The Annual Boys Mob Race
Posted: 27 September 2016
Word Count: 279
Summary: Every year my old school hold a reunion at which they have a kind of ‘memory board’ with all the same old photos on display. For this year’s event (in November) I decided to submit the following poem along with a suitable clip art illustration. It’s a pity we can’t add illustrations here on WW as the Publisher piece I sent to the reunion organiser looks quite impressive.
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Another aspirational conceit
along with all the Grammar rules -
an annual mob race for the boys,
aping minor public schools.
Humiliated, there I stood -
we had no choice and couldn’t choose.
It might have made the Head feel good
but was hardly bloody Thomas Hughes!
Then on the Phys-Ed teacher’s gun
and watched by girls beyond my grasp
across the school field we would run
and every year I’d end up last.
Then out we’d go on Tilgate Drive
and up towards the ancient wood
with fat asthmatics by my side
which did my confidence no good
The route then went up through forest -
the ‘park’ then just a council dream -
no lakeside restaurant of today
or the neatly manicured picnic greens,
just ancient and neglected woodland
of hornbeam, holly, oak and beech
a scruffy, dark, forbidding place
which none of us could wait to leave.
We ran past all that still remained
of the old run-down Tilgate Estate -
its derelict farmhouse with (unchained)
two massive Doberman at the gate.
Savagely barking and baying for blood -
teased by boys ahead in the race.
I ignored all the nettles and puddles of mud
in my frantic rush to get out of the place.
Then the final leg and the ultimate shame
back past the girls for whose love
my heart yearned
who had cheered all their heart throbs
and gave them a wave
but now had to wait till the dregs had returned.
Beaten by fat kids ahead of their time
before being obese was the norm,
to my housemaster this was the ultimate crime -
a disgrace to my house and my form.
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Comments by other Members
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 michwo at 19:41 on 27 September 2016
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Mickey,
As you've had a look at Et in Arcadia ego, I thought I'd return the favour and look at something of yours.
I thought it was 'Tom Brown's Schooldays' rather than Thomas Hughes's, but maybe I'm getting mixed up here and not quite understanding who Thomas Hughes is. I know the bully was called Flashman and that Macdonald Fraser wrote novels about him, e.g. Flashman at the Charge - the Charge of the Light Brigade during the Crimean war probably.
Your poem is a lot of fun and mine tend to be, well, quite dowmbeat and dreary unfortunately. Your photo also suggests that you like to have fun. I'm not quite sure who the Bergeres d'Arcadie are. The word Bergeres means 'shepherdesses', so you probably mean Bergers, which is the word for 'shepherds' in French, but the picture this is taken from by Nicolas Poussin actually has a Latin title and is inspired by a line in a pastoral poem by, I think, Horace, a Roman poet. The basic idea is that even in an ideal country setting there is still death to contend with eventually. Thanks for your comment on the poem by the way.
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 Mickey at 20:58 on 27 September 2016
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Hi Michael
Thomas Hughes was the author of 'Tom Brown's Schooldays' I see that I had inadvertantly added an 'e' to what I had believed was the painting's more usual title of 'Les Bergers d'Arcadie' (The Arcadian Shepherds). I thought it only had the alternative title of 'Et in Arcadia ego' because that's the inscription that they are contemplating that is inscribed on the tomb, but you are probably right. Thank you for reading and commenting on my poem.
Mike
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 AlanRain at 22:29 on 27 September 2016
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This amusing poem reminds me of my schooldays, and cross-country runs - if losing your plimsolls in shin-deep mud could be called a run 
The only difference is that where I ran, there were no girls.
A few points, which may, or more likely not matter at all, given the lighthearted nature of the poem:
The rhymes seem to be pretty easy-going; (do them if they're readily available, otherwise leave them out?)
I was jarred a bit by the more cliched phrases such as 'manicured' as applied to greens (lawns), and baying-for-blood dogs. Why not dobermans if there were two? Or is the plural doberman?
My main comment is that nothing here startles. It's all to-be-expected. I nod at the familiarity, when I would have preferred to be taken aback at someone else's odd experiences in a situation I've been in.
<Added>
It's got me thinking now about my experiences. Hmmm ... instantly forgettable, methinks.
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 James Graham at 20:31 on 29 September 2016
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Can’t resist an anecdote. In my distant schooldays we used to have the ‘cross-country run’. Our terrain wasn’t quite as scary as yours, it was seaside land with gorse and deep sand-pits (bunkers). My best mates and I used to start the run, then once out of sight of the school jump into one of the deepest bunkers. Someone would produce a pack of cards and we amused ourselves (money changing hands) as we waited for the suckers to return. Then jog the last short distance back to school. Pioneers in energy-saving.
You pack quite a lot into this poem: the changes that have taken place (neglected woodland to municipal park); the public school-style values behind the race; obesity (‘the norm’); and not least, the unattainable girls. No problem with Thomas Hughes, who of course is the author of Tom Brown’s Schooldays. Your Mob Race was probably a bit farcical but not the classic farce that takes place at a pukka public school. As for the woodlands, the run-down estate and the derelict farm, that’s interesting because I can remember places like that, which I suppose I thought at the time would always be the same; wild, rather sinister places. One such is now a large new housing estate.
Alan comments on your rhymes. You’ve certainly used a number of half-rhymes and not-quite-rhymes.
do them if they're readily available, otherwise leave them out
can be good advice. To do anything about this you would have to write another poem! I think it gets by as it is – the rhymes that are not perfect are mostly vowel-rhymes like beech/leave or gate/race, which are OK to the modern ear.
Also, I didn’t mind that the poem was rather ‘all to-be-expected’; I enjoyed the familiarity of various elements – the pleasure of recognition. The kind of pleasure the other former pupils of your school will surely take from it.
James.
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 Jojovits1 at 20:47 on 29 September 2016
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I like this. It's fun and slightly terrifying at the same time as I remember my own cross country days.
across the school field we would run
and every year I’d end up last.
Yep, that was me too. At every, single sporting event on the calander. PE was utter torture!
We would run down the road to Castle Hill Woods, through the wood and back out again. I was a bit of a goody two shoes but one occasion I decided to skip in through the hole in the fence to cut out some of the run. I was still behind everyone else (it would have been very obvious otherwise). The class bully grassed me up and I got detention. There ended my rebellious behaviour in PE.
The rhyme is not perfect (more so in the last verse, to me) but it's fun and had me giggling with recognition.
Jo
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Mickey at 11:08 on 30 September 2016
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Alan, James, and Jo
Thank you for your comments. I’m confused – when last on this site I was constantly being encouraged to loosen up but now my half rhymes and not-quite-rhymes are questioned (I thought they were an improvement!) I know nothing of rhyming schemes, form, or rhythm etc but you guys seem even more professional than I remember. I just write what I hope are amusing semi-autobigraphical anecdotes and silly rhyming jokes and, if this one made you giggle Jo, then I am happy
<Added>
semi-autobiOgraphical
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