Just About Me 6

Approx 1968 they only went and picked me for the house rugby team, I hated the game and they picked me.

I reckon the fact that at the time I was about 5 feet 6 inches and most others were about 4ft 10ins probably sealed my fate, the game was on a Saturday morning at Raynes Park playing fields, I moaned about this and was told that if I did not turn up I would get a large amount of detention or worse, it did not help me that my games master was John Taylor the Wales and British Lion international (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Taylor_(rugby_player), so I did the best thing I could and turned up. Could not tell you the result as I could not wait to get back home in time to go to watch Chelsea play. I must have made the right impression as I was never picked again, and years afterwards I met John on an underground station, he gave me the impression that he did not even remember me, what a liberty!

In every year I was at Elliott they had an annual cross country run, I remember the first year telling my dad I was taking part, " Just follow the leader closely" he said " then nip past him at the end for victory", I lined up with great anticipation, they shouted go so we did, I finished 298th out of 300 apparently taking a rest 300 yards in is not the way to win!

Another thing they taught us at school was Woodwork and the use of various tools, one of these was called a spokeshave, spokeshave's were really useful for rounding objects off and in the use of carving. One day they set us a task of carving a fish from a handy sized piece of wood, I got stuck in with my usual amount of enthusiasm and towards the end of the project I had somehow managed to carve the fish's head off.
The other thing that always sticks in my mind about woodwork was the day  a teacher decided to punish me and another boy for some minor misdemeanour, the punishment was to saw a large sheet of asbestos in half, no face masks or goggles, can you imagine that today, too soft if you ask me.