On the ride to Plymouth Vicky revealed her concerns in letting the kids out in public. There’d been more than one occasion that she’d had to force apologies to upset mothers when a fight had broken out. She cautioned that swimming wasn’t to be seen as a means to release any pent-up rage at the kids by holding them underwater for long periods of time.

In the changing rooms of the Pavilions, Adam remained true to form by peering into the showers and saying loudly, “Look at the size of his knob! It’s massive!” An apology seemed unnecessary as the bloke in question looked quite pleased with himself.

We rushed into the pool and immediately lost sight of all sixteen kids. It made for a strangely relaxing swim with a slight air of tension at the end when only fourteen initially materialised. After a couple of tannoy announcements, and to general sighs of relief, the missing two appeared and we headed back to (thankfully empty) changing rooms.

It was relaxing too, on the trip back to CHICKS until Adam began detailing the many and varied ways he’d kill himself so he could come back and haunt Tanika in order to see her naked.

We were told that this group were particularly lacking in attention spans. There were more than the usual quota of ADHD sufferers and the backgrounds of some of the children were particularly harsh. Vicky told us that there was one child on camp who had a propensity for eating toilet paper and another who was fond of getting naked as often as he or she could. She didn’t name names, but it wasn’t hard to guess who that might be.

Sometimes we’d have to wait a little while for our nightly debrief from the Supervisors while they were busy with their own paperwork. This was one of the only opportunities we had to get to know our fellow Volunteers and have an adult conversation. So when Hayley, who was training to be a paediatric nurse, picked up and started playing a maze game, the conversation naturally turned to an animated discussion of toys. Chris asked if any of us had played Bop It; a game where you have to obey a series of increasingly fast spoken commands to spin, twist, pull, flick or bop various appendages on a central device.

I immediately launched into an excited description of Sex Bop It, an adult variation of the game I’d come up with on a boat trip on the Norfolk Broads. It would instead feature commands to finger, wank, lick, suck or fuck the appendages. Jane interrupted with a stern “Excuse me?” but she didn’t really want me to explain in any more detail and I realised this probably wasn’t the right audience for my thoughts.

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