School sport – or how I failed to become an athlete

While watching the Commonwealth Games cycling from the velodrome in London, I noticed a sign that read “Sport is just the beginning”. For some reason, that set me thinking about my sporting career.

As I child, I enjoyed the freedom of living a few hundred yards from Victoria Park (see above), in the Polsham area of Paignton, where I could sail my yacht in the circular pond and play on swings and the slide in the children’s playground (located beyond the trees in the distance). There was also a large field in the park where friends and I played cricket in the summer and kickaround football (soccer) in the winter. Cricket was my favourite sport and I joined Paignton Cricket Club so that I could watch games and also operate the scoreboard (being reminded frequently by the official scorer that I had it wrong and therefore the players out on the pitch were being misinformed). Stan Cray (below) was the professional (succeeded by Jack Kelly and Harold “Dickie” Bird, of later umpiring fame) and they were early sporting heroes.

There was no coaching and I had no idea of the technique of the fast bowling I enjoyed, other than to run in off about 30 paces and try and launch the ball somewhere near the batsman. As for batting, all I knew was to hammer the ball as hard as possible: I had no defence and no shots on the off side. Although enthusiastic, I realised that I was never going to be a good player and there was no hope of getting any coaching at Oldway Primary School, as all the teachers, bar one, were women and they concentrated on netball with the girls: Mr Mitchell, the sole male teacher, didn’t seem interested in sport. We had games that involved running around the playground (coloured sashes and equipment like beanbags, and balls of various sizes, being kept in the shelter at the “Oldway Mansion end”) and we played in inter-school games [1]. There was also Music and Movement in the Hall, with all of us following the instructions from a radio, with its speaker contained in an enormous wooden box. The programme was from a different age, as you can hear in a clip [2].

It was left to Torquay Boys’ Grammar School to introduce me to other sports and to get me fit through gymnastics. In winter, it was cross-country running, football, rugby and swimming: in summer it was athletics, cricket, and swimming. Gymnastics was all year round and consisted of learning how to vault (both gate vaults and vaulting horses), walk on a balance beam, hang off wall bars, and do somersaults and stretches while on a mat. It was never explained that these were components of gymnastics competitions, they were just things we were made to do by Mr Stokes and Mr Morrall, the former being serious about getting things right and the latter just being deeply unpleasant. Both had a slightly disconcerting habit of sticking their chests out, but that might have been a requirement for gym teachers. Just as I left the school, another master came along (I think his name was Mr Goulder) and he was quite different, being encouraging rather than taking enjoyment from putting down the less able. I shall always remember Mr Morrall, though.

For swimming, we walked through the town to the Marine Spa baths (see above in an image from the Devon Live web site) and my first lesson involved jumping in to the shallow end. As a non-swimmer who was terrified of putting my head under water, this was a challenge that I avoided by hiding in the showers and, fortunately, Mr Betteridge didn’t notice when a wet RSW climbed down the steps into the pool. All further lessons were with Mr Roberts and even his more encouraging approach did not succeed and I spent my time holding on to the side rail and thrashing about with my legs to give the impression that I was trying. I certainly was trying, but remained a non-swimmer until much later in life.

In cross-country (actually road running) we ran through country lanes, setting out from the sports hut that was located near to the Girls’ Grammar School (it would have been to the right of the far-right corner in the image above – this is a recent view of “our” playing field site, now laid out rather differently [3]). We would walk from the Barton Road TBGS site up to Shiphay, get changed, and then run on a specified route that had staff members located at intervals to see that we completed the course. Some masters, who had no involvement with sport, must have used this as a means of getting away from the staff room early and I remember Mr Evans (“Mole”) scowling at me as I went past in the last few “runners”, as I had delayed him from jumping into his blue MG Midget to get home early.

We were given some coaching in soccer, but knew the basics from the times when we played together with friends. Rugby was different, as many of us knew little about the game. We were taught to tackle, how to pass backwards not forwards, and how to form a scrum – not helped when Mr Stokes hollered “go hard” to encourage us… I had no idea about the rules of the game and this was apparent when I volunteered to play rugby for Dobson House against Clifford House. Our captain, Malcolm Baker, was a very good player who also captained the school side, so knew the game well. I played in the scrum and was so good at jumping for the ball in line-outs that Mr Gillham (“Fritz”), who was refereeing, commented on my prowess after the game. Malcolm was less impressed, as he felt I wasn’t getting the ball to the backs fast enough and, when he called for a short line-out, I felt him forcibly grabbing my collar and yanking me back, as I had no idea what he meant. During the same game, I remembered all that I had been taught about tackling and stood my ground when a large opponent raced toward me and then handed me off, the smack in my face nearly knocking me out. I had no idea that sort of thing was allowed.

In the summer term, I enjoyed it when cricket was the sport of the week, but athletics was more challenging, although it had a lot of variety: discus, shot putt, javelin, sprinting, long jump, and high jump. We knew about the position needed to throw the discus from the image of the statue of the Discobolus of Myron (see below) that was the subject of the badge on Mr Stokes’ CCPR blazer. The other athletic events were easy enough, but high jump was not. We had to jump into a sand pit, invariably damp, and there was a choice between straddle or western roll (this was before the “Fosbury Flop”, and that would have been dangerous, anyway). I used a kind of bunny hop and crashed through the bar, but it was the best I could do. It didn’t garner much praise.

So, my training in sports wasn’t the beginning mentioned in the opening paragraph, but the end. Much later, I took swimming lessons and became a reasonably good swimmer. Surprisingly, I also took up jogging and enjoyed running around set routes; usually not needing to stop for rests, as in my school cross-country days. 

My main “sporting” activity remains walking alone through country lanes and footpaths [4] and it has been since I was a teenager. Now, the distance covered by each walk is a bit shorter, but I can still do 15 miles without a break and at a reasonable pace of over 3 mph, too. I should be grateful that all the attempts of gymnastics, and sports, masters failed to make me an athlete, so that I haven’t needed to look back on past achievements that I know I could never repeat. Ironically, given that the sign mentioned in the opening paragraph was in the velodrome, I never learned to ride a bike. Who knows, I may have found that as pleasurable as walking.

[1] Roger S Wotton (2020) Walking with Gosse. e-book.

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Ve-93G9h10&ab_channel=BenMorris

[3] https://www.kayelliott.co.uk/portfolio/project/torquay-girls-grammar-school/

[4] https://rwotton.blogspot.com/2022/08/a-walk-in-countryside-is-not-always.html

 

 

Eating insects produced on an industrial scale

Eating insects is commonplace in many countries of the world, yet most of us find the idea of consuming this readily available source of proteins, and other dietary needs, to be repulsive. So much so, that eating large beetle larvae has been used as a Bushtucker Trial in the UK reality show I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here (see below, image from Wales Online website). The trial was designed to shock us, as well as the “victim”, but why are people repulsed by it? Firstly, it’s because the insects are alive, and wriggling, at the time they are eaten, yet we don’t hesitate to eat oysters that are alive, although they don’t wriggle, of course. Also, we are not repulsed by eating winkles, cockles and mussels, and don’t worry too much when the latter are boiled to death in wine when we make the delicious Moules Marinière.

I have eaten many insects – bee larvae, mealworms, caddisfly larvae – but they were all cooked. When I proffered them to colleagues, some tried the various delicacies, but a majority turned down the chance to try something new. We are much more squeamish than the residents of countries where insects are a regular part of the diet and the splendid little book Why Not Eat Insects? [1] describes examples, emphasising the many places where locusts and grasshoppers are eaten, usually after cooking in various ways. In the Introduction to the 1988 re-printing of the book, Dr Laurence Mound writes: 

Why Not Eat Insects? is not just a fascinating Victorian book, full of humour and ideas, it is also an interesting – indeed profound – question about human behaviour. In Europe we associate insect-eating arrogantly with lesser cultures. Australian aborigines are welcome to their Bogong Moth Balls – compressed handfuls of moths swept from their resting places beneath rocks and gently baked. People around the great lakes of eastern Africa can eat their Kungu Cake – myriads of midges pressed into a patty and cooked.. 

If we are put off by the appearance of insects, we must process them to make them more palatable: the Kungu Cake mentioned by Dr Mound is an example, being a yellow-brown mass that belies its origins.

Recently, I was very impressed by an interview with Clément Ray (pictured above), the CEO of Innovafeed, that appeared in the magazine Sustainable Heroes [2], produced by Nomura Greentech, a company that is a worldwide leader in arranging finance for sustainable technologies (appropriate, as it is part of the Japanese-owned Nomura Bank and most of the insects that I have eaten have come from Japan, where the food culture is different to the one that I was brought up to enjoy). In a Q and A in the magazine, Clément had this to say when asked about human consumption of insect protein: 

The EU [has] extremely favorable regulations for insect protein. It authorized the use of insect protein in aquaculture in 2017, for monogastrics (poultry and swine) in 2019 and for humans last year [2021].. ..One of our big marketing challenges is to make people more aware of the amazing potential and nutritional value of insect-based proteins for humans. To that end, we are currently developing prototypes and working on the appropriate packaging. 

Present production by Innovafeed is used in animal feeds and this, of course, adds another step in the chain of human food supply. As Clément states, finding a way of marketing insect by-products to make them desirable directly to consumers is the key challenge. 

The scale of production by Innovafeed is impressive, as can be seen in the videoclip above. Until I viewed this, I had little appreciation of the industrial farming of the black soldier fly (Hermetia illucens) - details in [3] - and reared throughout the World as an animal food. The important step, however, is the development of a product for direct human consumption, as that is more energy efficient and thus sustainable. I am grateful to Nomura Greentech for introducing me to Innovafeed, a company that is on its way to do just that. 

[1] Vincent M Holt (1885) Why Not Eat Insects. Reprinted, with a new Introduction in 1988. London, British Museum (Natural History). 

[2] https://www.nomuragreentech.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Sustainable-Heroes-VIII-Nomura-Greentech.pdf

[3] https://animaldiversity.org/accounts/Hermetia_illucens/

Trevor Grimshaw and Caspar David Friedrich

One of the last works of Trevor Grimshaw is a book of black-and-white photographs entitled Stilled Life [1], the subject being the redundant steam locomotives that were stored at Woodham’s Scrapyard in Barry, South Wales (an image in colour taken by Peter Brabham is shown below). For all of us that have happy memories of these splendid machines in action, the scrapyard is a place of melancholy, even though delays in cutting up meant that some locomotives were bought from Dai Woodham and several have subsequently been re-built and returned to working order.

Shortly after the photographs were taken, Trevor Grimshaw died, aged 54, following a fire at his home, something which adds poignancy to his story. In addition to his work as a photographer, Grimshaw was an accomplished artist, creating monochrome images of northern landscapes, two of which (from the Tate Gallery [3]) are illustrated below. Most viewers of these monochrome works associate them with the paintings of L.S.Lowry (who owned three of them [2]), but I think they consciously, or subconsciously, show the influence of Caspar David Friedrich. To emphasise this point, I have converted two of Friedrich’s paintings to greyscale to allow direct comparison.

The first is Abbey in the Oak Wood (below, upper) that was exhibited in the Berlin Academy of Art in 1810 (as one of a pair – the other was Monk by the Sea [4]) in which we see the ruins of an abbey surrounded by trees that may be dead, or maybe had lost all their leaves, as this is a winter scene. In the foreground are monks who are walking towards the ruin. The whole effect is arresting and gloomy, but what does it mean to the viewer? As with all pictures, we can know something of the artist’s intentions, but we also use our own projections. We know that Friedrich was a Protestant [4] and that this picture shows a Catholic ruin and desolation. He was also fascinated by nature and landscape and this is one of Friedrich’s paintings that, to use his phrase, “is to be seen and recognised only in belief” [4]. As Michael Prodger [5] writes in The Spectator: “His Christianity is not insistent but comes wrapped in another - more widely practiced - religion: Nature. He offers the consolations and beauties of both.”

The second painting of Friedrich that I have chosen - Cross by the Baltic Sea (1815) (above, lower) - uses a feature that occurred many times in his work – the appearance of a solitary cross in a landscape. This symbol of Christ, and the redemption of His crucifixion, is placed in locations quite unlike Calvary and, in this painting, is on an outcrop by the sea, with an anchor near its base. Just as in Abbey in the Oak Wood, there is a feeling of slightly threatening mystery and, at the same time, a sense of spiritual hope.

Now let’s look at the two monochrome works by Trevor Grimshaw. In Open Space (1974) (the upper of the Tate images above), a solitary, bare tree is in the foreground, while the foggy background features a church tower and factories, with one chimney belching out smoke that is being carried away on the wind. We recognise that the tree, like those painted by Friedrich, shows desolation and, perhaps, death by pollution from the industry that replaced the natural world. The presence of the church is more difficult to interpret – did it represent something from Grimshaw’s spiritual beliefs, or was it used to indicate something that was longer-lasting, and more valuable, than the factories?

In Northern Townscape (1974) (the lower of the Tate images above), we see another church tower, with factories and several chimneys, one of which is producing dark smoke that suffuses the upper part of the image, while steam is rising from elsewhere in the factory complex. The impression gained is very similar to that in Open Space, but the foreground is dominated by two poles, one of which is clearly a telegraph pole. Both stand isolated, and are connected to nothing – there are no wires – so we gain a sense of isolation and of disconnection to the rest of the scene. Unlike Friedrich’s crosses, however, there seems little hope here and my impression is that Grimshaw did not enjoy the industrial landscapes that he reproduced, despite their attractiveness as structures [5], just as he did not like the rusting steam locomotives he photographed in the scrapyard at Barry.

Of course, I could be very wrong in drawing parallels between Friedrich and Grimshaw, and in interpreting their images in the way that I have done. That I react strongly to their work is an indication of the power of both artists to stimulate both the imagination and the emotions of the viewer.

[1] https://trevorgrimshawphotography.art/about/

[2] https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/tribute-to-artist-who-portrayed-bleak-1194546

[3] https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/trevor-grimshaw-1220

[4] Johannes Grave (2017) Caspar David Friedrich. Munich, Prestel Verlag.

[5] https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/an-artist-for-our-times