A chance meeting in a local supermarket with a former teaching colleague led to exchanges of emails with the headteacher at St Thomas a Becket Primary School in Tilshead, in the middle of Salisbury Plain.  Mrs Trickey was keen for me to visit the school with my Bloodhound Roadshow.

As St Thomas a Becket’s is a small village school, the total number of children in years 4, 5 and 6 was only twenty-four and we had a great time, my thirteenth such day, exploring the project, building balloon-powered cars and investigating aerodynamics using the paper cones that I had first seen with Gerry Heather during one of the 1K Club days.  I also demonstrated how a feather and a pebble fall on Earth and then showed them a piece of video, shot on the Moon in 1971, of Dave Scott dropping a hammer and a feather to see the difference.

When the cars were completed we began to test them and soon found that the classroom where we were working just wasn’t long enough.  Most cars stopped within the length of the room, but Jake’s car ran the whole length of the room and then collided with a table leg, then Joshua’s car did the same and then Oliver’s car disappeared under a desk and collided with something there.

We decided that a longer run was needed so we all walked down to the village hall and tried again.  Each of the three best cars was given two more runs and this time Jake’s car went the furthest, 11.06 metres, with Joshua’s car covering 8.63 metres and Oliver’s covering 5.34 metres.  I then presented Jake with a Bloodhound poster, kindly signed by Andy Green, and we all returned to school.  A couple of children then asked me if I would autograph their cars, which I did, and suddenly there was a queue of children asking me to sign their cars too.  I felt quite famous!

It was another great day, which I thoroughly enjoyed, and would like to thank the children at St Thomas a Becket’s for helping me enjoy it and Mrs Trickey for inviting me.

Chris Henley
Bloodhound Ambassador