Did you like doing sport at school? I know I didn't. I'd much rather have been home playing at the Apollo Moon Landing with my SWORD and Major Matt Mason!
I disliked all sports with equal vigour and was derided for being useless at them on a weekly basis. Picked last in the ritual humiliation of team selection, football was a particular bete noire of mine and I joined a special team of misfits called the Duffers.
Worst of all the active horrors though was cross-country running. To this day I cringe at the thought of having to run in the countryside, prefering to walk at all costs!
Cross-country running must have been invented by a maniac. Who in their right mind would sprint through mud and gunge in the pouring rain wearing only plimsolls, elasticated shorts and a school PE shirt?
I wouldn't mind but the land we ran across at school was a lame excuse for countryside since it was basically the rough scrub, marsh and woodland at the far ends of the playing fields. I hated every minute of it and only the thought of a hot cup of bovril and a mess with my Space toys when I arrived home got me through the winter ordeals.
Did you like sports at school?
Interesting. I hated sport at school and sort of protested by just not getting involved. However, I did eventually realise that volunteering for cross country running was a great idea. My school was close to the river in Chester and the running route was along its banks, an undeveloped area of fields (still the same today). The reason it was so good was that it was totally unsupervised. You left the school at the start of pe and usually got back sometime during maths! Couldn't get away with that now!
ReplyDeleteHa ha, I see your point Kev. The other thing I detested were the hot showers and the compulsory jostling and dead arming that went on. Still I suppose it was another way to extend the lesson into Maths like you say! I thought you would have liked maths Kev!
ReplyDeleteI wasn't all that keen on maths. My mates were all maths geniuses, I wasn't, I just muddled through. Liked Physics though!
ReplyDeleteAh the memories. I had no use for sports since invariably it meant being out of doors in poor weather. In 1960, my First year at a Secondary Modern (the same school as the Kinks and Rod Stewart all a few years ahead of me) we had a home room teacher that taught us English and French all Monday morning. French then English before and after lunch Wednesday and English Literature all Friday afternoon. There was no escaping her. Being part of the post war baby boom we were in temporary classrooms built between the playground and the sports field. Come May and cricket season our teacher took a short cut past the playing field and was hit on the head by a stray cricket ball. She was out for six weeks and we had substitute teachers instead. We all remember I'm sure how much discipline substitutes could manage, ha ha.
ReplyDeleteWhen old enough I would pay a yearly visit to Lord's Tavern to toast the sport.
For us a cross country run was a once a year event on the slopes of Alexandra Palace in north London. Everyone ran along the path, then down the slope and across the bottom, then walked slowly up the final hill to the top. A totally pointless effort all round.
The hot showers were a sore point as there was only one control for about 20 shower heads and the moron PE teacher could never regulate it properly. The staff changing room within the boys changing room stank to high heaven of unwashed clothing, unwashed shoes and unwashed bodies which set a fine example to us all.
Wow, you went to school with the Davis brothers TerraN? Did they seem musical even then? I love the Kinks and was just listening to You Really Got Me earlier tonight on the radio, one of the early beginnings of rock as we came to know it. Your memory of PE at school is excellent too evoking all the sweat and stink of the whole business. You should write a book!
DeleteDave was a year ahead of me and Ray was two or three ahead. Dave had a crush on Miss Walton-Knight a new art teacher. Ray pioneered the connection between the school and Hornsey College of Art where I ended up going after my Sixth Form year. Dave was either an early leaver or was expelled as legend goes. His interest was music, whereas his older brother, to hear his lyrics was a poet. The poetry must have been natural as there was certainly no inspiration for poetry from the teachers at that school.
DeleteOne of my mother's childhood friends lived nearby and her son was a classmate of Rod Stewart both at Primary and Secondary school. When Rod was working briefly as a grave digger she claims to have told him to get a suit and get a job. After that he became involved with music.
As to writing a book..............well you and your brother do like horror, so maybe one day.
The peer approval method of natural selection used by PE teachers back then, would've made Darwin chuckle, Woodsy.
ReplyDeleteWhilst never a noteworthy sportsman, I did serve my time with distinction as a milk monitor :)
I did serve my time with distinction as a milk monitor :) ha ha, I've been laughing about that all day! I don't think I was awarded any rank at school apart from Duffer in PE. In the Fifth Year I was a conscientious objector to being a Prefect as it was at odds with my hippy view of the world at the time where everyone was equal. Only later did I understand Orwell when he said that some are more equal than others!
DeleteI absolutely hated all kind of sport, I'm dyslexic, and this particularly affects my Hand-Ball-Eye-Coordination. So because we were forced to play Rugby [which I was completely useless at] it just resulted in me now having no interest whatsoever in Wales National Game!
ReplyDeleteIt shows how wrong the situation was back then, because [fortunately], I contracted an illness in childhood. This essentially and legitimately took me out of all sport permanently... Unfortunately, this is an illness which returns every so often and when it kicks off, its debilitating, and even breathing is difficult. Sometime in early 1997 it nearly finished me off.
However, even now, if I had my time over, I'd still pick the illness over compulsory sports, any day. No child should be made to feel the way I felt then, and find enduring a serious illness preferential to forced sport.
Fortunately, I did have some good and very sympathetic teachers in my school, and a Language Laboratory. So Rossa Thomas, the head of the French Department and a self confessed Audio-Techno-Geek, allowed me and a couple of others to learn how to use recording equipment there properly. By the time time I was 14, I could edit like the people at the BBC. Rossa was a good teacher, and a good friend.
Sounds like Rossa set you on a course in life that just bloomed and blossomed Bill. From school audio to radio station manager! Not bad. Sometimes kids need a sympathetic ear at school and mine was an art teacher. he was hard as nails and used the strap like a madman but through decent behaviour I avoided that side of him and went into his art room at lunchtimes in the Fourth Year to get away from some bullying that year. I remember making some lino cut print blocks of chinese calligraphy. Kung Fu was one of them and I still have the ink prints I made in his room at dinnertimes!
DeleteContrary to most of the comments I loved sport but at an early age i'd worked out my limits, I could run and I could jump, on the spot, long, high and with combo's of the previously mentioned! However by the time i'd reached secondary school the "Sport Nazis" in my class decided that none of my skills were useful and was made to run 1500meters every sports day! Even if I came in last!! Which happened every time!! Needless to say the "Sport Nazis" became bank managers, joined the CID and other various jobs that require that sort of personality - Mark J
ReplyDeleteAre they what Americans call Jocks Mark? You sound like you were sporty so its a shame they did that to you. Did you discover your musical side at school?
DeleteFor me, sport of any kind was to be avoided at all costs. In fact, you could say (ironically) that I made a 'sport' out of avoiding sport - and you'd be right. The number of times I contrived to forget my gym shorts and plimsolls are, well - innumerable.
ReplyDeleteYou'll be gad to know Kid that being 'excused' is still an art form. Its not easy forging a parents' signature! [I work in a school]. Thinking of collectabes I once bought an old book on Mount Everest and inside were a bundle of PE excuse notes written in pencil by the pupil himself and never used. They were from the 1950's!
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