The annual ?bonding day? for 105 Clearwater Middle School students, went off without a hitch when bus drivers kept their promise to take the children home.

Yesterday, some feared that their bus ride home would be disrupted by the mass membership meeting of the Bermuda Industrial Union.

Deputy Principal, Derek Tully said that bonding day was designed for students to go out into the field to participate in educational activities together.

?We arranged to go to the Fairmont Southampton to breakfast and were supposed to be bused to Dockyard for research,? Dr. Tully said.

The buses were supposed to meet the students at 10.30 a.m. and take them to Dockyard. ?But it did not happen,? he said.

Instead, the kids ?marched down to Horseshoe Bay? where they carried out bonding exercises like saying what their favourite part of Middle School was.

?At 1.30p.m. we called Mrs. Pamela Rowland who is involved in chartering buses. Lo and behold, the buses arrived at Horseshoe Bay,? he said.

There were 105 Clearwater students and ten teachers to be picked up at Horseshoe so two buses were necessary to take them back to St. George?s.

?The kids had a beautiful day. We took lots of pictures and put them up in the hallways of the school.

?They must have been the first buses out of the depot, and they came to get us,? he said.

As the most ?isolated middle school in the country,? Dr. Tully said they depend on PTB to keep the buses running for their students as they would not be able to leave St. David?s otherwise.

?They work hard to keep the buses running for us. They come and leave every day, 200 days a year. They never let us down.

?They should get a medal. We were stuck there,? he said. ?The only alternative would have been to ?spend hours calling parents and waiting?.

?We would have been there until 6 p.m.?.