Issue No. 9: RUN FOR YOUR LIFE

One of my earliest memories is being chased by girls or, to be precise, by one girl in particular. It was an unnerving experience.

As part of the gym lesson in the Infants School, we had a rather bizarre and sexist routine. All of the boys had to remove their jumpers (pullovers) and shirts. All of the girls had to go the extra mile and strip down to their vests and baggy, heavy-duty, navy-coloured knickers (or did they wear these especially for gym?). We then had to play a strange mixture of Cowboys and Indians and patients and nurses.

The boys (or Cowboys) had to run round and round the school hall, where we held our gym lessons, to the accompaniment of loud (and untuneful) piano music. The girls (or Red Indians) had to chase them. When the music stopped, the boys (as patients) had to lie down, feigning injury, and the girls (as nurses) had to administer to them. This last bit never really developed properly and the skills of the nurses were never tested, as the music quickly started up again, causing all the boys a Lazarus-like revival.

Beryl O'Donnell, for some unknown reason, took a shine to me and insisted on being my combined Indian enemy and devoted nurse. My problem wasn't with Beryl's looks, it was her smell! I was, perhaps, the only boy in the class who didn't know her nickname - 'Smelly Belly'. One close encounter was enough for me but not, unfortunately, for Beryl. I cruelly tried to pre-arrange never to partner Beryl again and steeled myself against her sad and crestfallen looks. However, no other boys particularly wanted Smelly Belly hanging over them either, tending to their imaginary wounds, and so it was that, eventually, she and I would once again be thrown together - or not!

My fear of being subjected to Beryl's body odour so gripped me that, one day, I kept on running when the music stopped. As the cowboys dutifully dropped to the floor and their nurses knelt beside them, I continued to gallop ever faster around the hall, sometimes vaulting over the prone couples, but always pursued by the dogged Beryl, determined to get her man. The teacher shouted at me, the cowboys and nurses all laughed and cheered and Beryl grew ever more fretful. I wouldn't let the varmint catch me and would have eventually disappeared over the horizon in a cloud of dust, had not the school bell rung to signal the end of the lesson.

In Harness

Our school was predominantly made up of working class kids, but there was, nevertheless, a substantial number of middle class boys and girls from private (as opposed to Council) houses on the edge of our estate, at The Ridgeway, from the adjoining 'Sunniside' estate and from the two streets of private houses oddly situated in the middle of the estate - Hawthorne Avenue and Elm Grove. Inevitably, most of these kids occupied the top places in the top classes throughout the school. The exotically named Erica Robb was the top girl, until she and her parents moved away. She was replaced by Jane Hamill ('Hamill the Camel') who co-ruled for a few years with Derek 'Fatty' Lawrence, before she too moved away and was replaced by the greengrocer's daughter, Catherine Colley.

I remember that Catherine was especially chummy with two working class girls from my street, the Oates twins, Nellie and Jennifer. Every dinner (i.e. lunch) time, the twins would interlink their arms behind their backs and Catherine would use their skipping ropes to hitch them as her team of horses. The twins would snort, prance and neigh until Catherine shouted 'Gee up', shook the ropes, and off the twins would trot in perfect, straight-backed, high-kneed action, with Catherine running behind as their driver. After dinner, and suitably watered and fed (and no doubt brushed down too), they would return in similar fashion, neighing and pawing the air until Catherine un-hitched them and they could return to human form. The routine was also repeated at the end of every school day. This game, although new to me, had a long history.

 I was never sure of the reason for the twins' devotion to Catherine (free carrots from her Dad's shop?) but, inevitably, after a couple of years, the trotting came to an end; Catherine put aside the skipping ropes and began to be groomed for the reins of power, and the twins were destined for pastures new.