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.