When I was a kidlet at school, something short of ten years old, I had a bad encounter with an ignorant Physical Education [PE] teacher. I’ve not thought of it for years and years, and would not now if it were not for a sudden twinge in my back brought on yesterday by standing outside in a chill breeze. Time to get my yard coat out and hang it by the back door.
Anyway, back to my story, before I forget it again.
See, I was one of those irritating kids who were not built for bending over and touching toes. Something about my spine prevented it, try as I may, and I honestly did try.
One dark day, in the course of a PE lesson, we were set to the touching toes exercise and I was doing the best I could reaching to about halfway between knees and ankles. The teacher, in a moment of foolish impatience, bellowed at me to ‘get down to it, Bailey’, grabbed me by the shoulders, and attempted to force the issue.
There was a loud crack, loud to me at any rate, and I collapsed to the floor in a howling heap of distressed schoolboy. I blacked out with the pain and woke in hospital.
Treatment for such injuries in the mid 1940s was less sophisticated than it is now and the surgeon decided on the basis of a large x-ray that there was no fracture so no surgery was called for. ”A couple of weeks in traction will put you right, lad,” he said, and exited rapidly as the guy with the steel and leather contraption advanced from the shadows.
At this remove I can understand his rapid exit, for the pain of being put into the traction device was worse than the forced bending and I’m sure I gave loud voice to my distress.
Then it all got boring, laying flat on a hospital bed, reading, and watching the nurses flutter about the ward like a flock of hasty seagulls.
I can’t remember much else about the treatment, though I do recall being awfully pleased to get back to school.
The PE teacher was strangely absent, and I never clapped eyes on him again. I was interviewed by the head master who came as close as those of his type and background ever got to making an apology. He said I was excused PE and games from then on and so I was condemned to sitting in the back of the nearest English class while my mates went out to enjoy the fresh air.
Since then, I’ve been one of those folks who suffer from a ‘bad back’, sometimes excruciating, mostly no more than an irritant. There’s no telling if the life-long condition was actually caused by the PE guy’s action, though it probably was. I don’t hold him a grudge anyway. Let’s face it, he’s probably dead by now or, worse, sitting in a corner wondering where his marbles went.
And there the matter ended. Today the fuss would go on a lot longer, and my parents would seek compensation, spending it on a massive bender the likes of which they’d dreamed but never managed. And they’d both of them have died the sooner, like as not, poisoned by their insatiable greed for alcohol.
All that’s left of it now is a memory that’ll likely fade away again as soon as I finish here, and never come back. Hopefully. And I still can’t touch my toes. Not that touching toes is a seemly occupation for a 70-year old gentleman of non-sporting inclination.
