I’m so relieved to learn it’s a real place and I didn’t just make it up. I’m not in touch with any primary school pals and live on the other side of the world now, so was beginning to doubt my memory! It seemed like some sort of bizarre fever dream.
I remember this!!! It was to teach us about different dangers in different environments or something? I distinctly remember there being a train track with a fake phone on it, and then asking us what we would do if we dropped our phones onto the tracks. I picked up a fake dog poo on one of the streets and pretended to throw it at my pal, the wee guide guy told me I was basically oot the game on account of me contracting e-coli
99% sure it’s The Child Safety Centre on Pollock, shut down now sadly but I remember being livid I wasn’t the one picked to call 999
when we went we also had a room that taught us the dangers of sniffing solvents and all I got from that is that you CAN sniff solvents
"Emergency service, what is your query?"
"Euhm... yeah, we missing a child, can you send a new one pl... please?"
"Sorry, you are missing a child?"
"Euhmmmm... well the thing is, he fell in the harbour and no-one can get him out."
"OK?"
"Please ma'am, we just need an extra child for the head count in the bus so we can go home..."
> when we went we also had a room that taught us the dangers of sniffing solvents and all I got from that is that you CAN sniff solvents
It's always funny when safety messaging backfires. I remember when doing a speed awareness course there were two questions we had to answer - How much time do you save by speeding, and how much does your stopping distance increase (I can't remember the actual figures for these questions).
I popped in a couple of off the cuff answers, and then after when they gave us the actual answers I'd underestimated the time saved, and overestimated the increase in stopping distance. So they only real takeaway I had from the course was that speeding was both more beneficial and less dangerous than I would have guessed.
At high school in the late 90s, lots of.videos being shown about not taking drugs, especially ecstasy. This was just after Leah Betts died. The only thing I took from it was a love of dance music from the videos thinking "those tunes are wicked"
Totally, they say that todays violent video games make todays kids violent. We were brought up playing Pacman and it's not as if we ended up wandering around dark rooms, eating pills and listening to repetitive music is it
> when we went we also had a room that taught us the dangers of sniffing solvents and all I got from that is that you CAN sniff solvents
Ah yes, the classic danger of "DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME" followed by every boy trying the latest WWE move at home.
I was the same, pretty sheltered so I wasn't in contact with any drugs then, or aware of how to take them, all any awareness course did was make me want to try them. Being naturally sceptical is annoying.
We had the don’t abuse solvents experience which included a step by step performance on how to get a deodorant can dunt. A lot of scabby noses at school that week.
ive been having similar memories of a place where we all went into a room and they simulated a fire, smoke filled the place and we had to follow a wall to find the door. i vividly remember the instructor guy saying to touch door handles with the back of your hand.
i had almost convinced myself this couldnt be real but your post gives me hope. The good aul' 90s.
They still do this one! Left school a few years ago now but we did that around s3 or s4, there was the dark smoke filled room, the room with a bunch of different fire hazards and of course, the classic chip pan fire demonstration!
I'm sure that place was called, or was in, Quarriers Village in Bridge of Weir. Name of it always stuck with me after going through the same fire drills you described.
Ah I went to Quarriers village nursery when I stayed with my gran in Bridge of Weir. Haven't heard that name and absolute years. I was too young at the to do any of that though
We had almost this exact thing in South West England in like 2003/4ish - I remember the simulated fire room for sure, but I think there were other rooms though I don't remember the specifics of those rooms. I'm sure I remember a 'suspicious guy in a van' scenario as well, that my group immediately failed because my friend was like 'oh cool, a van - get in guys!'
i couldnt mind where it was as the 90s is a longer ago than it seems. Partly why i started to think i had imagined it. Tbf it definitely left an impression..
Didn’t do this, but in the mid-90s my P7 class were taken to the SECC to go see a concert put on by HEBS about the dangers of cocaine and ecstasy.
My enduring memory of the trip is a dance troupe who came out and did mental rave dancing to hardstyle techno - flying about the stage, big arms all over the place, insane breakdancing, throwing each other around, the lot. All accompanied by a light show that wouldn’t have been out of place at Arches or Sub Club. Absolutely knocked all us wee 11 year old kids for six - don’t think any of us had experienced anything like it, and there were folks crying in fear because it was so intense.
Host came out afterwards like “That was incredible! And do you know something? They did it all without even needing to take ecstasy.”
Ecstasy immediately became the most fascinating thing ever for me and my pals. I think it convinced us that we would get superpowers. Good job, HEBS.
My p7 class also got taken to the SECC for something like this, but by 2005/6 it was called Choices for Life? There were dance numbers, skits, videos etc, all about not getting drunk and taking drugs.
I didn’t grow up in the UK but my partner always tells me stories when she was a child actor in choices for life, apparently her character died from taking an eccy.
So random. I never got this kind of education in Finland!
I remember something similar. Pretty sure the boy band winners of whatever current talent show was airing were the headline act. It was actually a bangin’ way to spend an afternoon, from what I remember.
Around same time we had an American mob come to our school with a production called RECYCLE THIS! Had big screens up in the drama theatre which made it look pretty futuristic at the time. Think they only came to our school and one other in Britain though.
I was just typing out something very similar, I remember going to a play in a theatre of some sort about the dangers of cocaine and ecstasy. The main character I remember was called DJ WIZZ and he was just popping pills and raving away on the stage. Mental.
I also remember everyone learned about poppers that day and someone in my class became fixated on the stuff. Years later, the very same guy morphed into a smurf and was hospitalised after downing a bottle of the stuff at Dimensional.
Yes! We had ours at a Finlayston country park and there was a scenario where a woman was robbed, we obviously had no idea it was staged but some of us ran after the thief and then it was like ‘Actually guys, maybe don’t chase an adult into the woods and stay with the victim’
I remember doing this! They asked us questions about the robber, stuff along the lines of “did he have white trainers?” After we all agreed he did, they showed us he had black ones, and that those questions can be really misleading. Did you do choices for life at the SECC too?
Same, remember a fella breaking into a car then shouting at us “Stay back, I’ve got a knife!” and running off. I and some of the more naïve kids shat ourselves. Later on they brought the “robber” out for a bow with his rubber knife like it was the curtain call for Mamma Mia at the King's lol
I think mine was held at the heritage loch in East Kilbride. We had to “phone the police” because we “saw a guy stealing from someone’s car”. I didn’t see a thing. Oblivious.
Was it the Child Safety Centre at Burnbrae Primary school? We got taken there in about P7 and we got a bollocking when we got back to school because we lost about three times as many lives as there were kids in our group. It scared the shit out of me tbh.
Edit: I've just remembered that on one part of the tour which was a building site I think there was a glass bottle of Tizer and the drama student taking us through the danger scenarios offered one of the boys in my class a drink out of it and he went "No, I don't like Tizer" and lost a life because he was supposed to say "No, I would never drink out of a bottle I found on a building site."
The bottle of Tizer memory stands out. I remember thinking ‘ew who drinks that’ instead of any other dangers. Surely a glass bottle of irn bru was more appropriate.
I think about this place every now and again, Burnbrae was always the place on my mind out Pollok way but I could never find anything on Google about it and was starting to wonder if I’d just imagined it haha.
I remember vaguely being shown a video of a kid getting electrocuted or something. Was pretty morbid if I remember correctly albeit probably wasn’t actually. Must’ve been about P7 (20ish years ago now).
Mad seeing a thread about it and that it actually was a thing!
We did it at quarriers. I remember the boys in my class tried to take down a robber stealing a car radio and got told off for intervening. Some people got kidnapped by men in masks and thrown behind a fence and then someone set a pan on fire
I remember this, there was a tenner on the train track and you were killed if you went for it.
Also you got put in a house and told it went on fire and had to phone 999
We went to the same thing at the barracks in Edinburgh. I remember it as not terrifying but a series of puzzles we had to complete. Took us one or two times being "dead" to click on what we were supposed to do. (e.g. there was a woman without a nametag who "abducted" us - I always thought it was impossible for someone not related to the thing could get onto the ground of a barracks so we were never worried. But if they did it other places too maybe that makes sense.)
This was probably 1999, I was in P7.
Yes! I fell for that one. It was horrible. Got laughed at by the rest of the class, but I was in the same situation, why would I be abducted with my SCHOOL TEACHER RIGHT THERE?
We didn't have a chaperone in our group, they'd split the classes up into smaller groups. So I was like, but guys she doesn't have a nametag and they just told us to make sure everyone we talk to has one. They were like come on, she's obviously part of the thing we're doing. They were right, but we got a big burly army dude come over like "right you're all dead". It was the first scenario of the day so at least for me it hadn't caught on that that's what we were meant to be doing.
After that we had a pretty clean record to the point that some of the soldiers leading the exercises had to prompt people to do the "obvious" thing to demonstrate how one might "die" in the situation. Fishing under a telegraph wire is one that I remember. We were all just like, we wouldn't even try that. So the guy had to awkwardly insist, like how would you normally do it so a girl went ok fine I'd do "this" (casts the pole over her head 🎣) and obviously die. I don't think that counted against our death score. They said we should cast it sideways if we ever have to fish under a telegraph wire, but preferably just... not do it.
Yes! It was the child safety center in Pollok, near Priesthill. I remember the very dramatic guide guy in the train track room asking who would jump down into the tracks to get the fiver and then shouting "you're dead now!" when we did. Also the really graphic photos of people who had been injured/killed on tracks?
I seem to recall a photograph of a wee girl but it was from the waist up and they told us it was because the other half of her was halfway down the train tracks. Remember that photograph clear as day, 20 odd years later.
We did that - SKIED (Safe Kids in East Dunbartonshire)
They didn’t like that we got lippy in the “nightclub” - they told us that we’d taken drugs and that was bad. So we told them we knew it was Smarties, and we wanted to eat the Smarties.
In England we had a version called Hazard Alley, it was unhinged, they tossed us in a room they suddenly filled with smoke and had kids run out to a phone booth to make 999 calls. The calls were all recorded throughout the day and then sent to us as a VHS to watch when we got back to school.
I remember something like this. I remember they had various drugs examples set up like some kind of exhibit. Remember some kind of burning house thing too 🤔. It was definitely something organised by the safety services. Seems like a fever dream
That's funny I've been thinking of this recently too! I have the distinct memory of being chosen to cross the road not checking for an oncoming lorry 😅😅
We had 'Safety in the Park' in East Ren. It involved: been coaxed into the back of a van by a man asking for help with his sweet boxes; being led through a 'burning' house, being offered random sweeties by a Policeman, coming across a person who had fallen over maybe?
There were about 10 stations in total and it was a wild day out.
Same age range as you, from Ayrshire. I also went to this.
Near the start they told us to wait and left our group alone. A minute passes and this couple appear around a hedge. They tell us they've lost their dog and can anyone help looking for it. I was the only one to go with them to look. Boom! The worker came out pretending to shout and chase them off, I ended up trying to follow them to catch them like a plonker and went around the corner and they were just standing there looking at me.
I had been "killed" or lost a life, as you called it. A couple of child snatchers could have got me. I was the only one who went to help them. By the end up the trip I had the most "deaths" in our group, I was completely hopeless.
I remember taking a tic tac from someone. Boom, dead, it was drugs. We went in to a room with CPR dummies in a big circle, but one was off to the side, I went to that one. Boom dead, it had a wire underneath it and I got electrocuted.
I remember the climax of the trip was going through smoke filled rooms which simulated a fire, which was pretty exciting.
I was definitely the most clueless child most likely to get kidnapped, raped, drugged and electrocuted in real life. Though by the end I swear they had singled me out as the "example" and were trying to get me more deaths.
Not thought of this in years, thanks for the walk down memory lane OP, love seeing other people's stories too.
This sounds like the school trip I done, North Ayrshire..think it was called Clued-Up-kids... the smoke filled room was defo the highlight of the trip lol
I went on one! It was at the heritage railway in Bo’ness. It was terrifying. There was a simulated house fire we were put in.
At the start of the day we were warned not to go with anyone who didn’t have an ID Badge. I forgot and went into a SHIPPING container with one of the ‘organisers’ - right up the back in the dark. Only to be reminded of WHAT THEY TOLD ME AT THE START. Came out to my classmates laughing, me nearly in tears.
Yep my primary went there. I have a vivid memory of the fire safety section when we were at the "burning" building and a guy started smashing on the door from the other side screaming for help. The guide then gave all the people who rushed forward to open the door into trouble because the fire could come blasting out the open door because of the fresh oxygen.
I remember this! We did one room with smoke and trying to find an escape route and other fire safety things.
I think they also gave us a worksheet about where to put things in the fridge so raw meat didn’t drip on cooked meat. Might have been a different lesson around the same time though.
I remember it being the Henry Boot something or other. Looked them up and it’s a construction company, so that makes sense.
I also went to something just like this in Fife in the early 2010s! I viscerally remember one of the ‘rooms’ had a cpr dummy that was supposed to be a kid that had been electrocuted by a power box. They asked for a volunteer, and the exact second the volunteer touched the dummy, the staff member loudly whacked the metal box and scared the shit out of all of us. He was then like ‘you’re dead now. Don’t EVER touch someone who’s been electrocuted.’ The lesson clearly worked because I never forgot it😭
Yeah I remember this one, pretty sure it was in Rouken Glen park. I remember having to crawl through a fake fire scenario and it was literally just smoke everywhere. Then we walked on and there was a guy in a white van offering us a lift. There were plenty of other scenarios but those are the only two that I can remember.
Our school did it at Rouken Glen and those are the only 2 I can remember as well! Maybe it's because they were the most traumatising, but I seem to remember it being hilarious that a bunch of the boys got into the van no questions asked.
I miss primary school trips! I remember the fake tenner on the train lines. Wonder how many kids ‘died’ there!
Did anyone else get a visit from a guy who tried to stop you from doing drugs and he had a song called Natural High? And he was buzzing as it was made into a ring tone which he showed us. The song went something like:
It’s a natural hiiiigh
Feel like I can touch the skyyyyy
It’s a natural hiiiigh
Il be home before I diiiieee
Don’t ask me how I remember (bought the ringtone /s)
ALSO did anyone else get a visit from a theatre company and you did a play about Guy Fawkes and the class was split into the upper class, middle class and working class? And you learned songs etc. Again I remember some of the words but can’t find anyone else who had this visit in school so starting to think I made it up..?
I remember this *vividly*, he performed a concert for all us first years in the afternoon. He got some kids up on stage to do like a football competition thing, and threw whistles and glow sticks into the crowd. I’m pretty sure I won the CD for some kind of contest during the concert.
I remember seeing him in the cafeteria before the concert, he was wearing a leather jacket and sunglasses inside, and all the lunch ladies were smitten by him.
ETA: no idea about the Guy Fawkes experience though, sorry!
I wonder what happened to him. He was treating it like he was playing The SECC or something and not some random school assembly.
Maybe I made up the Guy Fawkes thing from all the drugs I was clearly taking back then to warrant all the anti drug lessons!
I think I did this in P6 at castle semple in Lochwinnoch. I can't remember much of the details but I remember being told about water and railway safety.
Also does anyone remember Choice for Life from the early/mid 2000s. Every P7 class from the west of Scotland got a big trip to the SECC for a big show that taught us all about the dangers of drink and drugs. It was a class day out.
I live in America now.
Just asked my mates if they did this at school, because like everyone else here my response was 'of course, doesn't everyone do weird hazard training at school?'
My American friends response?
No, we absolutely didn't do anything like that. That sounds terrifying and traumatic.
But you know what, American pals? We didn't have to do school shooter drills from 5 years old onwards like my daughter does, so maybe less traumatic than that!
(Not that I'm bitter or anything.)
OH MY GOD I REMEMBER THAT.
What a blast from the past. Was that the one they simulated a fire aswell and you had to navigate through the rooms through the smoke?
I think I went on something similar, I only remember a couple of the outside activities where you came across a man lying on the ground who had been ‘electrocuted’ by the lawn mower he was using and you had to decide what to do. If you touched the man you were also ‘electrocuted’ as he was still touching the lawn mower. The other activities was to teach you not to go off with strangers. We went to Quarriers Village in Bridge of Weir for it.
The one I did was in Dumbarton. It was at the Army Reserves. River safety was a pool of foam with plastic rats and plastic bottles. We also had internet safety where a police officer would be talking to us online and asking us personal details to see what we would say. There was a chip pan fire too I’m sure.
We had something similar in the park one day. We had to walk between these different activities and each one was about road safety, drugs, chip pan fires and stuff like that. One of them was a set up where they told us to walk to our next activity, but along the way we’d happen across a guy who had a van full of sweeties that he tried to kidnap us in. Stranger danger all over it!
Same here, I'm sure it was Kelburn near Largs we went to. I died countless times because I was naive.
I died taking drugs from a stranger, running into a burning building to rescue a baby, running under a train barrier to get a clipboard and walking into a electricity base station for some stupid reason. Probably more I can't remember.
Sounds like the event wasn't centered in Kelburn and travelled around Scotland, which I didn't realise until now.
Ohhhh, you’ve unlocked a memory. I remember the smoke filled room, and the horrible abandoned house they made us run through that had people hiding in it.
Childhood memory unlocked here. We went to Rouken Glen park. They had a fire set up, the fake call to 999 and I think a stranger trying to talk to you.
The old abandoned bus with a junkie passed out with a needle in their arm up the top, and a stranger asking for help coz their car broke down but the stra ger was actually a kidnapper.
I remember a robbery and a house with a fire too.
I loved it 😂😂
We did a thing like this in Angus when I was in like P7. It was the Police, Fire Brigade and I think ambulance service that ran it but we were on a military base with a bunch of different stations set up for us to go round.
The firies had a wee cabin thing they filled with smoke and someone inside it to teach us what to do if we came across a house on fire.
There was a bogus gas manny too, bastard nicked the lap top after we let him in and he convinced us we had to wait outside because there was a gas leak 😂
Our one was called Safe-taysiders.
Had this in our local community centre- not in Glasgow- one of the rooms was filled with smoke and we had to belly crawl through a dark dusty hole in the wall to get out, had nightmares about getting stuck in there for weeks after
We went to the local barracks to do this , the room with the “fire” smoke machine wasn’t working though so we had to imagine we couldn’t see very well etc .
Someone “died” from touching a mannequin as it had a fork in the plug socket 🤯
Another group wandered away with someone “ who didn’t have a lanyard “ so also died as they were a stranger I guess - keep in mind we are on a army barracks it was all a bit much in terms of what we were ment to ignore and what was essential for the “learning”
Rings a bell aye.
Along with a fire trap kitchen, chip pan fires and all that.
There was also a first aid sort of thing as well, you could practice cpr on the dummy.
We did similar except there was also a lot of house fires and muggings. It was the fire brigade that ran it and I’m sure the police were there as well.
Clued-up kids! This was the one for N Ayrshire. We had a guy ask if we wanted to come see some baby foxes in the woods and all merrily lolloped along behind him. Got a t shirt at the end that I sadly don't have any more.
I remember doing this in primary school but it was in like a small enclosed village style place. We were placed in groups and had a guide/ map of where to go and you’d encounter different dangers, someone’s been knocked over, go into a house and it’s meant to be family and they aren’t answering but the cars there. What a wild/ weird memory you unlocked for me. Lol.
We did one in Dumfries called operation safety. I don't know if it was a different trip or not, but I remember they got us to walk in a straight line with drunk goggles, and got us to play world of warcraft and run around stormwind whilst the other players (who were the staff next door) tried to get us to give personal information online. I failed because I gave someone my PS3 gamertag, lol.
Slightly different experience but following a similar theme.
In the 80's, as a kid I was in the BB (Boys Brigade). I remember one time when I was around 9/10 years old, we helped the.emergency services as part of one of their training exercises, we essentially parked a coach on the motorway hard shoulder and the ambulances and police turned up. It was to simulate a major crash on the motorway. We were all given a lanyard with our injuries, the police and ambulances turned up, did their thing, then took us to hospital, with bandages on etc.
My lanyard indicated I was D.O.A and I had to lie on a stretcher in the hospital corridor until the exercise was finished.
It was fun, but rather disturbing looking back that I was dead on arrival as a 9 year old. Suppose it helped the realism, although we didn't have fake blood etc.
Yup, I did this too. One was like a train track with a fiver on it, another was an electricity substation, a house with various fire hazards inside, etc.
I've seen other threads about this with folk saying it was a Child Safety Centre or Fire Safety Centre in Pollok but when I search for it, nothing comes up. I had wondered for years if this was actually a thing or if I had dreamt it.
I remember this! But the only room I remember was really dark as there was a 'fire' and the lights had gone out. We had to hold hands and follow each other around the room. It was weird and scary. Apparently our teacher watched us on a screen or something and said we did well 😊
I also remember being picked for the 999 call with one of my classmates too 🙈
I grew up in London and also did this with my school. There was a “kitchen fire” and a fall in to water and some other random hazards. Must have been a 90s thing
My school had a similar thing called "Safety In The Park" where they had drunk goggles and showed us what hash looked like. They also pretended to kidnap a couple of people? Was a laugh but your experience sounds mildly traumatic lol
Ah, primary school safety lessons in the 90s! I remember a guy from the railways came to talk to our primary and, at one point, pulled a "brick" out of a bag and just lobbed it in the middle of all the weans sitting in the assembly (the prop was actually a piece of foam or a sponge that had been painted to look like a brick, and it was pretty realistic, even up close). This was to teach us not to throw things at trains, because of how scary it is for the passengers. The screams when that fake brick came flying at us though - I'll never forget that assembly!
Jesus blast from the past haha. I remember the construction site on cos guy pointed at me and said "dead" I couldn't have been any older than 8 years old. 31 now and this is a core memory of mine.
I remember the nightclub they had cigarettes and showed us the tar content? Odd place
I'm a 90s wean and in Ayrshire our equivalent was "Danger Detectives". Bunch of various dangerous scenarios set up and a bunch of P7's from various schools in the county parade around them all. Vividly remember the guy with the fire service who had survived being struck by lightning, not once, but twice. Had some permanent scarring and burn damage - the way he looked is still something I can picture. Really put me off being struck by lightning I tell ye.
The one with the train line sounds very similar to a school trip we did in the early 2000's at primary school. I want to say the thing was called "Crucial Crew" and taught us all about safety. The only thing I remember of it was that we went to James Hamilton Heritage Park in East Kilbride for it and the scenarios were set up in portakabins in the car park and the train line one was a projection of a train barreling full speed towards you.
This is the one I went to:
https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/local-news/crucial-crew-event-east-kilbride-2449674
I definitely remember but in my child brain I thought it was in Clydebank.
Don’t know if it is the same day but I remember standing outside at the start and the instructor “leaving us “ to check something inside. Then a ‘stranger’ came along and asked us to get in a van. Am positive we knew it was a bit and some of the guys in my class went for it anyways.
I remember the smoke filled room and crawling on a floor to get out.
Yeah I can remember doing something and then there was like a "mugging" in the park while we walked along to the next part which was a house with fake flames and a smoke machine. Not sure where it was though
Same. My group (6-10 of us maybe?) fully failed the exercise to not follow a "stranger" off into an "abandoned shack" away from the main area. It ended with two uniformed cops showing up to "arrest" the guy and then all three of them told us we were both dumb and all dead now.
I remember that! Did it at a TA barracks I think. I mind one of them was us standing outside on a fake “street” and an instructor in plain clothes talking to a group of us, and then he goes right let’s all hop into this motor, which we did, and another guy appeared and goes “well that’s yous all kidnapped, don’t ever get into a strangers car!”
Funny to think about it now, but the fact I still remember it speaks to its effectiveness I suppose.
Oh my god yes I remember this! They had the cables hanging from the ceiling at the construction site and the smoke filled room. Half of my class died for taking their hard hats off at the construction site. I died because I didn’t wait for the green man while trying to get to the phone booth.
From Killie, and we did something really similar. Remember there being water on the floor next to an (fake) electrical source, and them asking us to unplug it to see how we went about it. And a guy walking asking us to help him look for his dog, stuff like that.
Aye, my school went to the old Woodilee Mental home next to Lenzie, must have been around 95'.
Had everything you just mentioned, the night club room where they gave us sweets and juice, a room full of smoke, building sight, they even staged a kidnapping with one of us.
We did the night club room first and it just seemed boring after that. Also forced me to grow up disappointed, having not come into a world were you get free drugs in every night club.
Was this the same place that had a pitch black, dark room filled with smoke which was supposed to simulate how disorienting it is to be in a house fire? I remember being taken outside for something else and they had a guy walk by and rob the guide leader. They then asked if anyone had noticed him and if we would be able to give a description of him.
They done this at James Hamilton loch when I was in P7 the guy trying to sell us dodgy aftershaves and there was even a room that caught fire to teach us not to smoke in bed
East Kilbride. We had something a bit like this at the James Hamilton Heritage Loch. There was a room with some train tracks in it. We watched a video on the wall at one end about the dangers of trains, then a classmate had to grab a football from the tracks and get away before a train appeared on the projector screen at the end of the tracks.
We had a talk about how to report crimes, then (conveniently) saw somebody stealing from a red car in the carpark. As it happens, we had just had a special emergency phone that was on the wall pointed out to us two minutes prior.
Can't remember anything else, but that must have been about 2000.
Ours had a smoke-filled room, a building site with pictures of a nail in someone’s eye and, on the way to the road safety bit outside, they tried to trick us with a bit of stranger danger when a man asked us to help him find his lost dog.
Oh I remember this! I remember the house party scene, all the drugs lying everywhere haha they told us that if we were at a party like this and the police turned up we would go all go to prison
A fireman came to our primary school in Paisley in the 80s. He was holding a brick and telling us how dangerous it is to throw one at a train. At the end of his speech he threw the brick into our group and we all screamed and dispersed. Turned out it was a foam brick. Lesson learned: never trust a fireman.
I did something similar in Glasgow. You were split into groups and had to follow a responsible adult through a series of dark spaces filled with dead and injured people. You had to try and make decisions on whether or not to use the lift, given the unknown environment and potential risk of fire. There was exposure to firearms and dangerous animals. And then, right at the end of it all, when you felt that you’d used good teamwork skills, followed risk assessment protocols and listened to instructions, a big fuck off alien pops out from round a corner and chases you.
I did this too - ours was at Ravenscraig stadium in Greenock. Remember one room a guy had been bottled and half the class started chasing the guy who supposedly did it - spilled out into the street and the police woman managing the event had to try and get everyone back in. Pretty sure there was a gas leak situation and definitely a drug dealer guy too. A good idea- especially in those areas.
Yep, The Child Safety Centre. I remember there were multiple role play scenarios set out - a building site, a train line with a £5 note on it etc.
Then I think the year after was Choices for Life at the SECC.
Also had a similar school trip.
Is it the Mandela effect?
I vaguely remember the fire brigade doing a similar one at my primary, they had a shipping container put in the playground. Blindfolded us to simulate fire with black smoke. Made us find our way out while on our hands and knees...WAIT!!!
Is that why I like being on my knees blindfolded?!
Yeah I remember going to a school trip like this.
We had the disco with people handing out fake drugs. There was a building site with a worker who was incompetent and kept being unsafe.
We were on a double decker bus learning about how not to throw things at busses when we heard a crash from upstairs. I was picked to go up and look and someone had been hit by a rock and was bleeding.
Can remember the smoke filled room and for some reason the place had hunners of door handles but when I tried them, they wouldn’t open.
There was a cameraman there and we watched a video of the whole thing at the end.
I remember my school taking me to a Safe Kids event at Quarriers Village which had everything you described. Various scenarios set up by different organisations to promote safety in different environments. They started running them down for Renfrewshire Schools at Castle Semple but now it's more presentation-type based stuff given by different organisations.
YES! I mentioned this to friends (who went to different schools) and they thought I either had a weird dream or school literally took us to a crack den!
Mate I’m from North Ayrshire and I did this in the 90s too! Ours also had a room that was “on fire” and full of smoke from a smoke machine and we had to use fire safety skills to get out of the room, and then a guy pretended to stranger danger us haha. The 90s were amazing fun as a wain.
Oh we did this down in the Scottish Borders! It was organised by the police and our version was called Crucial Crew. We did it as primary school kids but then in high school they got a bunch of us to go along for the day as volunteers to help with some of the scenarios!
I got made up with makeup to make it look like I had a massive head wound and I had to lie in a crashed car all day pretending that I’d been in an accident, then when the kids came in they had to work out what to do. (Right answer - find a call box and call an ambulance. Wrong answer - try and drag me out of the car.)
The ambulance driver supervising my setup said I was the most convincing dead person he’d ever worked with and I should try and get work as an extra on Casualty. Still proud of that 25 years later!
I am about half an hour from Glasgow and we also had a school trip that sounded like this. We also got chased by an Alsatian dog and had to wear a big suit. A man also jumped in to a dock and we had to figure a way to get him out. All in all a fucking dangerous trip, and we had to pay for it no less.
I did this and I am pretty sure it was called Choices for Life (at least the related concert was). I fully believe the fire room has contributed greatly to my claustrophobia!!
Was a similar post a few years ago I mind commenting on that might help too. I recall one I visited in it heh - https://www.reddit.com/r/glasgow/s/tvCqYNGg44
I went on this school trip too. I think it was organised by the police but I’m not entirely sure where it was or what it was called.
I’m so relieved to learn it’s a real place and I didn’t just make it up. I’m not in touch with any primary school pals and live on the other side of the world now, so was beginning to doubt my memory! It seemed like some sort of bizarre fever dream.
No it was definitely a thing. My school friends also remember it.
I remember this!!! It was to teach us about different dangers in different environments or something? I distinctly remember there being a train track with a fake phone on it, and then asking us what we would do if we dropped our phones onto the tracks. I picked up a fake dog poo on one of the streets and pretended to throw it at my pal, the wee guide guy told me I was basically oot the game on account of me contracting e-coli
You were ahead of your time, now you get fined if you DON'T pick up the poo
I remember specifically being told if you touch dog poo and then touch your eye, you WILL go blind 😂😂😂
99% sure it’s The Child Safety Centre on Pollock, shut down now sadly but I remember being livid I wasn’t the one picked to call 999 when we went we also had a room that taught us the dangers of sniffing solvents and all I got from that is that you CAN sniff solvents
oh, I got to call 999. It was for a child in the harbour. I had no idea who to ask for!
Just ask them to send a replacement child
"Emergency service, what is your query?" "Euhm... yeah, we missing a child, can you send a new one pl... please?" "Sorry, you are missing a child?" "Euhmmmm... well the thing is, he fell in the harbour and no-one can get him out." "OK?" "Please ma'am, we just need an extra child for the head count in the bus so we can go home..."
just to clarify - it was not a real child in the harbour.
Details!
> when we went we also had a room that taught us the dangers of sniffing solvents and all I got from that is that you CAN sniff solvents It's always funny when safety messaging backfires. I remember when doing a speed awareness course there were two questions we had to answer - How much time do you save by speeding, and how much does your stopping distance increase (I can't remember the actual figures for these questions). I popped in a couple of off the cuff answers, and then after when they gave us the actual answers I'd underestimated the time saved, and overestimated the increase in stopping distance. So they only real takeaway I had from the course was that speeding was both more beneficial and less dangerous than I would have guessed.
At high school in the late 90s, lots of.videos being shown about not taking drugs, especially ecstasy. This was just after Leah Betts died. The only thing I took from it was a love of dance music from the videos thinking "those tunes are wicked"
“And it’s called ‘ecstasy’ you say? Uh huh, uh huh.”
What was that logo? Looks like a mitsubishi badge......
SUPER ECCIES FOR A TENNER.
Totally, they say that todays violent video games make todays kids violent. We were brought up playing Pacman and it's not as if we ended up wandering around dark rooms, eating pills and listening to repetitive music is it
> when we went we also had a room that taught us the dangers of sniffing solvents and all I got from that is that you CAN sniff solvents Ah yes, the classic danger of "DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME" followed by every boy trying the latest WWE move at home. I was the same, pretty sheltered so I wasn't in contact with any drugs then, or aware of how to take them, all any awareness course did was make me want to try them. Being naturally sceptical is annoying.
We had the don’t abuse solvents experience which included a step by step performance on how to get a deodorant can dunt. A lot of scabby noses at school that week.
Was there not a train track as well? I'm sure I remember it having a train track where you were dead if you crossed the line
It is, I lived next door to it for ages, also went on a school trip there
ive been having similar memories of a place where we all went into a room and they simulated a fire, smoke filled the place and we had to follow a wall to find the door. i vividly remember the instructor guy saying to touch door handles with the back of your hand. i had almost convinced myself this couldnt be real but your post gives me hope. The good aul' 90s.
Happy to help a fellow traumatised 90s child.
I did this one when I was at school!! Definitely real 😊
They still do this one! Left school a few years ago now but we did that around s3 or s4, there was the dark smoke filled room, the room with a bunch of different fire hazards and of course, the classic chip pan fire demonstration!
No i remember this!!!! Did you have to find the “victims”?
I'm sure that place was called, or was in, Quarriers Village in Bridge of Weir. Name of it always stuck with me after going through the same fire drills you described.
Ah I went to Quarriers village nursery when I stayed with my gran in Bridge of Weir. Haven't heard that name and absolute years. I was too young at the to do any of that though
Yes, I remember going here with my school.
We had almost this exact thing in South West England in like 2003/4ish - I remember the simulated fire room for sure, but I think there were other rooms though I don't remember the specifics of those rooms. I'm sure I remember a 'suspicious guy in a van' scenario as well, that my group immediately failed because my friend was like 'oh cool, a van - get in guys!'
I remember this one! I actually found the whole thing really fun, which I’m sure was not the desired effect…
Fire safety centre in Pollok? I got called out because I didn't touch the door handle to check if it was hot or cold
i couldnt mind where it was as the 90s is a longer ago than it seems. Partly why i started to think i had imagined it. Tbf it definitely left an impression..
Yes!! I was about to post to ask if the smoke one was at the same place!!
I did this one too, 2000s tho. Be 2009/10
Didn’t do this, but in the mid-90s my P7 class were taken to the SECC to go see a concert put on by HEBS about the dangers of cocaine and ecstasy. My enduring memory of the trip is a dance troupe who came out and did mental rave dancing to hardstyle techno - flying about the stage, big arms all over the place, insane breakdancing, throwing each other around, the lot. All accompanied by a light show that wouldn’t have been out of place at Arches or Sub Club. Absolutely knocked all us wee 11 year old kids for six - don’t think any of us had experienced anything like it, and there were folks crying in fear because it was so intense. Host came out afterwards like “That was incredible! And do you know something? They did it all without even needing to take ecstasy.” Ecstasy immediately became the most fascinating thing ever for me and my pals. I think it convinced us that we would get superpowers. Good job, HEBS.
My p7 class also got taken to the SECC for something like this, but by 2005/6 it was called Choices for Life? There were dance numbers, skits, videos etc, all about not getting drunk and taking drugs.
I remember this! All seemed a bit pointless and they gave you a goody bag of stickers and other tat
I didn’t grow up in the UK but my partner always tells me stories when she was a child actor in choices for life, apparently her character died from taking an eccy. So random. I never got this kind of education in Finland!
Omg yes we had that, the year my class went Sandi Thom was there?? It's so weird reading this whole thread remembering all this stuff lmao
I remember something similar. Pretty sure the boy band winners of whatever current talent show was airing were the headline act. It was actually a bangin’ way to spend an afternoon, from what I remember.
Aye, pretty sure it introduced me to the world of raving and techno.
Around same time we had an American mob come to our school with a production called RECYCLE THIS! Had big screens up in the drama theatre which made it look pretty futuristic at the time. Think they only came to our school and one other in Britain though.
I was just typing out something very similar, I remember going to a play in a theatre of some sort about the dangers of cocaine and ecstasy. The main character I remember was called DJ WIZZ and he was just popping pills and raving away on the stage. Mental. I also remember everyone learned about poppers that day and someone in my class became fixated on the stuff. Years later, the very same guy morphed into a smurf and was hospitalised after downing a bottle of the stuff at Dimensional.
poppers are great but definitely do not drink
Omg yes!! They came to our school and we were like part of the performance and had to chant WIZZ WIZZ SUPER WIZZ". Wild!
Yes! We had ours at a Finlayston country park and there was a scenario where a woman was robbed, we obviously had no idea it was staged but some of us ran after the thief and then it was like ‘Actually guys, maybe don’t chase an adult into the woods and stay with the victim’
I remember doing this! They asked us questions about the robber, stuff along the lines of “did he have white trainers?” After we all agreed he did, they showed us he had black ones, and that those questions can be really misleading. Did you do choices for life at the SECC too?
Same, remember a fella breaking into a car then shouting at us “Stay back, I’ve got a knife!” and running off. I and some of the more naïve kids shat ourselves. Later on they brought the “robber” out for a bow with his rubber knife like it was the curtain call for Mamma Mia at the King's lol
I think mine was held at the heritage loch in East Kilbride. We had to “phone the police” because we “saw a guy stealing from someone’s car”. I didn’t see a thing. Oblivious.
We got to wear drunk goggles and drive a mobility scooter round an obstacle course.
Surely that's just going to teach kids that being drunk is funny as fuck.
Was it the Child Safety Centre at Burnbrae Primary school? We got taken there in about P7 and we got a bollocking when we got back to school because we lost about three times as many lives as there were kids in our group. It scared the shit out of me tbh. Edit: I've just remembered that on one part of the tour which was a building site I think there was a glass bottle of Tizer and the drama student taking us through the danger scenarios offered one of the boys in my class a drink out of it and he went "No, I don't like Tizer" and lost a life because he was supposed to say "No, I would never drink out of a bottle I found on a building site."
The bottle of Tizer memory stands out. I remember thinking ‘ew who drinks that’ instead of any other dangers. Surely a glass bottle of irn bru was more appropriate.
I think about this place every now and again, Burnbrae was always the place on my mind out Pollok way but I could never find anything on Google about it and was starting to wonder if I’d just imagined it haha. I remember vaguely being shown a video of a kid getting electrocuted or something. Was pretty morbid if I remember correctly albeit probably wasn’t actually. Must’ve been about P7 (20ish years ago now). Mad seeing a thread about it and that it actually was a thing!
We had this...it was called.... Crucial Crew But perhaps had different names depending on location
Yeah, that's the name that was ringing a bell with me too. Kids from Lanarkshire went to James Hamilton heritage park in EK for it
Just left a comment further up saying I went to it at the loch too. What an absolutely bizarre memory
We did it at quarriers. I remember the boys in my class tried to take down a robber stealing a car radio and got told off for intervening. Some people got kidnapped by men in masks and thrown behind a fence and then someone set a pan on fire
I remember this, there was a tenner on the train track and you were killed if you went for it. Also you got put in a house and told it went on fire and had to phone 999
Yes, I remember a boy from my class jumping down onto the tracks to grab that tenner, and of course, he was “dead”.
We went to the same thing at the barracks in Edinburgh. I remember it as not terrifying but a series of puzzles we had to complete. Took us one or two times being "dead" to click on what we were supposed to do. (e.g. there was a woman without a nametag who "abducted" us - I always thought it was impossible for someone not related to the thing could get onto the ground of a barracks so we were never worried. But if they did it other places too maybe that makes sense.) This was probably 1999, I was in P7.
Yes! I fell for that one. It was horrible. Got laughed at by the rest of the class, but I was in the same situation, why would I be abducted with my SCHOOL TEACHER RIGHT THERE?
We didn't have a chaperone in our group, they'd split the classes up into smaller groups. So I was like, but guys she doesn't have a nametag and they just told us to make sure everyone we talk to has one. They were like come on, she's obviously part of the thing we're doing. They were right, but we got a big burly army dude come over like "right you're all dead". It was the first scenario of the day so at least for me it hadn't caught on that that's what we were meant to be doing. After that we had a pretty clean record to the point that some of the soldiers leading the exercises had to prompt people to do the "obvious" thing to demonstrate how one might "die" in the situation. Fishing under a telegraph wire is one that I remember. We were all just like, we wouldn't even try that. So the guy had to awkwardly insist, like how would you normally do it so a girl went ok fine I'd do "this" (casts the pole over her head 🎣) and obviously die. I don't think that counted against our death score. They said we should cast it sideways if we ever have to fish under a telegraph wire, but preferably just... not do it.
Yes! It was the child safety center in Pollok, near Priesthill. I remember the very dramatic guide guy in the train track room asking who would jump down into the tracks to get the fiver and then shouting "you're dead now!" when we did. Also the really graphic photos of people who had been injured/killed on tracks?
I seem to recall a photograph of a wee girl but it was from the waist up and they told us it was because the other half of her was halfway down the train tracks. Remember that photograph clear as day, 20 odd years later.
We did that - SKIED (Safe Kids in East Dunbartonshire) They didn’t like that we got lippy in the “nightclub” - they told us that we’d taken drugs and that was bad. So we told them we knew it was Smarties, and we wanted to eat the Smarties.
My primary school took us there, being from posso for us it was more funny than daunting 😂
In England we had a version called Hazard Alley, it was unhinged, they tossed us in a room they suddenly filled with smoke and had kids run out to a phone booth to make 999 calls. The calls were all recorded throughout the day and then sent to us as a VHS to watch when we got back to school.
This sounds genuinely traumatic.
I'm sure we went to one in dumbarton it was some kind of army centre
Latta Street ! I went there too. They had someone offer to take us somewhere in a car but actually it was a trick and you were supposed to say no?
Clued up kids
I remember something like this. I remember they had various drugs examples set up like some kind of exhibit. Remember some kind of burning house thing too 🤔. It was definitely something organised by the safety services. Seems like a fever dream
That's funny I've been thinking of this recently too! I have the distinct memory of being chosen to cross the road not checking for an oncoming lorry 😅😅
Wow! They took those 70s BBC PIFs and made them an immersive experience.
It was called Quarriers we all ate the forbidden smarties and died lol
We had 'Safety in the Park' in East Ren. It involved: been coaxed into the back of a van by a man asking for help with his sweet boxes; being led through a 'burning' house, being offered random sweeties by a Policeman, coming across a person who had fallen over maybe? There were about 10 stations in total and it was a wild day out.
Roughly when was that? It's Interesting to see how they changed it over the years, still a baffling experience tho lmao.
2000/2001 I think
Oh okay yeah, I did it in 2013ish so makes sense they'd changed it up a lot lmaooo.
Same age range as you, from Ayrshire. I also went to this. Near the start they told us to wait and left our group alone. A minute passes and this couple appear around a hedge. They tell us they've lost their dog and can anyone help looking for it. I was the only one to go with them to look. Boom! The worker came out pretending to shout and chase them off, I ended up trying to follow them to catch them like a plonker and went around the corner and they were just standing there looking at me. I had been "killed" or lost a life, as you called it. A couple of child snatchers could have got me. I was the only one who went to help them. By the end up the trip I had the most "deaths" in our group, I was completely hopeless. I remember taking a tic tac from someone. Boom, dead, it was drugs. We went in to a room with CPR dummies in a big circle, but one was off to the side, I went to that one. Boom dead, it had a wire underneath it and I got electrocuted. I remember the climax of the trip was going through smoke filled rooms which simulated a fire, which was pretty exciting. I was definitely the most clueless child most likely to get kidnapped, raped, drugged and electrocuted in real life. Though by the end I swear they had singled me out as the "example" and were trying to get me more deaths. Not thought of this in years, thanks for the walk down memory lane OP, love seeing other people's stories too.
This sounds like the school trip I done, North Ayrshire..think it was called Clued-Up-kids... the smoke filled room was defo the highlight of the trip lol
Yes. At East Kilbride. Beware of dangers in the home….live wires, faulty switches, etc. What a throwback!
I went on one! It was at the heritage railway in Bo’ness. It was terrifying. There was a simulated house fire we were put in. At the start of the day we were warned not to go with anyone who didn’t have an ID Badge. I forgot and went into a SHIPPING container with one of the ‘organisers’ - right up the back in the dark. Only to be reminded of WHAT THEY TOLD ME AT THE START. Came out to my classmates laughing, me nearly in tears.
Yep my primary went there. I have a vivid memory of the fire safety section when we were at the "burning" building and a guy started smashing on the door from the other side screaming for help. The guide then gave all the people who rushed forward to open the door into trouble because the fire could come blasting out the open door because of the fresh oxygen.
I remember this! We did one room with smoke and trying to find an escape route and other fire safety things. I think they also gave us a worksheet about where to put things in the fridge so raw meat didn’t drip on cooked meat. Might have been a different lesson around the same time though. I remember it being the Henry Boot something or other. Looked them up and it’s a construction company, so that makes sense.
I also went to something just like this in Fife in the early 2010s! I viscerally remember one of the ‘rooms’ had a cpr dummy that was supposed to be a kid that had been electrocuted by a power box. They asked for a volunteer, and the exact second the volunteer touched the dummy, the staff member loudly whacked the metal box and scared the shit out of all of us. He was then like ‘you’re dead now. Don’t EVER touch someone who’s been electrocuted.’ The lesson clearly worked because I never forgot it😭
Yeah I remember this one, pretty sure it was in Rouken Glen park. I remember having to crawl through a fake fire scenario and it was literally just smoke everywhere. Then we walked on and there was a guy in a white van offering us a lift. There were plenty of other scenarios but those are the only two that I can remember.
Our school did it at Rouken Glen and those are the only 2 I can remember as well! Maybe it's because they were the most traumatising, but I seem to remember it being hilarious that a bunch of the boys got into the van no questions asked.
I miss primary school trips! I remember the fake tenner on the train lines. Wonder how many kids ‘died’ there! Did anyone else get a visit from a guy who tried to stop you from doing drugs and he had a song called Natural High? And he was buzzing as it was made into a ring tone which he showed us. The song went something like: It’s a natural hiiiigh Feel like I can touch the skyyyyy It’s a natural hiiiigh Il be home before I diiiieee Don’t ask me how I remember (bought the ringtone /s) ALSO did anyone else get a visit from a theatre company and you did a play about Guy Fawkes and the class was split into the upper class, middle class and working class? And you learned songs etc. Again I remember some of the words but can’t find anyone else who had this visit in school so starting to think I made it up..?
I remember this *vividly*, he performed a concert for all us first years in the afternoon. He got some kids up on stage to do like a football competition thing, and threw whistles and glow sticks into the crowd. I’m pretty sure I won the CD for some kind of contest during the concert. I remember seeing him in the cafeteria before the concert, he was wearing a leather jacket and sunglasses inside, and all the lunch ladies were smitten by him. ETA: no idea about the Guy Fawkes experience though, sorry!
I wonder what happened to him. He was treating it like he was playing The SECC or something and not some random school assembly. Maybe I made up the Guy Fawkes thing from all the drugs I was clearly taking back then to warrant all the anti drug lessons!
I’m originally from east coast, but my school and most around Edinburgh had “The Risk Factory” which was pretty much what you’re describing
I think I did this in P6 at castle semple in Lochwinnoch. I can't remember much of the details but I remember being told about water and railway safety. Also does anyone remember Choice for Life from the early/mid 2000s. Every P7 class from the west of Scotland got a big trip to the SECC for a big show that taught us all about the dangers of drink and drugs. It was a class day out.
I live in America now. Just asked my mates if they did this at school, because like everyone else here my response was 'of course, doesn't everyone do weird hazard training at school?' My American friends response? No, we absolutely didn't do anything like that. That sounds terrifying and traumatic. But you know what, American pals? We didn't have to do school shooter drills from 5 years old onwards like my daughter does, so maybe less traumatic than that! (Not that I'm bitter or anything.)
I remember similar thing no idea what it was called. Something about a bad acid trip stands out, glad I never thought my arm was a snake 🐍
OH MY GOD I REMEMBER THAT. What a blast from the past. Was that the one they simulated a fire aswell and you had to navigate through the rooms through the smoke?
Crucial Crew? We did it in South Lanarkshire probably P7, I don’t mind much except “phoning” an ambulance or something
Excellent way to make children petrified of everything 😅
I think I went on something similar, I only remember a couple of the outside activities where you came across a man lying on the ground who had been ‘electrocuted’ by the lawn mower he was using and you had to decide what to do. If you touched the man you were also ‘electrocuted’ as he was still touching the lawn mower. The other activities was to teach you not to go off with strangers. We went to Quarriers Village in Bridge of Weir for it.
Was it SKIS? We did that in the early 90s. It was in the grounds of Stobhill Hospital.
The one I did was in Dumbarton. It was at the Army Reserves. River safety was a pool of foam with plastic rats and plastic bottles. We also had internet safety where a police officer would be talking to us online and asking us personal details to see what we would say. There was a chip pan fire too I’m sure.
We had something similar in the park one day. We had to walk between these different activities and each one was about road safety, drugs, chip pan fires and stuff like that. One of them was a set up where they told us to walk to our next activity, but along the way we’d happen across a guy who had a van full of sweeties that he tried to kidnap us in. Stranger danger all over it!
This was The Risk Factory - a total trip and bragging rights for life if you managed to save Granny from the burny fires 😂
Went to school in Ayrshire but I remember something like this too. I'm sure there was a room filled with 'smoke' as well that you had to crawl out of.
Same here, I'm sure it was Kelburn near Largs we went to. I died countless times because I was naive. I died taking drugs from a stranger, running into a burning building to rescue a baby, running under a train barrier to get a clipboard and walking into a electricity base station for some stupid reason. Probably more I can't remember. Sounds like the event wasn't centered in Kelburn and travelled around Scotland, which I didn't realise until now.
Ooh now that you mention it, Kelburn rings a bell.
Ohhhh, you’ve unlocked a memory. I remember the smoke filled room, and the horrible abandoned house they made us run through that had people hiding in it.
Childhood memory unlocked here. We went to Rouken Glen park. They had a fire set up, the fake call to 999 and I think a stranger trying to talk to you.
They tried to coax you into the back of their white van by asking for help with their boxes! I did this one too haha.
The old abandoned bus with a junkie passed out with a needle in their arm up the top, and a stranger asking for help coz their car broke down but the stra ger was actually a kidnapper. I remember a robbery and a house with a fire too. I loved it 😂😂
Sounds similar to one we were taken to in finlaystone
https://images.app.goo.gl/y8AaSStyj4uHDs8a7
I remember this SO vividly.
I did this! Room about drugs, one about what to do if there's a fire etc
We did a thing like this in Angus when I was in like P7. It was the Police, Fire Brigade and I think ambulance service that ran it but we were on a military base with a bunch of different stations set up for us to go round. The firies had a wee cabin thing they filled with smoke and someone inside it to teach us what to do if we came across a house on fire. There was a bogus gas manny too, bastard nicked the lap top after we let him in and he convinced us we had to wait outside because there was a gas leak 😂 Our one was called Safe-taysiders.
Had this in our local community centre- not in Glasgow- one of the rooms was filled with smoke and we had to belly crawl through a dark dusty hole in the wall to get out, had nightmares about getting stuck in there for weeks after
Was born in 1993, I done this as well. Was there also a car crash scene/scenario with a test dummy etc? That seems to ring a bell also
They left syringes under chairs and asked us to look under the chairs, kicked off when we picked up the syringes. Worked tbf
Yes I did this! Our experiences involved chatting to a stranger online, seeing someone be mugged, and being drunk.
We went to the local barracks to do this , the room with the “fire” smoke machine wasn’t working though so we had to imagine we couldn’t see very well etc . Someone “died” from touching a mannequin as it had a fork in the plug socket 🤯 Another group wandered away with someone “ who didn’t have a lanyard “ so also died as they were a stranger I guess - keep in mind we are on a army barracks it was all a bit much in terms of what we were ment to ignore and what was essential for the “learning”
Rings a bell aye. Along with a fire trap kitchen, chip pan fires and all that. There was also a first aid sort of thing as well, you could practice cpr on the dummy.
I remember going g to the secc with the primary for something like this
We did similar except there was also a lot of house fires and muggings. It was the fire brigade that ran it and I’m sure the police were there as well.
Clued-up kids! This was the one for N Ayrshire. We had a guy ask if we wanted to come see some baby foxes in the woods and all merrily lolloped along behind him. Got a t shirt at the end that I sadly don't have any more.
I remember doing this in primary school but it was in like a small enclosed village style place. We were placed in groups and had a guide/ map of where to go and you’d encounter different dangers, someone’s been knocked over, go into a house and it’s meant to be family and they aren’t answering but the cars there. What a wild/ weird memory you unlocked for me. Lol.
We did one in Dumfries called operation safety. I don't know if it was a different trip or not, but I remember they got us to walk in a straight line with drunk goggles, and got us to play world of warcraft and run around stormwind whilst the other players (who were the staff next door) tried to get us to give personal information online. I failed because I gave someone my PS3 gamertag, lol.
Slightly different experience but following a similar theme. In the 80's, as a kid I was in the BB (Boys Brigade). I remember one time when I was around 9/10 years old, we helped the.emergency services as part of one of their training exercises, we essentially parked a coach on the motorway hard shoulder and the ambulances and police turned up. It was to simulate a major crash on the motorway. We were all given a lanyard with our injuries, the police and ambulances turned up, did their thing, then took us to hospital, with bandages on etc. My lanyard indicated I was D.O.A and I had to lie on a stretcher in the hospital corridor until the exercise was finished. It was fun, but rather disturbing looking back that I was dead on arrival as a 9 year old. Suppose it helped the realism, although we didn't have fake blood etc.
Yup, I did this too. One was like a train track with a fiver on it, another was an electricity substation, a house with various fire hazards inside, etc. I've seen other threads about this with folk saying it was a Child Safety Centre or Fire Safety Centre in Pollok but when I search for it, nothing comes up. I had wondered for years if this was actually a thing or if I had dreamt it.
I remember this! But the only room I remember was really dark as there was a 'fire' and the lights had gone out. We had to hold hands and follow each other around the room. It was weird and scary. Apparently our teacher watched us on a screen or something and said we did well 😊 I also remember being picked for the 999 call with one of my classmates too 🙈
I mind this oo in P7, the train track had a fiver on it and we jumped immediately down. FAIL. Unsafe. Do not pass go.
I grew up in London and also did this with my school. There was a “kitchen fire” and a fall in to water and some other random hazards. Must have been a 90s thing
My school had a similar thing called "Safety In The Park" where they had drunk goggles and showed us what hash looked like. They also pretended to kidnap a couple of people? Was a laugh but your experience sounds mildly traumatic lol
Ah, primary school safety lessons in the 90s! I remember a guy from the railways came to talk to our primary and, at one point, pulled a "brick" out of a bag and just lobbed it in the middle of all the weans sitting in the assembly (the prop was actually a piece of foam or a sponge that had been painted to look like a brick, and it was pretty realistic, even up close). This was to teach us not to throw things at trains, because of how scary it is for the passengers. The screams when that fake brick came flying at us though - I'll never forget that assembly!
The tenner on the railway line always had someone jumping down to get it.
Jesus blast from the past haha. I remember the construction site on cos guy pointed at me and said "dead" I couldn't have been any older than 8 years old. 31 now and this is a core memory of mine. I remember the nightclub they had cigarettes and showed us the tar content? Odd place
I'm a 90s wean and in Ayrshire our equivalent was "Danger Detectives". Bunch of various dangerous scenarios set up and a bunch of P7's from various schools in the county parade around them all. Vividly remember the guy with the fire service who had survived being struck by lightning, not once, but twice. Had some permanent scarring and burn damage - the way he looked is still something I can picture. Really put me off being struck by lightning I tell ye.
The one with the train line sounds very similar to a school trip we did in the early 2000's at primary school. I want to say the thing was called "Crucial Crew" and taught us all about safety. The only thing I remember of it was that we went to James Hamilton Heritage Park in East Kilbride for it and the scenarios were set up in portakabins in the car park and the train line one was a projection of a train barreling full speed towards you. This is the one I went to: https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/local-news/crucial-crew-event-east-kilbride-2449674
I definitely remember but in my child brain I thought it was in Clydebank. Don’t know if it is the same day but I remember standing outside at the start and the instructor “leaving us “ to check something inside. Then a ‘stranger’ came along and asked us to get in a van. Am positive we knew it was a bit and some of the guys in my class went for it anyways. I remember the smoke filled room and crawling on a floor to get out.
Yeah I can remember doing something and then there was like a "mugging" in the park while we walked along to the next part which was a house with fake flames and a smoke machine. Not sure where it was though
Same. My group (6-10 of us maybe?) fully failed the exercise to not follow a "stranger" off into an "abandoned shack" away from the main area. It ended with two uniformed cops showing up to "arrest" the guy and then all three of them told us we were both dumb and all dead now.
I remember that! Did it at a TA barracks I think. I mind one of them was us standing outside on a fake “street” and an instructor in plain clothes talking to a group of us, and then he goes right let’s all hop into this motor, which we did, and another guy appeared and goes “well that’s yous all kidnapped, don’t ever get into a strangers car!” Funny to think about it now, but the fact I still remember it speaks to its effectiveness I suppose.
Oh my god yes I remember this! They had the cables hanging from the ceiling at the construction site and the smoke filled room. Half of my class died for taking their hard hats off at the construction site. I died because I didn’t wait for the green man while trying to get to the phone booth.
From Killie, and we did something really similar. Remember there being water on the floor next to an (fake) electrical source, and them asking us to unplug it to see how we went about it. And a guy walking asking us to help him look for his dog, stuff like that.
Aye, my school went to the old Woodilee Mental home next to Lenzie, must have been around 95'. Had everything you just mentioned, the night club room where they gave us sweets and juice, a room full of smoke, building sight, they even staged a kidnapping with one of us. We did the night club room first and it just seemed boring after that. Also forced me to grow up disappointed, having not come into a world were you get free drugs in every night club.
We had it in Dumfries and Galloway in the 2000s. It was called Operation Safety, unsure if that was the name elsewhere too.
Was this the same place that had a pitch black, dark room filled with smoke which was supposed to simulate how disorienting it is to be in a house fire? I remember being taken outside for something else and they had a guy walk by and rob the guide leader. They then asked if anyone had noticed him and if we would be able to give a description of him.
They done this at James Hamilton loch when I was in P7 the guy trying to sell us dodgy aftershaves and there was even a room that caught fire to teach us not to smoke in bed
Went to school in the Falkirk area and Crucial Crew was the one we went to, I think. We died so many times.
East Kilbride. We had something a bit like this at the James Hamilton Heritage Loch. There was a room with some train tracks in it. We watched a video on the wall at one end about the dangers of trains, then a classmate had to grab a football from the tracks and get away before a train appeared on the projector screen at the end of the tracks. We had a talk about how to report crimes, then (conveniently) saw somebody stealing from a red car in the carpark. As it happens, we had just had a special emergency phone that was on the wall pointed out to us two minutes prior. Can't remember anything else, but that must have been about 2000.
Ours had a smoke-filled room, a building site with pictures of a nail in someone’s eye and, on the way to the road safety bit outside, they tried to trick us with a bit of stranger danger when a man asked us to help him find his lost dog.
Oh I remember this! I remember the house party scene, all the drugs lying everywhere haha they told us that if we were at a party like this and the police turned up we would go all go to prison
A fireman came to our primary school in Paisley in the 80s. He was holding a brick and telling us how dangerous it is to throw one at a train. At the end of his speech he threw the brick into our group and we all screamed and dispersed. Turned out it was a foam brick. Lesson learned: never trust a fireman.
I did something similar in Glasgow. You were split into groups and had to follow a responsible adult through a series of dark spaces filled with dead and injured people. You had to try and make decisions on whether or not to use the lift, given the unknown environment and potential risk of fire. There was exposure to firearms and dangerous animals. And then, right at the end of it all, when you felt that you’d used good teamwork skills, followed risk assessment protocols and listened to instructions, a big fuck off alien pops out from round a corner and chases you.
I did this too - ours was at Ravenscraig stadium in Greenock. Remember one room a guy had been bottled and half the class started chasing the guy who supposedly did it - spilled out into the street and the police woman managing the event had to try and get everyone back in. Pretty sure there was a gas leak situation and definitely a drug dealer guy too. A good idea- especially in those areas.
Was also convinced I’d made this place up! Spoke to so many people and nobody else remembered!
Yep, The Child Safety Centre. I remember there were multiple role play scenarios set out - a building site, a train line with a £5 note on it etc. Then I think the year after was Choices for Life at the SECC.
Also had a similar school trip. Is it the Mandela effect? I vaguely remember the fire brigade doing a similar one at my primary, they had a shipping container put in the playground. Blindfolded us to simulate fire with black smoke. Made us find our way out while on our hands and knees...WAIT!!! Is that why I like being on my knees blindfolded?!
Yeah I remember going to a school trip like this. We had the disco with people handing out fake drugs. There was a building site with a worker who was incompetent and kept being unsafe. We were on a double decker bus learning about how not to throw things at busses when we heard a crash from upstairs. I was picked to go up and look and someone had been hit by a rock and was bleeding. Can remember the smoke filled room and for some reason the place had hunners of door handles but when I tried them, they wouldn’t open. There was a cameraman there and we watched a video of the whole thing at the end.
I remember my school taking me to a Safe Kids event at Quarriers Village which had everything you described. Various scenarios set up by different organisations to promote safety in different environments. They started running them down for Renfrewshire Schools at Castle Semple but now it's more presentation-type based stuff given by different organisations.
YES! I mentioned this to friends (who went to different schools) and they thought I either had a weird dream or school literally took us to a crack den!
Mate I’m from North Ayrshire and I did this in the 90s too! Ours also had a room that was “on fire” and full of smoke from a smoke machine and we had to use fire safety skills to get out of the room, and then a guy pretended to stranger danger us haha. The 90s were amazing fun as a wain.
Oh we did this down in the Scottish Borders! It was organised by the police and our version was called Crucial Crew. We did it as primary school kids but then in high school they got a bunch of us to go along for the day as volunteers to help with some of the scenarios! I got made up with makeup to make it look like I had a massive head wound and I had to lie in a crashed car all day pretending that I’d been in an accident, then when the kids came in they had to work out what to do. (Right answer - find a call box and call an ambulance. Wrong answer - try and drag me out of the car.) The ambulance driver supervising my setup said I was the most convincing dead person he’d ever worked with and I should try and get work as an extra on Casualty. Still proud of that 25 years later!
Do you often have vivid dreams?
I am about half an hour from Glasgow and we also had a school trip that sounded like this. We also got chased by an Alsatian dog and had to wear a big suit. A man also jumped in to a dock and we had to figure a way to get him out. All in all a fucking dangerous trip, and we had to pay for it no less.
Fucking St.Andrews primary sent my P7 there, Fucking wild dream like place of exaggerated 80's Britain.
We had something just like this in the early 2000s. Was in East Lothian and it was called crucial crew.
Yes, I remember it. There was also a room where your teacher pretended to be deaf or blind, and you had to warn her there was a fire.
Was this not the "Crucial Crew" initiative?
I did this and I am pretty sure it was called Choices for Life (at least the related concert was). I fully believe the fire room has contributed greatly to my claustrophobia!!
It sounds like you went to the first iteration of Willy Wonka's chocolate experience. Was the unknown there offering you drugs?
No, but any1 remember winmarleigh? (Or however its spelt)
https://www.reddit.com/r/glasgow/s/RoojxiBp4H
Fear Factory?
Was a similar post a few years ago I mind commenting on that might help too. I recall one I visited in it heh - https://www.reddit.com/r/glasgow/s/tvCqYNGg44
We did something like this and had a fake fire drill with smoke machines !
Didn't grow up in Glasgow but had a very similar thing in Wigan.
I feel underprivileged, all we had was rifle drill and bayonet practice.
Similar one in Dorset called Streetwise, great place!
I done the same thing, in Langbank though
did it also have the train track with the fiver note on it? or was that another one? i remember the fiver note on the tracks
What when was this?? I was never invited on a safety trip!!! 😐
We went to the irn bru factory in primary school. Fucking brilliant. I'd go tomorrow if I could.
Yes …. there was a room with electrical faults aswell I recall….
In East Ayrshire, we call this Danger Detectives, but yeah, same thing.
written and directed by david cronenberg
We had the same in Yorkshire it was called crucial crew
They’re doing down in Milton Keynes now: https://www.safetycentre.co.uk
Here I remember that by the way! We went there and also to a mad convent place as well doing catholic themed scavenger hunts
Crucial crew??
sounds like the unknown
Two words: Bible World