I'd always imagined this kind of multi-activity holiday as a superior Scout camp: good outdoor fun, based heavily on teamwork, like one of those corporate training weekends where people are encouraged to bond and develop group skills through various torturous "games" and brainstorming sessions. How wrong I was.
It soon emerged that people were there to have fun, guests and group leaders alike, and my brown bread-eating preconceptions also faded as the unorganised, slightly amateur feeling began to grow, which made the whole introductory evening more relaxed and friendly.
On arrival, we turned in through the gates, between two dinky walls, each with their own manicured little lawn and lamppost, plus gilded signs displaying the words Moreton Hall, in a £16,000-a-year public-school-sort-of-way.
The excitement grew as we drove down the smoothly-curving driveway, which revealed a nine-hole golf course. Health-club land, I thought, as the high-spec tennis courts came into view.
But the red-bricked mansion pictured in the brochure was out of sight and "out of bounds". Even the potted-plant and carpetted foyer of the sports centre was not for us. We used the side entrance, through the locker room.
But the outdoor swimming pool was heated, there were three tennis courts, bounteous playing fields and a conveniently-placed canal. Our 10-strong group with accents from Yorkshire, London, Middlesbrough, France and Spain toured all this with our team leader Rachel.
Despite the initial lack of Scout-like chants, there were still the introductory bonding games including the Human Knot: stand in a circle, put your hands in the centre, grab a couple of hands each, unknot yourselves back into a circle - you can imagine the scene. Then came the introductory briefing by James, the site manager: "You're here to enjoy yourselves and, as long as I never see you in my office, you will." How pleasant.
Pizza and chips at 6pm were wolfed under a mural of English proverbs: men frantically throwing stones at birds; businessmen on hobbyhorses and people being pushed off bikes - perhaps all signs of the week ahead? It certainly chimed with "Superchoice": the evening's signing-up for the next day's activities.
However, there was no monitoring of who did what, so that for the most popular/rare activities - tennis, kayaking, golf - some people could (and did) miss out, while others may have done the three-hour kayaking session several times. This rather reflected the whole setup of Moreton Hall. Run by a PGL team whose "Grandad" was 26, the organisation of everything was rather lacking.
Most evenings, we were kept outside on the grass waiting for over an hour, while the tortuous process of choosing our next day's activities ground into action. The first evening was chaos as the staff were trying painfully hard to be "zany", while the poor 19-year-olds behind the desks, who were as bemused as their audience, were trying to explain the whole convoluted concept of Superchoice to bewildered guests.
Somehow it worked, though, and, once you got to them, the activities were generally well organised. The specialist sports like tennis and kayaking had trained instructors, so you actually learned something by the end of the session.
An element of fun was inevitably built in - archery managed to include running round a tree, "imitating a farmyard animal of your choice", going through the rest of your group's legs, and finally, of course, firing an arrow. In rifles, there was a slightly more severe element. You had to earn your cutlery for the next meal, by firing into (tiny) boxes labelled knife, fork and spoon. Our three-person group ended up eating with our hands.
The quality of the activities varied depending on the instructor. My first ballsports session was: "Here are the balls. There's the sports hall. Go and have fun!" The second time, however, was a veritable feast of organised ball-related games - non-stop cricket, tagball, volleyball, badminton. So find out at your Superchoice meeting who will be taking the various activities, and judge for yourself their enthusiasm (or lack of it).
Pizza and chips, meanwhile, had dramatically developed into a multi-cultural culinary bonanza. By the end of the week, the kitchen staff's repertoire included mild curry, lasagne delicatessen-style salad, and always an enviable vegetarian option. The much-publicised nightly entertainment also managed to delight the hordes, with a Blind Date, a talent contest, a play by the drama group and the inevitable disco with karaoke.
Further afield, we took a skating/skiing trip - all morning skating, shopping in Telford (useful for buying all those forgotten toothpastes and shampoos), and the afternoon spent skiing on a nearby dry slope, where you can either free-ski, or have beginners' tuition for free. It's also a welcome change of scenery from Moreton Hall.
On Thursday, there was a day trip to Alton Towers which I can't recommend, as I didn't go. But my friend thought it wasn't worth the extra £17 for a two-hour journey there, the same back, and all for a go on two of the smaller rides.
As for me, it was nice and quiet on campus, and a break from some of the loud Americans on the parallel PGL Drama Holiday while they were away learning how to raise curtains at a theatre in Shrewsbury.
The father's story
Halfway through Olly's adventure holiday, I flicked on the car radio and skipped a heartbeat, writes Martin Wainwright. Disaster had befallen a group of teenagers on a hike in the North Wales borders. Two were missing, and possibly badly hurt.
The hours of anxiety turned out to be someone else's - and fortunately not as catastrophic as the bulletin had suggested - but the jolt underlined the natural fear of novice parents who give in to badgering about kayaking, archery, late nights and all the other joys of a holiday without mum and dad. Will you get them back in one piece?
The answer to that bottom-line question with PGL - the "Parents Get Lost" pioneers of solo teenage breaks - is that you can set it aside. The brochure's advertised degrees of excitement give you an obvious risk-range anyway, from Shropshire farm visits to abseiling in a French canyon. But whatever the timetable, the fledglings have well-picked and watchful mother-birds.
As it happened, mother-bird was a rather emphatic misnomer for Rachel, Olly's "groupie" or team leader, who looked only fractionally older than her 14-18-year-old charges. Nanny behaviour was on my mind at the time, following the Louise Woodward saga, and it was good to get zero radar readings for False Gush to Parents.
Olly had already clocked up a few hours of flying semi-solo: a French exchange (with his class) and skiing lessons (with his brother), and he went on PGL's basic multi-activity week with a friend from school. Given the variables in any group of teenagers, it's impossible to guarantee that his Rachel-aided mixing was typical; but the groupies' liveliness and the range of their charges (PGL isn't remotely private boarding school continuing into the hols) suggests that it was.
The holiday base, Moreton Hall near Oswestry, actually is a private boarding school; indeed, I reminisced on the drive down about playing Under-16 "B" league football against them during my schooldays at Shrewsbury. On arrival, we discovered that the place is and always has been a girls' school, so it must have been sixth form dances. Still, both activities involved very similar, self-conscious standing around.
This appeared to be at a minimum during Olly's week, although the youthfulness of the groupies seems - from his descriptions afterwards - to have had a downside in moments of muddled management which made some of the "Superchoice" activity options rather less than super.
Olly's Mum did her bit of nostalging on the drive from Leeds, too, by recalling how every moment at boarding school was spoken for. PGL does not go that far and I don't think parents should want it to. The periods of waiting or queueing have their place in prompting a bit of imagination in making your own fun.
A solid PGL strength is that the paperwork and checklists come early and the timely reminders about what to take suggest that a Past Parent is in charge of this side of things. Top tips include an invaluable recognition of the attractions of mud and the wise idea of getting a bit of cheap gear from a charity shop; don't worry, your teen won't be sneered at by toffs in Tommy Hilfiger or Ralph Lauren.
The gut test of a holiday like this is collection time (we drove down again, but Olly's friend Peter used the very efficient escorted coach service back to Leeds). Knots of hankie-dabbing teenage girls were perhaps a little bit too Sweet Valley High for my own parental taste. But they (and various correspondences in the months since) suggest that a good time was largely had by all.
The practicals
Oliver Wainwright was a guest on PGL's one-week multi-activity holiday in Moreton Hall, Shropshire. Activities on the week include fencing, stunt kites, water polo and orienteering. Age range :14 - 18, prices from &#'163;324 a head. PGL offers a wide range of specialist holidays at centres in England and France, including L-driver holidays, circus skills, internet based weeks, riding and training to be a Baywatch-type life-guard. Escorted travel is available from London and regional centres. Booking on 01989 767767.
