Bob hasn’t always been obsessed with hunting and fishing. When he was five years old he loved golf and I was pretty convinced I had the next Tiger Woods, not Bear Grylls, on my hands. He had the most beautiful languid swing and, using a sawn off pitching wedge, would spend many an afternoon hitting golf balls over a large fruit tree in our garden. Alas the subsequent years and possibly the burden of my expectations have taken their toll on him and it is now only most reluctantly that he will occasionally drag himself to keep me company on my own infrequent outings to the golf course where if his enthusiasm has waned his early promise I think it is fair to say has not exactly blossomed. His swing whilst hardly as agricultural as his uncle’s, can no longer be described as poetry in motion. And his putting, without putting too fine a word on it, is a joke.
Last weekend he was home on a leave out and on Saturday before settling down to watch the Calcutta Cup I thought a quick few holes at Royal Worlington was in order. I can sometimes entice him along by allowing him to bring Weasel and with the promise of a beer and crisps afterwards. I saw from the Members Diary that the Old Rugbeian Golf Society was playing there that day, but there was no need for Bob to know this. I had in mind that we would almost certainly bump into some of them which had the potential to be quite amusing. Let me digress for a moment. Most weeks Bob scribbles me a short note about what he’s been up to…would be journalist/ kind of diary…..sounds familiar?? A couple of days before leave out this one arrived……
This week, on Thursday, we had what is called, ‘first schools day’. It entails a selection of local primary schools coming to Rugby. Some 300 seven year olds come for the day with activities and a quiz type treasure hunt provided by the school. Each child is assigned a Rugby School student from one of the top three years who is then with the child for the rest of the day.
Nervously the Rugby students sat, wondering what ‘their’ child was going to be like. Some students were particularly scared, their imagination obviously conjured terrifying images of how their young 7 year old would be. Eventually the first load of kids arrived. The previously hushed TSR was filled with excitable hubbub of the children. Happily they looked around at what to them was an absolute novel experience whilst, although some students shoulders visibly lifted (their terrifying images had clearly been very scary indeed!) some still shrank into their chairs.
The contrasting behaviour of the two ages is strange and interesting. The 7 year olds were utterly fearless and tremendously optimistic whereas the 17 year olds were anxious and feared the worst. The first activity was to take the child you had been assigned around some of the school in order to help them answer questions from the quiz. Questions included testers such as, “How many paintings are there in the OBS” or “there is a white rabbit in the chapel” or “who wrote the book ‘Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland’?”. Everyone had a different experience with the child they were however, all of the children seemed very eager to participate in the quiz.
The boy I was looking after was called Oliver. His first question was a riddle in the quiz, “What has hands, but no arms and a face, but no head”. On hearing it he took barely a second to answer, “A CLOCK!” He answered all the other questions just as easily. I was so surprised by this that I asked him how he knew. He replied that his older brother had come to “first schools day” a few years ago and had told the questions he would probably be asked! I am not sure who I was more impressed by; him or his brother!
So, where were we? Oh yes. On our way to Worli. We arrived at lunchtime to a deserted course. Love that. Bob’s golf was typically erratic and that’s me being polite. The most important thing for him about golf, even more than the beer, is the opportunity to show how well behaved his dog Weasel is off the lead. Apart from doing a poo twenty yards in front of the first tee and straying into the occasional bunker ( keepingBob company in her defence ) she hardly put a foot wrong. We played a few holes and then cut over to the 9th. I had the honour, naturally enough, and put my drive out of bounds on the right. After giving Weasel a casual scruff on the back of the neck Bob casually planted a tee, managed to settle the ball on it at only the fourth attempt and then cracked his drive with a touch of his old aplomb. I watched stunned as the ball flew straight down the centre of the fairway, over the road and onto the green. 317 yards it travelled, coming to rest 10 feet from the hole. Unreal.
It was in enthusiastic and even triumphant mood that he settled down to his pint of IPA and hoisin duck crisps in the club house, when I was reminded of the presence of the society by an outburst of loud raucous laughter deeper in the house. I explained to Bob who it was, his face developing a look of horror at the ghastly situation I had put him in. And almost immediately a stream of well-oiled Old Rugbeianspoured out of lunch past us on their way to play their afternoon round. Clearly they had had a very good and liquid lunch. Funnily enough I knew the first man out. I’ve told you about him before. He was an elderly retired Naval Commander, who took something of a shine to me and on only the second occasion we met invited me sailing with him in the Norwegian fjords. Anyway turns out he went to Rugby and had organised the golf day.
I simply had to introduce Bob didn’t I? And I told the Commander, with some pride, that, besides going to Rugby School, my son had also just driven the 9th green. The cry went up and on hearing there was a young Rugbeian in their company, the old boys swarmed around Bob like a clutch of hens clucking over a worm and every bit as enthusiastic and noisy as the 7 year olds had been just a few days earlier, asking him all sorts of questions about the state of the school, what house he was in and what he thought of the new Headmaster. Oh, Bob handled himself well enough. If you can deal with a rabble of 7 year olds you can deal with a bunch of inebriated pensioners. And then one of them, obviously so impressed by the tale of Bob’s drive invited him to join them and play in the Halford Hewitt golf competition!! If only they knew! He may have driven the green but he had proceeded to four putt from 10 feet.
Talking of Rugby, I’m up there on Sunday to run the dreaded Crick. One of the oldest cross country races in the world. It has been staged every year since 1838. Memory may fail me but I think I’ve run it 3 times previously. The way I’m feeling at the moment the first time I did it might just as well have been sometime in the mid 19th C. It is never easy though. I remember once getting little carried away on the Saturday night before the race when I was meant to be having a quiet evening at home in front of the fire - tucking into the most delicious bottle of Clos des Quatre Vents 2004 which would have been fine if it hadn’t been preceded by several Stellasand a few glasses of Italian white. The run is a tortuous progression of stiles, boggy fields, steep railway embankments, endless uphill roads and inevitably a stiff wind which blows straight into you all the way round. Bad enough without having to do it with a raging hangover. Nevertheless I am quite proud, for the second time in this missive, to say that despite the state I was in I won the Parents race and even found myself featured in an article in GQ magazine. See attached photo. You have to look hard, but I am officially a Male model. Go me.
