…Last day before half-term.
We had a special assembly for Diwali.
We also had to do a cross-country run that was one-and-a-half miles.
I did a cross-country walk…

One-and-a-half miles seems like nothing now. I could run it faster today than I could had I bothered to try 25 years ago.

I’m afraid there was a degree of obstinacy at work here. I also resented being made to do what, to me, seemed an activity intended to humiliate rather than exhilarate. As such I took a warped pride in being the last one to finish. And on that note I ended my first stint of education at secondary school.