The 26 seater Ballard High School bus trundled north along Route 85.

Although none of the twenty-one occupants knew it – not the nineteen Year Ten Media students, not Mister Roger Loydell, their Form teacher and teacher of English and Media Studies at Ballard, and certainly not Miss Cassie Arbogast, the Media Studies teacher who’d arranged the visit to the Mount Squires Recording Studio, just as she did every year, and who was driving the bus – one of them was about to have a stroke.

It was a typically hot afternoon in May and the kids were fidgety. Loydell looked at his watch: 12.46. They’d been on the road for an hour. They were halfway there. He decided to let them keep themselves amused. He put the pile of media essays he’d been reading and marking down on the vacant seat next to him and got up. He leaned over Miss Arbogast’s shoulder.

“I’m going to let the students play with their mobile phones, walkmans, computers, whatever,” he said over the rumble of the engine.

“Good idea,” Miss Arbogast said over-brightly. “They’re starting to get on my nerves.” As an unnecessary afterthought, she added: “ETA Mount Squires – 13.45.”

Loydell knew this. She knew he knew it. She just had a habit of stating the obvious.

“It’ll be good to get there,” he managed to say, before turning towards the seated students.

“Listen up, all of you,” he announced. When there was complete silence, he proceeded. “Those of you who have the following with you – mobile phones, walkmans, computers – can, for the remainder of the bus trip to the studio, take them out and use them.”

There was a ragged, low-key cheer, followed by some frantic bag searching.

“Once we get there they go away again. Clear?”

There was a vague murmur of assent and some nods. Not enough. Some of them would try and claim they hadn’t heard.

“Is that clear?” Loydell repeated.

“Yes, Sir,” the students responded en masse.

Loydell sat back down and picked up the essays, continuing to read the one he was halfway through.

“…The lucrative session work in the early sixties meant that he ended up playing the guitar on the following records: “I Can”t Explain’ by The Who, “You Really Got Me” by The Kinks, “Gloria” and “Baby Please Don”t Go’ by Them, “With A Little Help From My Friends” by Joe Cocker, “I”m Into Something Good’ by Herman’s Hermits, “Down Town” by Petula Clark, and “It”s Not Unusual’ by Tom Jones, amongst many others which he remained uncredited for.