The Obstacle Course
My particular bugbear was the obstacle course. I first became aware of this when in the Study, by hearing Miss Travers, after calling runs and showers, announcing what sounded like e.g. “Simon Rodway on the salt course”. After a while I realised that she was saying “assault course”. I did not of course discover what exactly was involved until I went up into the Seniors.
I understand that this was modelled on an Army assault course, although almost certainly less strenuous. I am glad to say that I never had the opportunity to find out, as boys of my age missed National Service by the skin of our teeth. After a while Miss Leila must have become anxious to avoid the military association, as the name was changed to obstacle course.
Once a week we would have to go on the obstacle course instead of a run, supervised by Simon Rodway and/or a PPU. The first obstacle was a jump off the top of a retaining wall over a man-made water pit onto the ground about three feet below; if you did not jump far enough you got your feet wet. No great problem in itself, but since the far side of the pit had been shored up by a plank of wood you could easily strike your foot painfully against the plank. In my case this was an incentive to jump short deliberately and put up with wet feet.
We next climbed onto a large wooden tripod and swung back, Tarzan style, onto the same retaining wall, being caught if necessary by someone standing on the wall. This was followed by what I regarded as the easiest part of the course, the board. We could just reach the top of this board, which we would climb with the aid of a ‘leg-up’ from somebody else, go over the top and jump down the other side.
Then followed the net; made of rope and probably about twelve feet high; we had to climb up one side, go over the top and climb down the other side. Even for someone as unathletic as myself, climbing up and down presented no difficulty, but I was never able to vault over as easily as most people seemed to do, and would wobble precariously before at last being able to get a leg over the top.
Finally, we would use our hands and feet to pull ourselves along a rope some feet above the ground. This was mostly easy enough, the only real difficulty being the task of negotiating our way around the outside of the branch of a tree some two-thirds of the way along, where the rope passed through the narrow gap between the branch and the tree.
Photograph: Me, assisted by Ken Gentil