In 1962, Calder joined the Woodcraft Folk and travelled with the group to the Lake District. That same year, after the USSR sent nuclear warheads to Cuba, Calder's parents decided that with Gatwick Airport only two miles away they were in the line of a potential Soviet target. The family moved to Guernsey, for a short holiday while the danger passed. The school he attended, Thomas Bennett in Crawley, compulsorily taught Russian, which Calder comments was not useful on regular school and family trips to France.