By Miro Cafolla, Postgraduate and International Tutor
Photographs by Michael Crilly, Amelia Law, Ollie Morrell and Ran Wei
We are super happy that our John’s international students are so engaged that we have won £500 by having the best response rate to the International Student Barometer!
To celebrate our success, the College organised a trip to the Beamish Museum on Friday 14th June. This was an invaluable opportunity to celebrate the end of exams and explore how British life was more 100 years ago.
We left the College early in the morning and headed to Beamish not fearing the bad weather, but secretly hoping for the weather forecasts announcing some warm sunshine in afternoon to be true.
For many of us, it was the first visit of this huge living museum, and we were simply impressed by the size of the site: 350-acre! Beamish is indeed an open-air museum located at Beamish, near the town of Stanley, in County Durham. The museum offers an example of everyday life in urban and rural North East during Victorian and Edwardian eras. An entire town has been reconstructed depicting chiefly Victorian buildings in an urban setting of 1913.
An example of everyday life in urban and rural North East during Victorian and Edwardian eras
You can go and visit a local bakery and the sweet shop, where you can even buy some of the traditional sweets and chocolate. We then visited the bank where a costumed interpreter gave us an overview on banking techniques and money transfer procedures at the time – do you know that if you wanted a job in a bank, you would need your parents to firstly go to the bank and assure that you were a guy of good character.
Explaining how to bake bread following a Victorian recipe! 
Looking at the latest technology in the printers 
Buying some custard powder at the Department Store
Of course if you like bikes, cars, and engines you must have a look at the garage, but if you are more interested into chemistry the local chemist is a must. Here, you can get a real marble-stopper sealed Codd bottles! At the chemist, you will also find a local studio, where visitors can dress in period costume and have a photograph taken.
No need to say that to move from one part to another of the living Museum, you will be using a variety of restored cars, trams and buses, as well as early steam locomotives.
Hopping on the bus 
Catching a train… 
…en route to the pit village!
The Museum includes also a North East farms during the British Home Front of World War II, and the pit village, representing life in the mining communities.
Ready to explore the coal mine 
Back to school in the pit village
As you can see below, some of us made new friends during the day , but others got in trouble with the law…
Making new friends… 
Under arrest….
Joking aside, the trip was another great moment to celebrate John’s spirit as one of the most inclusive Colleges in the University. With our solid roots in the past and in the local community, we are an International and multicultural College aiming at contribute to shaping the future and taking action on the world’s biggest challenges.
John's Chronicle 