Most schools organise some sort of field trips to broaden the students’ educational horizons. Usually this is a trip to a local quarry or even a stately home.

Our school – probably uniquely – organised a trip to a cotton plantation !

On the day, around 30 of us squeezed into a couple of 3 ton trucks and set off for a couple of hours drive across the desert to the oasis village of Lahej. On the way we passed a camel train, forded a (dry) wahdi , posed for pictures on the forecourt of the Sultan’s palace then had a tour of the cotton fields and the packing machinery.

I’m sure I wasn’t alone in (casually) mentioning the trip a couple of years later during my O level Geography exams and I’m confident that most of my classmates will have passed in that subject.