JAILBREAK – The Convicts

Last weekend, convicts from the University of Southampton escaped the Jail of university life, all in the name of charity. With 36 hours and no money, the different teams had to […]


Last weekend, convicts from the University of Southampton escaped the Jail of university life, all in the name of charity.

With 36 hours and no money, the different teams had to try get as far away from SUSU as possible.

Some did more successfully than others.

Over 70 Southampton students took part in this year’s Jail Break event, so far raising over £7,000 for two brilliant student-run charities Enactus and RAG.

Even though the amount raised was an excellent joint effort, Jail Break is still a competition. This means that there has to be winners (and losers).

We’ve spoken to several of the teams that got the furthest, as well as the least furthest, and asked them about their Jail Break experiences.

This is how far each team got


 

The winning team – ‘An OutRAGious Pair’.

Congratulations to Pete Johnson and Aaron Shaka who managed to get an incredible 3295.32km, all the way to CYPRUS.

We asked them how they got so far. They told us:

We had a basic outline plan based on what I had been told by a friend that had done it before. We wanted to fly somewhere because that’s how you rack up big miles, so we chose to go to Heathrow airport.

However, unfortunately for them, people weren’t as kind as they’d hoped.

At Heathrow we were disappointed by people’s lack of generosity at Terminal Five, collecting much less than we had hoped.

So they decided to use their charm.

We used our charity charm to collect money from people on the train, and were amazed at how generous people were. Nine out of ten people gave something, with some giving £20 notes.

We then stopped and counted up the cash, which was in excess £350 (that’s a lot of change), and started using lastminute.com and skyscanner to find the best flights. After lots of deliberating we settled on Cyprus.

Both Pete and Aaron seemed to have an amazing time, even if they got slightly delirious:

We were so over-tired that Aaron started hallucinating and thought that one of his housemates Steve had been on the trip with us, and therefore him not being there meant Steve had been kidnapped.

Despite their amazing victory, Pete assured us that this was the last time:

I wouldn’t do it again Not because it wasn’t fun, but because I would be worried we wouldn’t get as lucky and not get as far.


 

The team that came in second place  ‘Borat Sagdiyev Kazakhstani Search Party’ (BSKSP)

Another fantastic effort, these guys travelled 1550km to Warsaw!

When speaking to Dominic Saunders, he told us that their trip to Warsaw was unplanned:

Completely spontaneous, we managed to get the flights by raising money around London during the day.

It sounds like they had a great time out there as well:

Our return flight was 6am so we figured staying up all night was the best bet, and what else is there to do on a Sunday night in Warsaw than hit up the local clubs … If it wasn’t for airport security waking us up we would have missed the flights home.


 

The Great Escapes

We also spoke to Sam Willstead from ‘The Great Escapes’, who got to Watford by hitchhiking with some apparently very drunk marines on their way to a stag-do (let’s hope the driver wasn’t drunk!)

He told us that it was good fun:

I really enjoyed it. Although I was disappointed we didn’t get further, the whole atmosphere around the event was really exciting. We met some interesting people and had a good time.


 

Where’s Jon Gone

In terms of the UK, one team that got far was ‘Where’s Jon Gone’, including Jon Young and Jonathon St Clair-Smith (see what you did there), who managed to get all the way to Aberdeen in Scotland. 

They told us how they simply got lucky- in style!

We started hitchhiking from the top of the Avenue where a pink hummer pulled up and took us on our way!

We would definitely do it again because it was an experience of a lifetime, but it was also very exhausting!

Well we’re glad that you had a great time. Who wouldn’t be happy getting a free lift in a pink stretch limo?

Congratulations to every team, no matter how far you got, on helping to raise an amazing amount of money.

If you wish to donate to the excellent charities that JailBreak is in aid of, you can do so here.