A. One of my earliest physical feats was probably going on a ten-mile walk for charity when I was about seven. I
went with my older brother and my Dad, but they didn’t make much allowance for the fact that my legs were
shorter — I had to go at the same pace as them! Even so, I made it and raised quite a lot of money from school
friends and teachers who had agreed to pay me for every mile I walked.
B. When I was about ten, the football team from our year inexplicably made it to the cup final of the local schools’
league. I say inexplicably because I only remember us losing nearly every match we played. Anyway, in the final I
set up the winning goal, a brilliant cross to my mate David who headed the ball in just before the final whistle. I
still have a photograph of the team holding the cup.
C. We went on a tour of Germany one year from secondary school to play football against three different teams
there. Everyone was violently sick on the ferry going across to Holland, and the whole thing was a bit of a farce as
there. Everyone was violently sick on the ferry going across to Holland, and the whole thing was a bit of a farce as
the teacher who had arranged it didn’t speak German very well so we ended up playing teams who were three or
four years older than us! Naturally we got beaten every time.
D. I learned to swim comparatively late, I suppose, I was maybe nine years old, but my brother had a traumatic
experience which nearly put him off for life. We lived in the USA for a while and had access to a university pool
where the coaches had trained the American Olympic team. In those days, though, their idea of teaching kids how
to swim was to tie a tin can to their ankles with a bit of string, throw them in the deep end and shout ‘Swim!’. I’m
surprised my brother survived at all. He could only have been about six at the time.
E. One day, one of my cousins climbed onto the top of the house to fix some tiles with my uncle. The next minute
he appeared at the kitchen door a little bit dazed and his mother, who was cooking lunch, looked at him in
surprise and said: ‘What are you doing here? I thought you were helping your Dad.’ ‘I’ve just fallen off the roof,
Mum’, he said. Apparently he had overbalanced and toppled over backwards. Because he had recently been doing
parachute training — his latest hobby — he had rolled over automatically when he hit the ground, without
thinking. This was a big, old two-storey house and he must have been at least 10 metres from the ground, but he
didn’t have a scratch on him!
F. One of my best memories of early physical endeavour was climbing Ben Nevis, which is the tallest mountain in
the British Isles. It was a glorious day, which is pretty rare for that part of Scotland, and we walked up in about five
hours. The last bit is pretty hard going as it’s a zigzag path of big stones. We took the family dog and she had a
really difficult time of it. The strangest thing was that we didn’t see too many people on the way up, and then
when we reached the top it was suddenly covered with Japanese tourists. I can only presume they had been
airlifted there by helicopter.
G. I remember having to lead a group of eight boys on a school expedition for the best part of two days when I
was a teenager. Even though we got lost at one point, I managed to keep them all together and got them from
one end of a large forest to the other and back by sheer force of will. I was chosen to be the guide, I think, because
I was the only one who knew how to read a map! When we arrived back at the campsite we found out that all the
other groups had cheated and hitched most of the way instead... I felt a bit of a mug, but also rather proud of
myself at the same time for having done it properly.
http://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/en/magazine/physical-education
