RAG Jailbreak 2019 – Best Bits

On a cold, wet Friday morning in February, four teams set out on an epic (for some of them) journey from Parkers’ Piece. Challenged to get as far away from Cambridge as possible without spending any of their own money, they were faced with the task of charming their fellow students and residents of Cambridge for donations. Nobody knew where they would be in just 36 hours’ time…

It’s safe to say: they had varying degrees of success.

The good news is that all the teams were out of Cambridge by mid-afternoon. This was mostly achieved through fundraising from locals, with the exception of Team 4 (Jonny and Ross), who somehow managed to blag their way to a free train to Liverpool Street within 25 minutes of the event starting – we’re still not too sure how they did this without getting fined/arrested, but props to them I guess?

The other teams had slower starts but all made it out of Cambridge and straight to London, where they began the pretty grim task of asking busy passers-by for donations in the rain and freezing cold. We were especially impressed by Meg and Sacha who did this in full tele-tubby outfits, (they definitely won on costumes) but it was a great effort from all of them.

They all made it out of Cambridge eventually

Meanwhile Team 4 continued their pattern of wasting absolutely no time and casually mentioned that they were on a bus to Dover at just before lunchtime. By 5pm, just eight hours after leaving Parker’s Piece, they were on a boat crossing the Channel! Clearly these guys had strategised in advance. Their next step was to hitch-hike onwards.

Hitch-hiking can be tiring!

The other three teams were busy spending several gruelling hours on London’s streets in an actual storm and in one case stopping home to pick up a passport (a pretty crucial thing to forget, to be honest). They then proceeded to take part in what has become a longstanding Jailbreak tradition: taking advantage of drunk people in the West End on Friday night. This went pretty well for all the teams and all of them managed to gather hauls big enough to get them out of London the next day. Quite impressive, really, when you remember that 50 per cent of everything they were raising had to go directly to charity. Team 1 (Mike and Neha) even somehow ended up at the Royal Albert Hall!

Alister kindly allowed Team 1 to fundraise in his pub

With everyone finding somewhere to sleep for the night, they woke up on Saturday eager to get going again. But, some serious challenges lay in store.

Teams 1 and 2 each had a flight to Europe booked, but both ended up missing their check-in times by a matter of minutes and having their seats cancelled. With their hopes of leaving the country dashed, they were forced to rethink.

Team 4, meanwhile, had been busy through the night hitch-hiking from France to the Netherlands. They decided to stay there because they needed to be back in Cambridge bright and early Sunday morning. So they had a day and an evening to spend chilling in Eindhoven, and despite their incredibly fast-paced Jailbreak adventure they still seem to have found time to go to a few bars along the way!

Thrilled to be there…

Meg and Sacha (Team 3) meanwhile, had managed to get themselves on a flight to Marrakesh, Morocco, which cemented their title of being the only team to make it out of Europe! Team 4 might have left the country quicker, but North Africa definitely has a cooler ring to it than the Netherlands (sorry guys).

Chilling in Marrakesh is one way to procrastinate your essay I guess?

Team 2 didn’t manage to leave London after missing their flight; they ended up spending Saturday going door to door to raise as many donations as they could for RAG’s amazing charities. We think door-to-door might be a new level of fundraising even for RAG, so we’re still proud of them for raising so much even if they were unlucky with their flight!

Team 1, after missing their flight, decided to rethink and try to reach the very edge of the country instead- yep, they got on a coach to Land’s End in Cornwall! They continued to graft to raise as much as possible and ended up having a pretty magical end to their adventure in the snow, overlooking the sea at the most westerly point of mainland England and Wales.

Ready for a long journey

All our teams did a fantastic job, though a huge congrats has to go to Meg and Sacha for winning the prize for the furthest distance travelled, for which they’ll be rewarded with some exciting prizes soon to be announced. Sponsorship is still open for all these teams until the end of February – links to their pages are on on the event page on FB.