Rugger...

More than seventy doctors and academics are calling for a ban on tackling in rugby matches played in UK and Irish schools, focusing particularly on public schools where playing rugby is part of the curriculum, and boys can’t opt out. I remember the winter months at public school - having to turn out to play rugby, on frozen pitches, and hating every minute of it. My modus operandi was to run up and down the touchline, hoping that the people who were watching would think I was playing, and the people who were playing would think I was watching.

The ploy worked - fitfully - then someone on the pitch would throw me the ball. I’d start to run, with the ball clutched to my chest. After a couple of seconds I’d wonder if, despite my antipathy to the game, I might be spectacularly good at rugby. My reverie would be brutally interrupted, as a tackle sent me head-first into a pitch as hard as concrete.

One day, during a game, I hurt my wrist in a tackle, so I went to see the house matron. She took my hand, gave it a waggle, and pronounced me fit to carry on playing rugby. It took three weeks before anyone realised that my wrist was broken; for the rest of that term I was in a plaster cast…

Moon Marina, on the Lancaster Canal...