On 21 May 2018, Simon Smith, a dad from Harlow in Essex, volunteered to help supervise his daughter’s school trip to the Science Museum in South Kensington, London. Sixty ten-year-olds, one coach and a long day later, he had posted more than 100 tweets under the handle @simonfromharlow, and the thread had gone viral around the world.
What made it so popular was not disaster. Nobody was hurt and the museum survived. It was the honest, deadpan running commentary on the small chaos every teacher knows: toilet stops that nobody needs until the bus moves, packed lunches eaten before the motorway, travel sickness, endless questions, and a gift shop full of slime. Smith ended the day full of admiration for school staff, and a lot of parents and teachers recognised themselves in his tweets.
The original thread is no longer fully available on X (formerly Twitter), so the highlights below are screenshots, in the order the day unfolded, each with a short note on what was happening.
The volunteer dad and his verdict
Smith’s selfie on the coach, hand pressed to his forehead and a red visitor lanyard round his neck, became the face of the thread. It captures the moment a cheerful volunteer realises how long a day can be.
This was the tweet many teachers shared most. After a day on the inside, Smith offered his deepest respect to teachers and teaching assistants, admitting he had witnessed a lot of chaos, described in rather stronger language.
Before the coach even left Harlow
At 8:40 in the morning the mood was upbeat. Smith had signed the school’s risk assessment and agreed not to photograph the children, which is why his pictures show himself, signs and street views rather than pupils.
Seven minutes later came the ritual every teacher knows: everyone is sent to the toilet before boarding. According to the children, not one of them needed to go.
Each adult was given a small group, and Smith had six children. Within minutes one boy had started calling him Bruv, a nickname that stuck for the rest of the thread.
Modern coaches have seatbelts on every seat, which is good for safety and slow for boarding. Buckling sixty excited children in, he reported, caused a remarkable amount of fuss.
Smith found himself sitting next to Bruv. The boy then helpfully announced that he tends to get travel sick, which set up a running worry for the rest of the journey.
The long coach ride into London
Half a mile from school, three children needed the toilet. Anyone who has driven children anywhere will recognise the timing.
By the one-mile mark most of the packed lunches had already been eaten. Smith estimated that about a third of the coach now needed the toilet.
The shortest tweet of the day simply reported that the air on the coach was getting worse. It needed no further explanation.
All in capitals, this tweet wondered aloud what on earth the boys had eaten. It became one of the most quoted lines of the whole thread.
Less than a third of the way into the journey, Smith joked that he was ready to escape through a window onto the M25, London’s orbital motorway. The comic despair is the tone of the whole thread.
As the smells continued, the whole year group decided to pin the blame on a single unlucky boy. Children are swift judges.
Smith compared the smell to a medieval mortuary and marvelled that one child could be responsible. Exaggeration is the engine of the humour here.
Things moved from funny to slightly sad when one girl started crying because of the smell. It is a reminder that a school trip is a big, overwhelming day for some children.
His own daughter caught his eye with a look he described as sinister, and he was fairly sure she had silently called him a mug, British slang for a fool. Volunteering to supervise your own child’s class has its costs.
The inevitable happened: someone was sick on the coach. The capitals say everything about how the adults felt.
Smith’s photo of a plastic-lined sick bag, complete with printed instructions, shows that the school was prepared. Experienced trip leaders always pack them.
His take on a familiar meme summed up the volunteer’s regret: “Go on a school trip they said. Volunteer they said. IT’LL BE FUN THEY SAID.”
Questions from the back seats
Smith listed the questions he was hearing on a loop: were they nearly there yet, did the Queen live in every big building, why wasn’t everyone rich, and why were there so many people. One child also mentioned that their dad had once met the singer from Nirvana.
His answer to the most common question was firm and repeated. No, they were not nearly there yet.
A view from the coach window of the Harvey Nichols department store, a red phone box beside it, showed how far into central London the group had crawled. Kensington and Knightsbridge traffic can make the last mile the slowest.
Spotting a McDonald’s near Swiss Cottage in north-west London set off a huge cheer from the whole coach. For the children, it rivalled the museum as a highlight.
Inside the Science Museum
The coach finally parked, and one of Smith’s group was promptly sick. He called it textbook.
Climbing three flights of stairs with sixty ten-year-olds reminded him, he said, of his days in the army. The comparison was half joke, half genuine fatigue.
The rallying cry of the day, in capitals: keep going and nobody gets left behind. Head counts are the backbone of any school trip.
Smith rewrote a museum sign as a joke: instead of watching water freeze, try watching time freeze on a coach with sixty ten-year-olds. The real exhibit is pictured next.
The original Watch Water Freeze exhibit invites visitors to spray water onto cold glass and watch ice crystals form through polarising lenses. Hands-on displays like this are what draw school groups to the Science Museum, which is free to enter.
An updated list of complaints followed: hunger, thirst, a forgotten lunch, a worried question about falling from a height, and a toilet remark involving peanuts that only a ten-year-old would share.
Smith announced he had received a text from his wife, Kim. The screenshot comes next.
When Kim asked how the day was going, he replied that he was broken, compared it with his past experiences in Northern Ireland, and listed vomit, crying, missing children and constant complaints. She found it very funny, as the row of laughing emojis shows.
Supervising seven ten-year-olds in the museum gift shop, he wrote, felt like a cross between the TV game show The Crystal Maze and the film Die Hard. Every adult who has tried to keep a group together in a busy shop will understand.
Naturally, the children spent their money on slime and putty. Slime was hugely popular with primary school children around that time.
The journey home
His daughter, meanwhile, was laughing wildly every time she caught his eye. She clearly enjoyed watching her dad learn what her teachers deal with daily.
On the way back one bout of sickness triggered a chain reaction, with more children being sick and more tears. Motion sickness is common in children of this age, and a long, warm coach journey does not help.
One child asked Smith a very personal question about his body hair, loudly and in front of everyone. Children’s curiosity has no filter at ten.
That question was apparently the last straw. Smith declared himself done.
He announced that there would not be a next time. Plenty of parents who had volunteered on trips themselves knew exactly how he felt.
The thread’s final word was short and heartfelt: “Never again. Never, ever again.”
Why the thread struck a chord
Under the jokes, Smith’s account is a fond tribute. The children were not badly behaved; they were simply ten, excited, hungry, travel sick and curious, all at once. Teachers recognised every detail, from the pre-departure toilet run to the gift shop scramble, and parents who rarely see what a school day involves got a vivid glimpse.
If you are thinking of volunteering on a school trip, the thread doubles as a checklist: sit travel-sick children near the front and away from the engine, keep snacks back until later, bring wipes, bags and spare water, count heads at every doorway, and expect questions you cannot answer. Above all, take a moment to thank the staff who do this many times a year.
Sources: tweets by Simon Smith (@simonfromharlow), 21 May 2018; screenshots as compiled by Bored Panda.
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