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I have a scar on left shin. It's over fifty years old now, and not very visible, but it still irritates me occasionally.
I got it in a PE accident at school back in spring 1965. Mr Glasper, the games teacher, decided that the class would learn some athletics disciplines, and that day it was throwing the discus. He lined us up on a tarmac netball court on the school playing fields. This was on a slight rise and the idea was we'd line up along the edge, looking down the hill, and throw in that direction.
There were drainage holes spaced along that edge of the tarmac and some idiot had removed the drain cover from the one directly in front of me. I have vague memories that I was bullied by the rest of the class to stand next to that drain, and the inevitable happened. As I stepped forward to throw the discus, I forgot the hole was there and my leg went down the drain. The side of the drain gouged deep into my leg. There was lots of blood. I was taken to the domestic science room where the teacher had first aid training and got bandaged up. I think I stayed at school for the rest of the day - there was no easy way for me to get home until the school buses arrived - but I was told that when I got home I had to go to the doctor's to get a tetanus jab.
For I think the rest of that term, I was excused games, especially swimming.
Mr Glasper, I knew, was also a professional wrestler, fighting under the name Ray Diamond. Just now, thinking about this incident, I did a bit of googling and came up with this news item from 2012:
http://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/9459466.Tributes_paid_to_former_professional_wrestler/?ref=rss
Despite what it says, my memories of him less charitable. He had a temper. I remember one occasion when he lashed out and thumped the wall just over my head. On another occasion, I picked up my gym kit in a hurry at home one morning and accidentally picked up two left gym shoes. He made me go on a cross-country run wearing two left shoes.
Mind you, by the time I was in the sixth form, he'd let us do what we liked for games. I played tennis for a year with a friend on an outdoors court - even when it was snowing.
I got it in a PE accident at school back in spring 1965. Mr Glasper, the games teacher, decided that the class would learn some athletics disciplines, and that day it was throwing the discus. He lined us up on a tarmac netball court on the school playing fields. This was on a slight rise and the idea was we'd line up along the edge, looking down the hill, and throw in that direction.
There were drainage holes spaced along that edge of the tarmac and some idiot had removed the drain cover from the one directly in front of me. I have vague memories that I was bullied by the rest of the class to stand next to that drain, and the inevitable happened. As I stepped forward to throw the discus, I forgot the hole was there and my leg went down the drain. The side of the drain gouged deep into my leg. There was lots of blood. I was taken to the domestic science room where the teacher had first aid training and got bandaged up. I think I stayed at school for the rest of the day - there was no easy way for me to get home until the school buses arrived - but I was told that when I got home I had to go to the doctor's to get a tetanus jab.
For I think the rest of that term, I was excused games, especially swimming.
Mr Glasper, I knew, was also a professional wrestler, fighting under the name Ray Diamond. Just now, thinking about this incident, I did a bit of googling and came up with this news item from 2012:
http://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/9459466.Tributes_paid_to_former_professional_wrestler/?ref=rss
Despite what it says, my memories of him less charitable. He had a temper. I remember one occasion when he lashed out and thumped the wall just over my head. On another occasion, I picked up my gym kit in a hurry at home one morning and accidentally picked up two left gym shoes. He made me go on a cross-country run wearing two left shoes.
Mind you, by the time I was in the sixth form, he'd let us do what we liked for games. I played tennis for a year with a friend on an outdoors court - even when it was snowing.
