John and Marie Christine opened the John Ridgway School of Adventure in 1969. It has become their life’s work. A founding Principle has been to “Leave People and Places better than you find them” and over the past 33 years, some 12,000 people have attended the courses. Teambuilding clients have included: Axa, BBC, Bombardier, BT, Energis, IBM, MMO2, MOD, Schroders.

Activities

More information is available on the John Ridgway School of Adventure website

Contact

John Ridgway School of Adventure, Ardmore, Rhiconich BY LAIRG, Sutherland, Scotland. IV27 4RB

Tel: +44 (0)1971 521 229

A Reflection in 2003 by John Ridgway

And they said it would never last….

Looking back (only very briefly, for goodness sake!) 34 years down a rather bumpy road. Why on earth would 12,000 people ever want to come here? The truth must be that at lot of those who came were sent….

I think that writing books and keeping a diary for forty five years did help me observe things. With precious little self-confidence, I tried to learn from those who came to the school and then I put into practice what I had learned. Adapt or die.

Marie Christine has been a tower of strength in all this. I’ve just been the figurehead, slimming has been my biggest problem. From the beginning in 1968, we realised the only way we could survive was by working longer than the competition. While others might be at the pictures or down the boozer we’d be grinding along. All those years of six months without a day off, then off to some other God-forsaken place of terror for the hols. Self-employment did allow us to take outrageous risks. Now we’re just boring old farts. It was lucky the competition never showed up.

Anyway, find out about our latest adventure, we're heading off to the Southern Ocean on the John Ridgway Voyage to Save the Albatross 2003-4

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