to send my children on a school trip to London?

[urrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrmmmmm]

Have namechanged as am paranoid!

My children's school is organising a trip tp London - to the Tutankhamun (sp?) exhibit and a trip on the river. They are travelling by train and it will be a long day - leaving our home city at 8am and getting back at 8pm. (Children are Yr 5 and Yr 2 btw)
My dc are eager to go and I was happy with this - trust school implicitly and think this would be a great adventure BUT - heard two mums talking about it today - their children aren't going and they were saying how it was too far, too long a day, wasn't safe. London unsuitable etc etc. Thing is - I respect both of those women as being jolly good parents and it's worried me a bit - am I being irresposnsible or just plain stupid to let me children go? Dh tells me not to be daft.......any thoughts?

It is truly amazing how people who live outside London view people who choose to bring up children in the capital. My in-laws constantly refer to how dreadful my school run must be (7 minutes on traffic free back streets) ; how noisy and crowded it must be (we live in a spacious house surrounded by trees overlooking a garden square) and how hard and expensive it must be to entertain children (a never ending supply of the world's greatest museums, galleries and cultural events, many of which free). There is a basic assumption that one day we will come to our senses.

As it happens, we divide our time between London and the country and while the country has its attributes, hand on heart I don't find it necessarily entertaining kids out here than in the city despite being on the edge of a village and having a huge garden.

When I was a child, a teacher organised a trip to the original Tutankhamen exhibition. We lived miles away and, with hindsight, I realised how brave it was of the teacher to organise the trip. I will never ever forget the exhibition though.