A "training" camp was organised at Nottingham (when?) University as a team building exercise, to get us used to bus-style camping and to familiarise us with the equipment we would be using. Rehearsals of our Shakespeare production were also started. Who will ever forget Jim Lindsay's immortal line "Ill met by moonlight, proud Titania" ? Some of the contingent had to borrow the bus for a couple of days to rush back to Edinburgh to graduate!

It all comes together by Liz Y

In early July, Cuddles transported the group on our first long journey together. This was a round trip of nearly 600 miles to and from a Comex training camp in the grounds of Wollaton Hall, Nottingham, where all twenty contingents from across the country converged for the first time. Here we were issued with equipment and supplies for the expedition. Over five days, Comexers learned to pitch the large tents, manage cooking on primus stoves and practice other basic camping skills. Seminars were held for cooks, navigators, mechanics, leaders, diarists and those responsible for specific things such as first aid, water, hygiene or digging latrines.

At the same time, rehearsals began in earnest to perfect a Comex 3 repertoire of music, dance, song and Shakespearean drama for performance at cultural events along our way. To any onlooker we must have looked like a quixotic band of itinerant players, perhaps reminiscent of the Elizabethan heyday of Wollaton Hall. In even earlier times, the grounds had been part of Sherwood Forest so, who knows, perhaps Robin Hood and his band had once made merry here.

After Nottingham, we had a week back in Edinburgh for final preparations before our big day of departure. On the evening of 13th July, we set off en route for India. We had a night on the road and a night at the Duke of York's Royal Military School near Dover, before boarding the Enterprise IV cross-Channel ferry to Zeebrugge on the morning of 15th July.

And so our adventure begins ....

Edinburgh's cultural repertoire

Bagpipes - Brian
Mandolin - Gordon
Scottish Country Dancing - the group in kilts / white dresses
Modern dance - Carol and Pru with GoJo girls
Singing - Jim L et al. in Scottish choir
Drama - scenes from "A Midsummer's Night Dream" complete with ass's head designed by Pru