Much as you're probably sick of my "band camp" stories...
Here are a selection of incidents from my youth orchestra years.

* Coach driver introduced himself at the beginning of the tour thus: "Hello, my name is Ian and I'm your coach driver for the week. There is to be no drinking, no chewing gum, no standing up, no shouting, etc etc...."

Within a few hours, Ian was racing the other coach, flooring it down narrow country lanes, going several times round roundabouts so that the coach was practically on two wheels, and we were all racing up and down the aisle, drinking like fishes, shouting, I-AN, I-AN, I-AN!

* I had to share a room with a girl who was immediately institutionalised for having severe bipolar disorder as soon as we got back home. She swung from mania to depression within hours of one another, barely slept for the whole week, ensuring that I got hardly any sleep either. And she was so deranged she forgot to do basic things like washing, so by the end of the week she absolutely stank to high heaven. Poor girl.

* We stole a cello from the LPO. No really, we did. www.b3ta.com/questions/rockandrollstories/post57610/

* Conductor was a dirty bastard, as was this pianist who played with us a lot. Between them they got off with just about every underage girl in the orchestra....but neither of them EVER tried it on with me! Goddammit what the hell is wrong with me?! Okay, so I blatantly would have told them to cock off, but it's always nice to feel wanted...

Can’t think of anything else at the moment…but I always thought it was a funny image, the line of respectable, middle class parents waving goodbye to their nice, well-brought-up offspring thinking we’d be well looked after for the week. As if!
(grandmasterfluffles Come to my Armageddon party on, Thu 7 Dec 2006, 16:52, Reply)