Cottesmore Headmaster In A War Zone – Day 1: Travel
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2 days ago
Follow Cottesmore Headmaster in his own words as he embarks on a humanitarian mission through war-torn Ukraine.
For those of you who did not read the previous explanatory article here, Cottesmore Head Tom Rogerson accepted an invitation to join a cross-party delegation on a mission to Ukraine. MPs from the Labour, Liberal Democrat & Conservative parties accompany him on the trip – as well as no small amount of journalists – but Humanitarian charity HopeFull is at the heart of the exercise. As Tom makes progress in his journey, he posts updates on LinkedIn – updates that School House Magazine will also be publishing. Excitingly, the first of these updates can be read below.
‘A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.
Or more accurately in this case, a journey of 1054 miles starts with a 5.50am taxi to Gatwick accompanied by a logistical genius capable of fixing almost anything.
The journey to the school we are twinning with in Kyiv, Ukraine is epic. (A less catchy film title springs to mind: ‘Automobiles, Planes, More Automobiles, On Foot, More Automobiles, Night Trains & Again More Automobiles’ is the working title of this movie.) We flew into Kraków, Poland – Ukraine being a no-fly zone.
We drove in convoy to the Ukraine border, walked through border control and picked up another car which took us towards Lviv.
Supper was borscht (a hearty beetroot soup), dumplings, uzvar (a smoky, fruit-based soft drink) and, of course, vodka; we definitely did not do justice to the vodka bottle, which is probably a good thing looking at the tight & full schedule of events over the coming days.
The war is ongoing. The humanitarian aid efforts of HopeFull are making a difference to those affected. But they need our help. There are so many things going on during this trip that it would be easy to forget my own mission of twinning with the school in Kyiv. There will be large numbers of meetings with dozens of high level politicians and key people. I will break away from the group at some point to head off to the school, pending incoming missile warnings. Feel reasonably emotional about it already.
Wish us luck & love.’
