Delivering the other letter to my Games Master was upsetting. While sympathetic he was really disappointed, being convinced that he could make a good player out of me. Being a somewhat manipulative kid I thought about enlisting his help for an appeal but Mum had forestalled that, the letter stated quite categorically that the decision was irrevocable.

What, I had to ask, was I supposed to do on games day come September? All he could say at that point, it being only late April was that he’d have a think about it, we’d work something out. He did archly suggest that in the meantime swimming would be good therapy but I wasn’t getting trapped that easily. I hated swimming and he damn’ well knew it, it had been the one thing I’d dared to defy him over as a First Former.

At afternoon registration I was told to go to the Headmaster’s office, he wanted to see me personally. None of my classmates knew about the rugby ban yet so it was automatically assumed that I was in trouble and lots of jeering followed me out of the room.

For some reason the Headmaster and I hadn’t got along since we first met when I was a Third Former so I wasn’t very keen on going to see him but there was no way of avoiding it short of walking out, something that had crossed my mind more than once in the four years I’d been there.

As it turned out sympathy and reaching out were the order of the day so I chose not to throw my toys out of the pram and managed to have a fairly grown up discussion about the situation.

The problem was that nobody had any experience to draw on, no boy in the known history of my school had ever been flatly told that he couldn’t play rugby anymore. Long lay-offs with injury were common enough, but never a lifetime medical ban.

That’s how I made my indelible mark on the school, whilst still only a Fourth Former. I’d always said that they’d remember me but that really wasn’t what I had in mind.

My Form Master offered to make a formal announcement for me, rather than let rumour and misinformation take over and I readily agreed. All I had to do was sit there red faced and miserable while all the boys thoroughly enjoyed my misfortune.

I’d been right that time when I was ten and got into so much trouble with Mum, if I was “just as God made me” then he’d done an utterly crappy job and should be thoroughly ashamed of himself.

Love

It hadn’t gone away, it was the first thing that the doctor looked at. Unfortunately when he ran his finger down my spine I started squirming, it’s exactly what a certain teenager had done to me once when I was ten and it had proved to be one of my major ‘hot buttons’. My reaction just got me a stern rebuke for fidgeting but nothing sinister was implied.

After the spine it was onto the knees and a new torture. I was told to squat and then stand up without assistance or support which produced the most awful noise like a pistol shot, this didn’t bode well.

Allowed to get dressed again I sat between my parents and asked the all important question. “Can I start playing rugby again in September?” The doctor re-read the consultant’s letter, looked at me for a long time in silence and then spoke.

“Sorry, Malcolm but you can’t.”

“Well, when can I start then?”

“Your consultant doesn’t want you playing any more and I agree.”

It seemed that I was the only person in the room labouring under the delusion that I’d be able to play again. Neither of my parents looked in the least surprised and the look on Mum’s face could only be described as relief. I got the distinct impression that the three adults in the room had already discussed the situation behind my back.

It transpired that I was showing early signs of arthritis in both knees and the fear was that one bad tackle, a fairly common occurrence , could do serious damage. The spinal problem just added to the overall concern and the feeling was that the risks were too high. I could play any other sport of my choice but rugby was out for good.

The problem that nobody seemed to understand was that my school didn’t have any other winter sports. Boys played rugby from September to March and that was it apart from the weekly gym lesson which I could carry on doing. I begged, promised to be extra careful and to be honest about pain but all to no avail.

I was almost in tears when we left the surgery and complained loudly all the way home that it wasn’t fair and that I didn’t deserve it. All that did was make my parents cross and by the time we got to Lurgashall I was getting perilously close to a physical punishment so I finally shut up and just sulked for the whole evening.

I really wasn’t looking forward to breaking this news to the Games Master and I was pretty certain that the word “spas” was going to figure quite extensively in my remaining time at Midhurst, three whole years of misery lay ahead of me.

Love

Anyway, I guess I should get back to the complicated story of a schoolboy musician and broken rugby player. To be honest there isn’t a great deal to say about the remainder of the winter term. After the sheer wonder of performing at the Royal Festival Hall everything else seemed flat and rather pointless.

We did a shortened version of Messiah for the school Christmas concert but with only 30 odd singers and the school orchestra it was frankly dull. We sang well and did our best but there just wasn’t the same intensity and I found myself in the middle of a power struggle between choir and orchestra. In the end I took my life in my hands and made my choice, I sang.

There was actually more enjoyment in the trip that our Choirmaster organised to sing carols on every ward of the local hospital and the audience, even though most of them weren’t feeling terribly festive, were wonderfully appreciative.

At church I moved from my accustomed position in the front row, nearest the congregation, to the back row to sing tenor in the choir. It felt weird, being such a short-arse, standing in the back row completely dwarfed by the men.

Christmas and New Year dealt with it was back to school and another term of standing on the touchline, shivering and wishing more than ever that I could play. The sympathy and respect that injury brought had well and truly expired and now really helpful epithets like “spaz” were starting to be thrown my way.

Thankfully I had music to comfort me and the more my Form “mates” tried to make me feel inadequate the more I withdrew to the sanctuary of choir and orchestra. I had grading exams coming up again, the County Youth Orchestra to attend and more instrumental lessons a week than was easily manageable now that it had been decided that learning piano was an absolute must.

As an added bonus I got my customary winter cold which tried its hardest to become something worse and copped the best part of a week off school which I thoroughly enjoyed. Comfort food and the isolation of my bed were just about everything I could hope for.

As I headed towards my 15^th birthday and the end of term, harsh reality poked its head up again, a letter arrived from St Richard’s with my appointment at the orthopaedic clinic. The letter was addressed to my parents of course, at nearly 15 there was no reason why I should have any input or consideration.

The appointment wasn’t until after the holiday so I’d be 15 before I finally saw the consultant and, hopefully, got permission to start playing rugby again. Not that rugby would happen for a long time anyway, summer term meant cricket, athletics and the hated swimming.

Before that, however, there was another residential course to attend, a week of intensive choral work during the Easter holiday. There was to be no repetition of the Lodge Hill incident this time. My girlfriend, I was still in heroic denial about my true feelings, announced that she’d be on the course as well.

I couldn’t help wondering if Fenny would be there, that would be an interesting meeting.

The doctor gave me a stern lecture about being honest where pain was concerned and my parents repeated it at home so I was left in no doubt as to the consequences of being untruthful. The next day I presented Killer with another letter and was welcomed back to the fully active list.

The second rugby session I almost scored a try but was brought down just a couple of yards shy of the line. As I was getting to my feet there was an audible crack and an involuntary squeal of pain, the next thing I knew I was being ordered off the pitch to sit on the touchline until the game was over.

One of the boys was detailed to walk back to school with me in case the knee gave out and I faced the certainty that my rugby career was pretty much at and end for the foreseeable future. After showering I did an exceptionally careful job of strapping the already swollen joint and politely declined a visit to the school nurse. There didn’t seem to be much point in seeing her, I knew what the situation was.

If I’d entertained any thoughts of toughing things out and playing again next week Killer put an immediate stop to them by ordering me to report the incident at home, threatening to check with my parents to make sure I did as I was told.  I wasn’t planning any deception though, this really hurt and I didn’t want it to get any worse. Rugby and I were clearly severing our relationship for some time to come.

My parents were understandably upset but it clearly wasn’t my fault, there was obviously something fundamentally wrong with my knee and their greatest concern was that we get it fixed.

A third visit to the doctor with a very long and painful examination confirmed things, I was out of the game until I’d seen the orthopaedic consultant at St Richard’s. The McMurray test still didn’t indicate a torn cartilage but there was definitely something wrong. There was absolutely no point in appealing, my parents were sat right there agreeing with the decision.

Just to make me feel completely demoralised the doctor calmly informed us that I’d be unlikely to get an appointment in less than 3 months so, to all intents and purposes, I was out of rugby for the rest of the season.

Fortunately I had something infinitely more important to think about; rehearsals for Messiah were getting intense as the date of the concert approached and in the interests of maintaining the chronology of the story that’s what I’ll tell you about next

Love

I had a very bad night as the pain was getting steadily worse, conventional solutions such as aspirin were having no effect, and by the time Mum came to call me my left knee was approximately twice the size of the right one; there was clearly something amiss.

The advantage of having a Dad in the ambulance service became clear when an elastic bandage was produced and applied. The disadvantage was that my knee was now in a permanently bent position which gave my gait a distinctly Quasimodo appearance.

The truly weird thing was that when I got to school I found that my stock had actually risen quite distinctly. Everybody knew I’d been hurt the day before but now I was visibly injured and had a bandage to prove it. Such was the strange ethic of schoolboy rugby in my day.

The visit to the doctor was not a great deal of fun made more miserable by being reduced to just my underpants while both parents and the doctor watched me walk around. The actual examination was even worse as the doctor was wrenching my knee around; I was even forgiven a yelped “shit” at one point.

The good news, apparently, was that the doctor didn’t think it was a torn cartilage but, that word just had to be in there somewhere, there was something “not quite right” about the joint. As a precaution there’d be no rugby for me for 4 weeks and then he’d have another look.

I could do limited gym, provided it was low impact and I was to wear a bandage at all times except for having a bath or shower and when exercising. Apart from a prescription for some fairly mild pain killers, only to be taken at bedtime, that was it. Surely this was the end of my school rugby career?

Next morning at break I limped to the staff room and asked to speak to Killer (by his real name of course) and handed him a letter that Mum had written. He read it, then read it again and then asked me why I hadn’t said anything at the time of the accident.

My trademark temper almost got the better of me but I bit down a retort of “Because I bloody well didn’t know, Sir and nobody seemed that concerned” and settled for “It didn’t really start hurting until after I got home, Sir”.

As if he’d read my thoughts Killer assured me that this didn’t mean the end of being on the under 15 squad, as he cheerfully said “there’s always next term” and then he promised to show me some leg strengthening exercise that I could do in gym.

Those exercises turned out to be the archetypal exercise for knee injuries, form stepping which is possibly the most boring exercise known to man. While everyone else ran about jumping over vaulting horses and stuff like that I did my soul destroying work out in a corner after which I had to struggle with getting the bandage right following a shower.

Rugby afternoons were spent shivering on the touchline with the sole comfort that I didn’t have to get changed and could huddle inside my duffel coat with the hood up. After the first week I actually wanted to be playing again and was quite eager for the month to be up.

Love

Perhaps if my Headmaster had chosen to be “disappointed” with me 2 years later rather than getting angry things could have turned out a lot differently. The same thing would have applied at home; disappointment could have probably kept me a bit more in line.

Of course I was hoping that this little betrayal would summarily end my school rugby career after all I’d just proved my self unreliable and quite possibly devious to boot. No such luck sadly, I could still turn out the other 3 weeks, couldn’t I?

There were limits beyond which even I wouldn’t go, at least there were then, so I glumly admitted that yes, I could certainly do that.

Well, nothing about me ever seemed to be straightforward and Fate or God, or whoever the hell was in charge of these things, had devised a complicated plan to help me out, sort of.

Weather had no effect on boys and rugby where my school was concerned. I’ve played on pitches so frozen that a diving tackle could leave blood pouring down your legs which was great fun when hot showers restored circulation.

On one memorable day in January, when I was a First Former, I had to be led by the hand all the way back to school because my eyes had started to freeze over and I couldn’t see. All the boys thought that was hilarious, I wanted to cry but my tear ducts were frozen.

I was absolutely terrified and very embarrassed by having someone hold my hand as we walked through the school to the changing room. Fortunately a long hot shower put everything right; at least I had to assume that it did and when Killer gave me back my glasses, which he kept in his office while we were playing, I could see again.

I’ve played in thunderstorms which was frightening and in fog so thick that you couldn’t see the posts from the 5 yard line. I’ve played in a blizzard which was just damn’ silly and, of course, I’ve played in torrential rain. It was the rain that slightly changed the course of my rugby career.

On a sodden pitch and so covered in mud that the side wearing reverse shirts looked exactly the same as the side in normal colours, we got the first call for a scrum down. I was back in my usual place as hooker, in a reverse shirt today, so I hitched myself up onto my 2 large props and got my head down.

The first attempt was a mess and my opposing number was left standing up so we broke, reformed and tried again. At the 4^th attempt we got a lock and I went straight into action rather than waiting for anything mundane like the ball coming in and then without warning the whole thing collapsed, with me at the bottom of the resulting heap of bodies.

Killer jumped in and started hauling bodies off and eventually got to little me. I was clutching my knee and, to my great shame, crying with pain. It’s a reflection on the times I grew up in that this didn’t cause any panic or warrant immediate medical attention.

After helping me to my feet and getting me to put some weight on my injured left leg, Killer was satisfied that no great harm had been done and just told me to sit on the touchline until the final whistle. So that’s what I did, sat in a puddle of mud for about half an hour.

Two of the larger boys were dragooned into pretty well carrying me back to the school and delivering me to the nurse who was of the opinion that it was just bruising. I was just ordered to be sure and tell my parents about it so that they could take me to the family doctor.

To be honest by the time I’d showered and got dressed the worst of the pain seemed to have gone and by the end of the day I was walking almost normally.

When I got home I did the right thing and told Mum so I was ordered out of my trousers so she could have a look. Me without trousers at home wasn’t particularly unusual. Me without trousers and without a sore bottom, now that was a rarity.

Apart from some pain from movement there wasn’t any obvious damage so it was decided that an extra long bath, after prep and violin practice of course, was probably the best course and we’d see how it was in the morning.

Love

This wasn’t because I feared violence, it was a trick I’d developed when I got a sudden surge of stage fright realising that my parents were in the front row of the audience for my first concert. Without my glasses I couldn’t see a damn’ thing, I’d got my part firmly memorised so I didn’t need to read the music. As long as I could vaguely make out the Conductor’s waving baton I was fine.

What it meant now was that I couldn’t see the accusatory stares that were almost certainly being aimed at me when the Head got to the Under 15s, although the blush I could feel creeping up my neck and over my face somewhat gave the lie to my feigned insouciance. At least the Head just read out the score, no mention of the atrocity committed by the Linesman.

Apart from some rather fierce jostling as we left the hall that was more or less the end of the matter. If the other boys thought that effectively ostracising me was some form of punishment they badly miscalculated. For one thing I’d pretty much stopped caring in First Form and, for another, most of them hardly talked to me in the first place.

I had a much more important iron in the fire, my audition for the County Youth Orchestra. My violin teacher gave me a date, tee hee it was on a Saturday, and then even offered to take me there herself. That was a major bonus; the journey to Chichester was a three bus marathon from Lurgashall. All I had to do was get to Petworth, where she lived, a mere 5 miles from home and only a mile walk to the bus stop.

Arriving at the school where the auditions were being held I went to sign in and had my first experience of something that would dog me throughout my teenage years. Checking my details, the woman in the office raised her eyebrows questioningly and asked “It says here that you’re 14, is that right?” What fun it was being a late developer!

I assured her that it was quite correct, I was indeed 14, 14½ actually, and her eyebrows went up even more. Why, I wondered, would anyone lie about their age and why had God or genetics decided that at 14 I still had to look like an 11 year old?

The audition was quite terrifying. Playing in front of the County Director of Music while my teacher sat watching my every move and listening to my every note had me sweating. Inevitably I made mistakes, the pressure was enormous, but tolerance seemed to be in that morning and allowances were made. I didn’t play badly; I just didn’t demonstrate my usual confidence.

At last it was over and all that remained was the big question. Could I commit every 4^th Saturday to rehearsals? My head said “Not without talking to Killer (the Games Master) first” and my mouth said “Yes, of course I can” so that was it, I’d passed. All I had to do now was present Killer with this fait accompli; he was not going to be a happy chap.

Love

The advantage of the old school code of honour was that shaking hands like that ended the matter, for everybody. If the two principal protagonists had decided to make up then nobody had the right to interfere, that would have been very bad form indeed.

On the good side I was accorded grudging respect because while the outcome had been bad, the attempt had been full blooded and pretty well fearless. Those, apparently, are good things where a certain sporty type of person is concerned.

On the bad side the Games Master once again decided that I was school team material and I found myself co-opted as a reserve for the under fifteens. That wasn’t the plan at all! There were good reasons why I tried hard on the rugby field but the “glory” of playing for the school wasn’t one of them, I hated the bloody place!

One reason I played as hard as I could was, as something of a pragmatist, I accepted that at my school boys played rugby in autumn and winter, nothing else, so it made sense to just get on with it.

Another reason was that the Games Master, God only knew why, had been kind to me and taken an interest in me from my first games lesson and had always been tolerant of my physical weakness, genuinely believing that I had potential. He was also the Master who christened me “Mac” when he saw how disgusted I was with his first attempt “Ginger”, which endeared him to me.

The real reason I played hard was that rugby was one of the few safe outlets for my violent temper. The only stereotype I’ve ever conformed to is the fiery tempered, redheaded Celt. One of Mum’s frequent admonitions, probably since I was a toddler, was “one of these days that temper of yours is going to get you into real trouble, Malc”. It did, on many occasions, at home, at school and just about everywhere else.

Of course there was delight at home, I’d achieved something that a “normal” boy should aspire to. All it meant to me was that I now lost control of my Saturday mornings. With my usual penchant for skating on thin ice I vowed that if I passed the audition for the County Youth Orchestra then rugby was done for.  The threatened rebellion was ignored for the time being.

The next Saturday I turned up and, once changed, made my way to the field with the rest of the team and prepared to stand watching, not expecting to be called on to play. When I was asked to run the line I agreed with alacrity because the alternative was standing in the cold in just shorts and shirt. Running up and down the length of the field for 80 minutes seemed like a good, injury free, way to keep warm.

Of course there were decisions that our side swore I’d got wrong but every time I stuck to my guns. Unfortunately one such decision resulted in a try for the opposition and dire looks promised a very uncomfortable time in the changing room later on.

Oh joy! We lost by a very narrow margin so now my decision wasn’t just an annoyance it was a betrayal. Quite possibly aware of impending unpleasantness the Games Master called me over after the final whistle and, while the team trooped back to the school, had a little chat about the incident.

He thought that I’d probably got it wrong but, and he pointed very sternly at me, I’d done the right thing by asserting my authority as Linesman. Lovely! I was sure that would be a comfort while my head was in a toilet. He then did something that nobody had done for years and that I used to hate, he actually ruffled my hair. I’ve never had any cause to believe that it was anything other than a purely avuncular gesture intended to give a little comfort.

By the time I made my tired way back to the changing room everybody else had showered and was getting dressed. Checking my peg showed, to my surprise, that no pranks had been committed on my clothes; I’d half expected to find my trousers in the shower. I did receive a torrent of abuse as I stripped and made my way into the shower and wasn’t a bit surprised when my towel landed at my feet on the wet floor.

After about a minute the water suddenly went freezing cold and then equally suddenly became scalding hot, all pretty standard stuff. Then I heard the Games Master’s voice and the water returned to normal so I spent as long as I could enjoying it. As I now had a sopping wet towel, I returned to my place and used my rugby shirt to dry myself then got dressed as quickly as possible.

Claiming that my bus was due soon I stuffed my kit into my duffel bag, said goodbye to the Games Master and legged it for the bus stop. Actually my bus wasn’t due for nearly an hour and I briefly considered walking the seven miles home but in the end opted for hiding in a corner of the bus shelter.

Love

Being the last, desperate hope for try prevention isn’t really the ideal job for a small, skinny chap like I was but the Games Master was God and what he wanted he got. Perhaps the tactic was that an onrushing forward would be so distracted by the sight of me trying to be menacing that he’d forget what he was supposed to be doing.

If that was the theory then it was a miserable failure, I spent a large part of the double period either with my face in the mud or lying flat on my back as boys much larger than me shoved the unwilling full back aside and made the try line.

It was inevitable that these continued failures would get me angry; perhaps the Games Master was counting on it and so, when one lone boy broke from the pack and headed towards me I decided “He shall not pass!” Looking my most menacing, think mouse trying to stare down cat, I prepared to put a stop to his charge.

With my right arm scything round, I threw myself at him in what should have been a crunching tackle although all he had to do was sidestep to my left and I’d be face down in the mud again. Instead he misjudged my move, sidestepped to my right and my hand, with all the force of my notorious Celtic temper, smacked him straight in the goolies. In those days protection was pretty well unheard of for schoolboy sports apart from a cricket box.

He didn’t score a try, in fact he didn’t do anything except lie on the ground, curled up and almost vomiting while I shrilly tried to convince the Master “it was an accident, Sir”. The Games Master attended to the stricken lad while several of the boys openly accused me of deliberate foul play and things almost got nasty but he shouted at everyone to shut up and leave me alone, stressing that my victim’s own stupidity had been the cause. Later, in the changing room, he did quietly suggest that I’d been a little over enthusiastic and that I should try to calm down a little.

That was the end of my very brief career as a full back, the following week I was returned to my accustomed place as hooker. The first time we scrummed down I was guilty of my own lapse of concentration and my opposite number got his knee into my groin before the ball was put in. That was perfectly normal behaviour between us hookers; I was normally a lot quicker and got first blood.

If you read this, Mike H, it really was an accident. You and I were never friends but I had no particular animus towards you, sadly I can’t say that about many of the boys in our year.

Love