Speed demon – my first school sports day…

School sports days, they are all about us at this time of year like bees buzzing in the playing fields of every county. I passed one just yesterday afternoon and it made me shiver despite the muggy warmth of the day. I can’t even think about those three words without a slight feeling of fear passing through me – like a ghost walking over my grave,

School sports days… brrrrr.

Did anyone really enjoy them? Well the answer to that question is obviously yes otherwise sport wouldn’t be so highly prized, even worshipped by so many people. But I think that you needed to be good at sports to fully appreciate the joy of school sports day - and I wasn’t.

The egg and spoon, the sack, even the bean bags in a basket races left me trembling with unathletic fear and as for the proper sports, the running, jumping, and hop-and-skipping... well.

I have to admit to quite liking the tug-of-warring, but was that really sport or just an excuse too let of some boyish aggression?

It started out well though. The first time I felt the thrill of the race was a very special few moments for me, moments that I’ve never forgot or managed to experience since. It really was very strange and remains one of my clearest early-school memories.

Summer, 1962, John Hampden Primary School, Lower School – the class down by the recreation ground, a mile and a half from main school. Back then there wasn’t room for all the children in main school, so for the first year we were taught in a portkabin type structure in the grounds of the old school on Windmill Road. It had a playground, a huge beech tree, an overgrown garden that we weren’t meant to venture into, and an old school hall. The old hall was no more than an empty space where children were taught in a single class back in the times when kids had rickets and went up chimneys in their spare time. It was freezing cold inside in summer and even colder in the winter. I can still hear the wind whistling through the broken glass panes high in the tall, rectangular, windows above.

Back then the old school hall building was reserved for assemblies and ‘Music and Movement’ lessons on the radio (be a tree, you are the wind, float like a feather). Basically it was falling down and too unsafe to spend too much time in, but it had the space required to leap about in stockinged feet to the sound of a Home Service announcer.

We were taught our lessons in the two pink-painted, warm rooms in the adjacent cabin; our library, a large cupboard space with shelves between the two rooms. Strangely I can’t quite remember where the toilets were, although I think they must have been in the old school hall at the back, outside toilets, under the beech tree and open to the elements.

One summer’s day it was announced that we were to take part in a running race heat for the school sports day. All the children were marched up to the recreation ground in Plimsolls and our white sports clothes and lined across the width of the rec’s short green grass. It was quite a line - fifty or sixty five year old girls and boys all waiting for the whistle to be blown and the heat to start.

The first three boys, and the first three girls across the line, far away on the other side of the field, would go through to the main races in Thame park the following week. We’d be racing against older children from the next two years above ours in the real race, so we had a bit of a disadvantage, but at least we were all more or less the same age for the heat. I desperately wanted to get through to the real race.

The whistle blew and we were off, running as fast as our ricket-free legs would carry us. Andrew Roberts, the tallest boy in class, was in the lead followed by Anthony something-or-other. I was with a mass of flailing arms and legs somewhere behind them fighting for a bit of space - and it was then when the weirdest thing happened.

All of a sudden I began to run faster. It was as though something fast had entered my body and was helping me to run. I felt exhilarated - my arms pumped, legs pounded, my fringe flew in the wind, a huge smile upon my face as I ran faster and faster. Nothing could stop me! I ran quicker, then quicker still, soon overtaking Anthony and making ground on Andrew Roberts who was twenty feet in the lead. I knew I would beat him. A voice in my head calling ‘faster, faster, faster’ and the more it called the faster I ran. It was almost as though I was floating watching myself run towards the finish line, cheering myself on from above my sweating head.

Soon I was level with Andrew Roberts, despite him being a foot taller than me with legs to match and running towards the blue cloth tape stretched on the ground in the distance. ‘Faster, faster, faster’ the voice repeated. Five yards to go, then three, then two, then one - and I was over and collapsing to the ground, gasping for breath, watching Andrew Roberts as he approached the line with a good five yards still to cover.

I’d won! I was through!

“I didn’t know you could run that fast!” Miss Higgs said in amazement.
“Me neither Miss.” I managed to pant.

On the day of the proper race I came in a sorry last of nine. Andrew Roberts won and Anthony something-or-other came third. I gave it my best, but whatever speed demon was in me on the day of the heat wasn’t around for the real race. He’d moved on to another sports day I guess.

I was very disappointed in my performance. ‘Don’t worry love’ my mum said, but I never really enjoyed running much after that. I’d tasted the thrill of winning by miles and knowing I’d never manage it again, at least not on my own. So I let running drop away and be ousted by Daleks and rockets and drawing.

Even today though I still believe that it wasn’t just me that ran so fast that day, and often wonder who or what it was that ran with me.