his teams support. Then when all the speeches had finished we had one last chant and the seven of us headed to the train station for our Last stop, home. Overall the day was a success and we all came away learning something new. We all had really good fun and we nearly got stuck on the tubes. This brought back sad memories for Liam and he became teary. We were all very tired on the train back home, even though none of us went to sleep on the way home. Liam and James were customizing a toy they bought for their friend Ben. For more info about the trip visit: www.branksomebugle.blogspot.com By Elisabeth Davey, Liam Pape, Katie Appleyard, James Allison and Rebecca Parkinson