The following article was written by John Simpson for The Times on 14 December 2021 and talks about the benefits of the Outward Bound trip funded by the Time and Sunday Times Christmas appeal to the eager participants from The Bradfield Club. Daniel Campbell, the Club Manager, says that such was the positive impact of the experience, the kids who participated still talk about the trip now.

If you are interested in the work of  The Bradfield Club visit their webpage to see how the club supports the local community in Southwark and if you are interested in becoming involved in the club do email bradfieldsociety@bradfieldcollege.org.uk and will pass your details on.

''The teenagers from the Bradfield Club do not venture much beyond the local square mile in Peckham, south London — except when they are conquering mountains. The group of ten who found themselves 300 miles from home in the Lake District were more at ease with video games and mobile phones than foraging and rambling.

The boys were the first from their youth centre to take up the opportunity to go on a fully funded trip with Outward Bound, one of the charities supported by this year’s Times and Sunday Times Christmas appeal.

Daniel Campbell, the youth worker who runs the Bradfield Club, said the boys were initially apprehensive but that each of them had quickly taken to the challenges, responsibilities and opportunities it offered.

His proudest moment was the day the group tackled a mountain near Ullswater. “It started pouring down. There were two other groups with us: one was a police cadet group and one was from a school. The kids came up to me and said, ‘Daniel the other kids aren’t going on the mountain, we’re not going.’ I said, ‘Brother, I never drove here from Peckham to sit down now.’ So we made a group decision we were all going to go even though it was chucking down with rain.”

Lifting his bag to start the hike, Campbell pulled a back muscle, but just as he considered abandoning the journey, one of his young group challenged him. “He said, ‘Oh you’re going back are you?’ and I looked at him and thought, ‘No, I’m not’. We climbed the mountain — seven-and-a-half hours. I didn’t only see the achievement, I felt the achievement. I felt the positive energy on the top of that mountain.”

Many of the group had never camped out overnight before but when they reached the top they pitched their tents. “To me that was the climax of the trip,” Campbell, 34, said. “No phones, no nothing — just the stars, the few sheep up there and us on the mountaintop. It was a really powerful moment.”

The youth centre in Peckham is protected by an imposing fence with security gates to let staff and children in and out. Inside is a reception room, kitchen, games room and gymnasium with a basketball court, as well as a small recording studio and an office.

The girls and boys who receive support often have difficult home lives and some struggle at school. In 2017 a member of the club, Abdirahman Mohamed, 17, was stabbed to death by a gang from nearby Camberwell.

Campbell said that attendance dropped off for months after the murder, adding: “The kids in this little square mile that we’re in feel like they can’t go here, they can’t go there.

“Loads of kids feel like they’ve got everything they need here and they don’t venture out, so to take them all the way to the Lake District was actually a real big thing for them.”

In 2019, an alumnus of the exclusive Bradfield College, a private boys’ school near Reading affiliated with the club, offered a donation on the condition it organised an Outward Bound trip. The charity was immediately receptive.

Outward Bound assesses each group it takes on the excursions to see how many children are on free school meals or come from disadvantaged backgrounds, providing subsidised places to 17,000 young people a year to go on adventures in the UK countryside.

The groups spend a week exploring wild places, tackling assault courses that require teamwork and problem solving, and managing their own kit.

The Bradfield Club trip in 2019 was the only trip before the disruption of the pandemic. Kenzo Palmer, 14, will be in the next group. Kenzo, who has never been camping, said: “I’ve never done a seven-hour walk. I reckon I’ve done like a two-hour walk in lockdown.”

On the 2019 trip one member known affectionately as “Dopey” was asked to ensure the equipment was returned and inventoried, a task Campbell thinks set him in good stead for starting college that year. On one walk that week they foraged for edible leaves and one teenager asked what the rings on a tree stump meant. “Jamie [the instructor] stopped for about seven minutes to explain. It’s a tree and these are teenagers that play Fortnite but he still had their attention the whole time,” Campbell said. “For people growing up in the concrete jungle, having those little bits of knowledge is expanding your world a little bit.”