All aboard for Mark's TV Coach Trip antics

MARK Kershaw, fourth from left, with Charlotte Cunliffe and the rest of the Coach Trip team

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TOURING across Europe with those you know best can sometimes lead to arguments, but what about touring with a group of strangers?

For one Oldham man, who took part in Channel 4's latest series of Coach Trip, it was an experience he wouldn't change for the world.

Mark Kershaw (34), of Shepherd Street, Royton, partnered up with his co-worker Charlotte Cunliffe as they embarked on a tour through France and Italy last April with other strangers guided by Brendan Sheerin.

The premise of the show involves a group of couples undertaking a coach tour which lasts between 20 and 50 days with passengers remaining on the tour until they are voted off by their companions.

Both working at Heaton Park Sainsbury's, Mark and Charlotte have known each other for five years, when she asked Mark if he would apply for the trip with her he said yes.

While not being able to say much about the activities on the trip, as the show is currently airing on E4, Mark did say it was a fantastic experience.

He said: "It was a really good because we got to see places we wouldn't usually see. What we saw in that space of time, it was really good, it was quite an experience.

"It was quite funny, the entertainment was very good. The first one was jumping off onto an inflatable in the water and your partner is on the end and they fly off. Charlotte jumped first and when I got to the top I said I can't jump because they said you have got to jump backwards, not feet first.

"So Brendan did it for me and Charlotte went flying into the air."

Mark said he is still getting used to seeing himself on the television each night.

"It is awful seeing yourself on the television in your shorts, pale and red from the neck up, and then you're standing next to people with six packs. It is ok though, it's just getting used to it and seeing yourself on the television and then looking at Twitter to see what people are saying.

Speaking about Brendan and the rest of the team, Mark said: "He is lovely. As you see him on the TV that is what he is like in person. He's got so many tales.

"I still keep in touch, we all got drunk after the show, we went to Birmingham and all went out. We all get on, it is quite good, we all get on. I wouldn't change it for anything really."

You can see how Mark gets on by watching Coach Trip on E4, Monday to Friday at 7.30pm.