Games lessons and being a "leftie" (School days Part3)

Games lessons.

We had 2 games lessons a week, I wasn't very good at sports, but I could run so was in the school cross country team. In the summer we did athletics & in the winter it was football and occasionally hockey on a hard pitch if the sports field was too wet.

Cricket was only for public schools and grammar schools, although we did have an out of hours (extra curricular) team that the geography teacher ran.

I dreaded games lessons, the boys were divided into two groups, a group for each of the two games teachers, I always found myself in the group with the same teacher. One of the games teachers was quite popular, strict but fair whilst the other teacher was very strict to the point of being sadistic. He used corporal punishment far more than most teachers and treat it as a performance. He didn't use a cane, preferring to use his own gym plimsoll and he administered the punishment at the end of the games period, in the gymnasium, with all the boys watching. The lad to be punished had to bend over touching his toes and the teacher would start his run up (like a bowler) from some distance; by the time he administered the blow it would be so fierce it invariably knocked the boy to the floor!

The Rugby Ball.

A young student games teacher came to our school for his practical learning experience and was a keen rugby player. He came for the autumn to Christmas term which would have been when we switched back to football, but he wanted to teach us rugby, the older and harsher games teacher objected and said that wasn't possible anyway as our school didn't even have a rugby ball. The young student said that wasn't a problem as he'd brought his own, so we played rugby! He was assigned all the lads that were very bad at football, which thankfully included me and we enjoyed some wonderful games lessons for the rest of that year.

When school reconvened in the new year, the student games teacher had left, having finished his stint. At the first games lesson we asked if we could continue playing rugby, as the student teacher had kindly left his ball with us to continue playing. The games teacher refused and put the rugby ball into a dustbin outside saying “woe betide anyone who removes that ball”!

I mentioned how we played hockey on days the school field wasn't fit due to being water logged. On one of these occasions I was playing in goal. I became aware of a circle of faces looking down at me, which was strange. It became apparent I'd been hit square on the forehead with the hockey ball, which is very hard like a cricket ball, and had been knocked clean out. I later had a large egg shaped lump there. The games master came over, sat me up and then asked me if I could stand, which I did. He said that I looked OK and we carried on with the game!

Being left handed.

I'm left handed, in fact I can do most things with both hands equally as well, but not when it comes to handwriting. In my working life I could use any tool in either hand which was a really useful skill to have, but not writing.

In my last year at school, we had a new teacher arrive, she taught English and religious instruction. It was to be her last teaching job leading up to her retirement and she had only ever taught girls and told us straight away that she didn't like boys! At the start of each class with her she would hand out the exercise books she'd been marking from the previous lesson, when it came to my book she asked me why my handwriting sloped backwards. I said it was because I was left handed and I had to angle it that way to avoid smudging what I had just written. To which she replied that “writing with ones left hand was not only unnatural but unacceptable”

and that from this day forth I would write with my “correct”, right hand! I had been writing with my left hand for 10+ years and try as I might, couldn't do it. So I carried on with my left hand but managed to slope my writing FORWARDS, hoping she wasn't watching me. The following week she announced, very smugly, to me and the whole class that I could actually write with my right hand, as proven by my written work now sloping forward in the correct, normal manner.

On another occasion my left-handedness also caused me a problem. My name had been called out on leaving morning assembly so I presented myself at the head masters study for the cane. After removing his cape and putting it away in his locker he brought out his cane which was also kept there. He refereed to it as “his assistant” and told me to ready myself so I raised my RIGHT HAND as my left hand was for writing, and wouldn't be able to write with it after getting it caned. He almost exploded shouting “do you think I'm stupid boy? Raise the other hand”. He then raised my left arm up with his cane and whacked my left hand very hard. I told him I was left handed and he caned me on that hand too “for being insolent and deceitful” by not saying so in the first place.