Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Winning Prizes
I sold this sporting trophy today.
I am happy to say it has been bought by a resident of Uppingham who, hopefully, has a connection with the school.
I also sold a collection of 1950s athletics medals - not for The Olympics of course!
It got me thinking about trophies and I had to think back to remember if I had won any.
My tally of prizes is low.
My sporting prowess was merely a certain amount of enthusiasm.
My academic prowess was never recognised. I think the teachers were looking for the wrong things!
The first prizes I ever won were for entries in the Ifield Village Flower Show.
My parents made sure that my bunch of wild flowers was a superb bouquet - and I had to know all the names of those flowers.
I can remember 1st prize for hand writing too.
I painstakingly wrote out a poem which began "Tender handed grasp a nettle......."
I would have so liked to win a prize with a garden on a plate. I don't think I was encouraged to enter this class.
I also won prizes at the flower show in adult life - for cookery. That was in the days when I did quite a lot.
I never quite forgave Jamie though....... I taught him how to make fudge. He got 1st prize, beating me into 2nd!!!
But I did triumph with bread pudding!
One of my proudest moments was being captain of the blue team at the village school sports.
I stood alongside handsome Geoffrey Gardner to receive the shield from Mrs James, local dignitary.
My brother, Robin, is standing straight and proud alongside me.
I remember the names of the other children in the photo too.
When I was 10 I was sent to elocution lessons. I actually enjoyed them a lot.
But I enjoyed it all rather better once I realised I could tell others I was doing "Speech and Drama".
I was entered into the speech classes at local music festivals.
I would recite poems or as I got older act out a scene from Shakespeare, playing all the parts.
My best activity was sight reading. I was good at it then and am still good at it. I love reading to children.
In the sight reading, each contestant was kept in a room until it was their turn and then given a book and told to read a particular text.
One year, at Redhill, the text was a poem called The Pasture by Robert Frost.
I'm going out to clean the pasture spring;
I'll only stop to rake the leaves away
(And wait to watch the water clear, I may):
I sha'n't be gone long. You come too.
I'm going out to fetch the little calf
That's standing by the mother. It's so young,
It totters when she licks it with her tongue.
I sha'n't be gone long. You come too.
I enjoyed the whole experience. There was a pause as I finished and then a crescendo of applause.
I won first prize.
Before I left The Grammar School I had the honour of collecting a trophy for our House - Pelham House - winning the school sports.
Pelham had come last most years.
I like to think that the enthusiasm I mentioned earlier had something to do with the turnaround.
I took children from the younger year groups out after school to encourage and advise. Good grief! What did I know then about throwing the javelin?
It was thrilling to win.
Since then - nothing for me. Bill has won trophies and competitions for his photography.
But as the saying goes "You have to be in it to win it", and I guess I haven't been doing things in a competitive way in my adult life.
Unless you count the disaster of the Thomas Bennett Community Choir at the very prestigious Dorking Music Festival.
Ashley and I still chuckle about that.
No - we didn't win!
