FREAK snowy conditions almost forced a group of students to abandon a visit to Milton Keynes to go skiing.

But the 13 youngsters left the icy hills of Swindon for the snowy slopes of Milton Keynes for a day of wintry fun.

The travel and tourism students from New College found themselves considering an alternative Arctic expedition closer to home, when lecturer Francoise Reding got stuck in a traffic jam at Wootton Bassett while they waited to board their bus for the trip to the Xscape snow dome. Student Jennie Mannion, who was leading the group, said: "We could have stuck planks on our feet and gone down Victoria Road."

"As soon as everyone started arriving they were making jokes about not bothering to go to the snow dome and skiing here instead.

"Then we had a message from Francoise saying she hadn't moved for 40 minutes and we thought we really might have to cancel everything." Luckily their teacher found a quicker way into town via Purton and they set off just 15 minutes late for their afternoon of ski lessons.

"We were quite relieved," said Jennie.

"I don't think an afternoon on the slopes of Swindon would have been quite so much fun."

The trip to the dome, which has three real snow slopes, was organised back in December, long before Wednesday's blizzards were forecast and it formed part of the students' coursework.

The Xscape complex attracts skiers and snowboarders of all ages from around the country and is proving to be a very popular tourist attraction.

They funded it themselves by raising money with a cake stall in the college off Queens Drive.

At the end of the day they found they had more money than they needed and decided to donate half of their £55 takings to the Air Ambulance, which rushed one of them, Stephen Young, to hospital when he was seriously injured in a road accident some time ago.

tina Clarke