Reading University Students’ Union’s “Lost”: A charity event
Lost is an annual RAGs event at the University of Reading where people in groups of 3-4 are taken 100 miles away from Reading and set free to make their way back without spending any money on transport.
So far, Lost has been run twice, and I’ve participated both times, albeit with two completely different teams and themes!
Lost 1
The first Lost was a charity event for Help the Aged organised by Reading RAGs on Saturday, 24 February 2007. We got dropped off at Eastbourne and were the last group to get back because we didn’t actually cheat! This is our very long story of aching feet, hitchhiking, and everything else that meant we were the last group back…
I woke up at 6 am on Saturday morning, a time of day that I haven’t seen in a long time… I packed everything, got ready and made my way down to F Unit to find the rest of my group. Once we’d all met up, we made our way down to the Students’ Union to meet up with everybody else. We registered ourselves and got a bag containing a t-shirt, a letter telling people what we were doing, and a can of Red Bull to keep us going!
After a quick group photo, we got into our coach and put a pillow case over our heads. The coach got going as we tried to work out where they were taking us. Having a pillow case on my head made me feel a little sick, so I took it off for a while and saw that half the other people didn’t even have one on, and that we were getting strange looks from lorry drivers looking in and seeing a coach full of people with pillow cases over their heads! In any case, I found out that we were going to be dropped in Eastbourne, a seaside city full of retired people.
As we got off the coach, one of the RAGs people went over the rules quickly, and told us to get on our way. At the start, most people went the same way towards the nearest train station. We broke off from the others and went to waste some time at the pier. I got a few good pictures from the top. We left since there weren’t any people there, and followed the road full of weird shops to the station. On the way, I found a Nissan dealership. We went inside and I asked the guy there if there was any way he could help us. He said that if it had been a weekday, he’d have offered a lift in one of their parts vans, but he couldn’t now. Just as we were leaving, Dave read my mind and asked if we could have a test drive to Reading, to which the guy laughed and answered a firm “no”.
At the station, we told the cashier what we were doing and asked for some free tickets, but he declined but wished us luck. We found out that a single ticket back to Reading from Eastbourne was nearly £30, which we couldn’t even afford with our emergency money. Knowing that, we left the station and worked out where we were heading to. We walked for a while, eating on the way, until we reached a petrol station. At that time, I called base and told them where we were. Due to the perseverance of Dave, we found someone willing to give us a short lift in their car to the nearest town. We accepted this, and were dropped off about a mile away. Once we were there, we worked out our bearings and started walking again down an A road until we got to another small town. We walked past lots of closed shops, old houses and a church ringing its bells. We tried getting free train tickets from the station, but again they didn’t allow us, even after we called customer services. I called Junction11 (RUSU’s radio station) and told them everything that had happened so far. Out of sheer luck, we found a Help the Aged charity shop, where we got a cardboard sign saying “Reading or north”. I called base again as we carried on walking until we reached a service station.
At the service station, there was a pub where we stopped off for a quick drink and a bite to eat. After that, we tried finding people to give us a lift by holding our sign up at the petrol station, but nobody wanted to. Desperate to get somewhere and having only travelled about four miles in as many hours, we started walking again. Our journey took us through another A road. I held out our sign as we walked, and was amazed when someone actually stopped for us. He offered to take us all the way to Tonbridge, about 30 miles away. It was an offer we couldn’t decline, so we got in and off we went. We found out that he was actually from Eastbourne, and that he’d seen some of our friends in another group trying to hitchhike, but he’d been on his way to the gym so he hadn’t stopped. Now that he was going to visit his family, he’d seen us on the road and decided to give us a lift.
After the guy dropped us off and wished us well, we went to have a little tour of Tonbridge Castle. I got a few photos before we found a Wetherspoons pub to get some more drinks and have a little rest. After getting suitably refreshed, we set off again down the High Street, where we found another Help the Aged charity shop (what are the odds of that?) There, we got to change the sign to read “Reading or west”. The nice lady offered us some orange juice and also gave us the shop’s phone number so that we could call back and tell them how we were getting on.
We carried on walking for a while, passing the Tonbridge Oast Theatre and some other houses and shops. By this point, I still hadn’t had any lunch (or any breakfast for that matter) so I was absolutely starving. We stopped off at a petrol station for some food, and I ate while walking. Eventually, we got to a B road which would lead us to Sevenoaks, the next city on our map. We walked and walked and walked for ages, seemingly not getting anywhere. At some point, I unsuccessfully tried to thumb down a police riot van for a lift. Halfway up a steep hill, we sat down for some rest and Red Bull. At that time, someone drove out of the driveway we were sitting in, gave us a funny look and drove off when Dave tried to get a lift from them. By this point, base were calling us every half an hour asking where we were. It was funny to tell them time after time that we were still not getting anywhere as the hours rolled on.
It started raining as we carried on walking for another hour or so. We called this road the “B road of hell” since it seemed to be never-ending. While walking, Junction11 called back and put me on air. I chatted for about five minutes about our journey so far, and told everybody that we would be getting back on Monday morning! Eventually, after a lot of cursing, we got to Sevenoaks. A nice lady on the street gave us very detailed directions to the nearest train station, which we decided to follow. At that time, base called again and told us to use our emergency money and get back since it was nearly 6 pm.
When we reached the station, I went up to the machine and bought a ticket back to Reading. Our ticket said that we had to travel via Guildford, but a staff member told us to take the train to London Charing Cross and change there. As we sat in the train wet and tired, I had some rest since my feet were killing me. We got off at Charing Cross, only to be told that we were in the wrong place. The person at the information desk told us to go back to London Bridge and change trains there. We went to the ticket gates and told this to the person standing there. He laughed and told us that we actually had to go to London Waterloo East, move to the main line and get a train from there. He let us in through the gates and we got on our way again, travelling back where we came from. We got off at Waterloo East and moved to the Waterloo main line, where the ticket gates wouldn’t let us through. The guard looked at our tickets and told us that we were in the wrong place and that he would fine us. I got angry and told him everything the other people had told us, and since the station was quite busy, he just decided to let us through.
By this time, we’d missed the train to Reading and had to wait for the next one. We went and got some food from Burger King and ate it while waiting for the train. We realised that we had to change at Weybridge to get to Reading, and we did this. The train from Weybridge was playing up, and our journey got delayed again. Someone from base called up and asked about timings: I told her we would be back by 9:30 pm. The train eventually arrived in Reading at 9:15 pm. We didn’t want to walk back, so we took a cab which dropped us off at the Student’s Union at exactly 9:30 pm! I sent a text message to base, and someone came out to make sure we’d arrived. She told us that we were the last group back, and asked us where we had been for all this time. We told her the whole story and she laughed. We were so tired by that point that we decided not to go to the Union but just go back to halls and sleep!
You can also see all of our photos.
Lost 2
The second Lost was a charity event for Streetchild Africa organised by Reading RAGs on Saturday, 17 November 2007. We got dropped off at Southend-on-Sea and were the third group to get back, which is a large improvement on last time!
I woke up again at 6 am on Saturday morning, a time of day that I haven’t seen in a long time (well, since the last time I did this anyway)… I packed everything, got ready and made my way down to the Students’ Union to meet up with everybody else. I waited around a bit for the others to arrive with my costume, and saw a lot of other very weird and wonderful costumes on show. I wondered how half of them would be able to raise money with those scary frocks on! When everybody arrived, we registered ourselves and got a bag containing a t-shirt, a letter telling people what we were doing, and a can of Red Bull to keep us going!
After a quick group photo, we got into our coach and put a pillow case over our heads. This time around, they had wisely decided to only force pillow cases on us for the first and last 20 minutes of the journey, which was a relief. By using road signs and my own superiour knowledge (yeah right!) I found out that we were going to be dropped in Southend-on-Sea, a seaside city (can you say déjà vu?) with only two buses a day leaving.
We spent a little time pottering around in the local Tesco (where we got dropped off) and finding out where we were before heading off. Transport in the local area seemed to be a non-starter so we decided to make the best of our fancy dress and try to get a ride from someone. Fortunately, this combined with the charm of the female members of the group managed to get us an offer of transport to the local train station from a kind member of the public.
Once we were there, we decided to have a good think about how we were going to board a train without a ticket. Fortunately for us, we quickly found that there were no barriers. We boarded the next train and, with hesitation, carried on until Stratford where the service ended.
I would give you the rest of the story, but right now it’s late, I’m tired and my mind’s a little hazy since this happened about two months ago now. I’ll get something to eat, a little sleep and I’ll carry on some other day, OK?
Many thanks to Flickr for hosting the photos.