Poured with rain. ‘School Test’ cancelled. Ran up Mt. A. Nearly 1m faster (see Feb XV) in 25:26.4.

Yes, I really was mad enough to go running in the rain. Well, you can’t restrict your training to just the fair weather days, you have no idea what conditions might be like once you come to the actual race. And by now I was in actual training, for the 10km ‘Round the Bays’ race held in Auckland each year. I’ll write more about that on the day itself.

With hindsight, though, I can see the influence of Mr D’Almeida already. In England, I was a religious trainer for events – I did it once a week for as short a time as possible. Now, I was out running in a downpour, because that was what I needed to do.

Nets almost rained off. Batted like a loony. Only bowled 3 times today!

Did Mrs P’s collection. One of the houses was Mr Douglas’!

Kz H/W took 1 hr to find II clippings

I remember doing two or three collections for Mrs Parkes. She seemed to have a stream of causes that she was raising money for (although at that age doing anything for more than one charity marked you down as some kind of mung-bean-knitting zealot in my eyes) and it was impossible not to get roped in to helping at some point. In fact, I can’t even recall whether I volunteered or was volunteered for this particular collection. I was certainly never averse to the idea of getting out and walking or cycling around town as a child, but the thought of knocking on doors asking people for money fills me with horror now, let alone then.

Of course, you never forget finding out where one of your teachers lives. I was still at the age where I was surprised to realise that teachers had a life outside of school and lived in houses like the rest of us. Poor old Mr Douglas, meanwhile, probably felt horribly pressurised into donating to whatever charity it was, having just discovered one of his more unusual pupils on his doorstep.

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Mum and Dad took us to a PiPPS do at the Domain. Kite flying – Jacksons kite a dead loss! Went for a run after tea Home – Carrington Road – Mt A – Top Mt A – Mt A – Lloyd Ave – Kitenui Ave – Willis St – Albertian Ave – Taylors Rd – St L Rd – Park – Wairere Ave – Rosgrove Terr – Martin Ave – Moneghan Ave – Grant St – Home! Time 51:21.7. Had a shower

‘PiPPS’ was a rubbish acronym. It stood for ‘People in Parks, Places and Squares’ and was I think in some way directed to simply getting people to go outdoors. I remember the frustration of being unable to get the kite to fly, despite the fact that people all around us were flying theirs without apparently having any problem at all.

I have to say that I have never really seen the attraction of kite flying anyway. Dad had a stunt kite – a kite with two strings to control it – which we would periodically take into the playing field behind our house and attempt to fly. We never got it to stay in the air for long and it always seemed to take a large number of attempted launches before it would soar at all. Then, after all of that effort, it would crash back to earth pretty swiftly.

A few years ago I was in Beijing, and on a Sunday there were people flying kites all over the city, despite the lack of any discernable breeze and the huge pollution levels. It is clearly another one of those skills which I completely lack.

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Cricket Cancelled – it poured with rain overnight – so borrowed the Parkes’ portable T.V. (portable? its got an 14″x12″ screen!) and watched the 1 day International (NZ 74 all out Aussies 75-2).

Mum offered L+K $1 ea) if they are good all week! Some hope!

The cricket being cancelled meant that I never did get to play for the first eleven. I remember my time in Auckland as being largely sunny, but an awful lot of rain seems to be creeping in to this diary.

I do remember being quite excited by this cricket match. After all, I had been at the previous Saturday’s game in Auckland, Australia had levelled the series in midweek, so not only was this game the decider, I was getting to watch cricket on television for the first time in almost six weeks. The result, therefore, was a huge disappointment.

I love the last line. It shows what a low opinion I, from the lofty heights of being fourteen years old, had of my five and six year old siblings!

I win. If Tony isn’t fit, and he’s unlikely to be, I play in the 3A2 2 day match tomorrow. Great! Went swimming. Cuts on my feet hurt. Did H/W. Got library books A.M.

Sometimes the diary doesn’t quite reflect what actually went on. This is an example of me trying to put what would now be called a positive spin on events. What really happened was this:

After the trial yesterday, Mr Bean asked Tony Burton and I to come to his science lab during Interval. There, he told us that although I had bowled better during the trial, he was picking Tony because he was more experienced.

Now, that might have been understandable, except that before the trial itself – which involved both of us bowling at him for about half an hour – he had told us unequivocably that whoever bowled best would get promoted to the first team. I had comprehensively outbowled* Tony – and by that I mean no disrespect to him, he may have been the better bowler in the long run – and therefore deserved to be selected.

By moving the stumps like that, I lost all respect for Mr Bean. I’ve never worked out if it was because I was English, or because I wasn’t going to be at the school for more than a handful of games, or a combination of the two, but I never trusted him after that.

Added to which, Tony injured his leg at some point during the trial and it was still hurting him the next day, so he wasn’t sure if he would be able to play anyway. Which meant that I had been annoyed for no reason.

Nathan treated the cuts on my feet with gentian violet. I have vividly coloured feet for about a week as a result.

*Cricket geeks may care to know that, unusually for me, I bowled a reasonably consistent line and length, whilst poor Tony – maybe because of his leg injury – kept firing the ball down the leg side, much to the cricket master’s annoyance

Swimming Sports. Borrowed Jamie Davisons bike to get to Newmarket Pool! Swimming Great fun. Even a Staff team entered. David Baird got appendicitis last night and can’t play Sat. So Bn gave us a trial to see who would play with Able Moyer on sat. Hope its Me! Got some chips.

As with yesterday’s entry I thought that the swimming sports happened later in the term. Essentially, it was a swimming gala, with forms competing against one another. As a heretically poor swimmer of anything other than the backstroke, I don’t remember playing any real part in the event, but I must have done because I slipped on the poolside and grazed my foot in two places.

The bike journey was made all the more interesting by not having a clue where I was going. For some time after I had dreams where I was cycling lost through a city. I made it there and back in the end, though.

David Baird was the first team opening bowler, a left armer. As with Robbie Jessop he was in the year below me and thought to have a bright future in the game, yet this came to nothing.

Abel Moyer, with whom he opened the bowling, was another talented sportsman who went on to have a distinguished club rugby career.

The trial, taking place as it did after the swimming sports, was a bit of a disaster (and landed me in trouble for being late home again). It was supposed to be a straight bowl-off between Tony Burton and me. It turned out being the event which caused me to lose my respect for Mr Bean.

Went to  a meet-the-teacher do at School (MAGS). A bit dull. 1st day as a librarian. What a cushy job! Swimming Sports tomorrow, so had a long swim with Tony. Tony came back home for 1/2 hr and won ‘Old Witch’!

One of the interesting things about going throught the diary is that it shows me that sometimes things happened at a different place in time to where I remembered them being. There are two examples here, both of which I thought happened later than they apparently did.

The first is the ‘meet the teacher’ event. I don’t recall the discussions with anyone apart from Mr D’Almeida. That conversation revolved around the elbow that I had broken/dislocated/mangled/wonked (insert term of your own choosing, really) less than eighteen months before, and what I could and could not do as a result of that injury. I remember that the conversation began because he thought that both of my elbows were like that, which is a scary thought in itself. The important point, though, was that he listened and, even though I believed at that point that he was a borderline psychopath, he did make sure that in future I didn’t do anything to cause further damage to that arm and bawled me out more than once for trying to do something that I shouldn’t.

Similarly, I didn’t think that I had become a librarian until much later. I got involved in that because Nathan suggested it. At the time he was spending some of the intervals working in the first aid room and some in the library, although he eventually gave up the latter in favour of the former.

The library was the newest building in the school, an enormous, airy annex to the block which also included the English department and the audio/visual room. I eventually ended up working in there four out of five lunchtimes a week I enjoyed it so much and it crops up a lot more as this tale goes on.

1st Day of Match. 5b 29-5 (Davidson 15no) 3a2 yet to bat. I did not bat. Went swimming

When I think back on this particular entry I wonder about a lot of things. For example, the score. Schoolboy cricket matches tended to be dour affairs, with not many runs being scored for each wicket, but wickets being easy to come by. I once played in a game where we won by four runs despite being bowled out for 32. Which leads me to wonder whether this low score and the fact that the game was nowhere near finished means that, for some reason, we began playing later in the day than we normally would have done. After all, we sometimes had hours to kill after school.

Then I begin wondering about Jamie Davidson, who clearly had a good game here. He was a tallish lad and I spent a lot of time in the same teams as him, but I can remember almost nothing about him. Strangely, I do recall that he batted in this game wearing a pink box. (The school kit bag contained one or two for communal use, there was none of the fuss about everyone having their own that there is today.) I am sure that Jamie would not want my lasting memory of him to be a flesh covered abdominal protector, but that is how it is.

Nets again (see friday). Did Badly ‘First Test’ match tomorrow (as Grant Stubbings calls them) after School. Swimming only ‘cos got out early because of a staff meeting. Ran to the top of Mt Albert and back in 26:23.0.

The ‘Test Match’ concept came about because my year, unusually, had two teams. It is true to say that there was a fair degree of schoolboy talent in the school at that time and Mr Bean recognised it. We therefore had the second team, or 5b, who played at the correct level for our age. And then there was the first team, or 3A2, who played a year or two above our age group. Even more extraordinarily, that side was captained by Robbie Jessop, who was in the year below us.

None of these talented youngsters made it as cricketers, but Jessop was already an age group orienteering champion – which makes it all the more remarkable that he doesn’t get a mention any time that I mention either that sport or cricket within the diary!

Valentines Cards all round! Went to Pt Chev with some friends of Dads. I found a carton full of milk dated ‘use by Jan 4′ in the sea. When I threw it back in it split and lumps of milk went everywhere. Watered the garden.

Sad, isn’t it? My parents became keen to ensure that none of us missed out on Valentine’s Day, so each of us would get a card from them. They became even keener on this once we – or at least Karen and I – were at an age to actually have ‘real’ boyfriends and girlfriends who might send us a card.

The ironic thing is that, in adult life, everyone I have ever dated has foresworn Valentine’s Day for the commercial nastiness that it has sadly become. My parents obviously had a keen sense of what the day meant – unlike all of those who have since sought to make themselves wealthy on the back of it, and spolit it for everyone in the process.

Even sadder, the milk carton thing is one of my most vivid memories of the trip. Seeing the carton explode and the white, lumpy, liquid disperse in the water clearly made an impression upon me at the time, but why I still recall it thirty years on is beyond me.