Seaton called me this morning. ‘Can you write me something about running for children?’
‘Why ask me?’ I replied. ‘I’ve spent most of my adult life running away from them.’
‘No, what I mean is, how do you get children to run?’
‘Ah!,’ I said. ‘Well, I could certainly write about that – but it’ll make for an exceptionally short column. Because, in my experience, the best way to encourage kids to do something is to tell them not to.
‘Alternatively, you could wear a severed pig’s head and chase them around with a chainsaw. But the former is simpler and less likely to conclude in a gaol sentence. That’s it. Job done. Ker-r-r-ching!’
He was clearly disappointed. So here, albeit grudgingly, are a few additional observations.
There are great arguments for starting young. Yehudi Menuin performed the Brahms violin concerto at the Carnegie Hall when he was just four years old. Aged only nine, Fred Perry made it all the way to the semis at Wimbledon.
However, it doesn’t always work that way. My mate Philip Baum displayed early signs of genius at both music and tennis. At the age of three, he was caught playing tennis in the street with his uncle Yehudi’s Stradivarius violin. Now he’s a clerk at an accountancy firm.
As for my own childhood, I quickly exhibited an unusual if not unique ability: I could run before I could walk.
The stress nearly killed my parents. I’d be laying in my cot, playing with my Telly Tubbies mobile. Then they’d turn their backs for a second and I’d be gone. They’d find me lining up at the start of the South Downs 10, my gripe water bottle brimming with horse steroids dissolved in isotonic sports drink and an elite number pinned to my babygro.
Indeed, the recent case of the four year-old Indian marathon runner underlines the dangers of introducing youngsters to the sport too early. Children’s joints are still only partially developed, and prolonged periods of repetitive loading, as in running, can produce permanent damage to these sensitive tissues.
On the other hand, kids’ bones are remarkably flexible, which gives them a real advantage on the bends. So parents, use your common sense.
In the domestic context, a fit child can be an enormous boon to a household. ‘Be a love, Ronan – just nip back and get my fags. They’re on top of the jumbo pork pie beside the beer rack.’ Or: ‘See that gentleman over there, Lucretia? The one with the fat black wallet sticking out of his pocket? Wouldn’t it be fun to run over and bring it back to Daddy?’
There was a time when a child’s athletic prowess lent prestige to a family.
‘How did Whitney get on at Sports Day?’
‘Not too bad. She came third in the Three-Legged Javelin. How about Verona?’
‘Same as usual. First in the Under-Elevens’ Knife Fighting, the Underwater Wheelbarrow Race and the Iron Child triathlon. Oh, and her team won the One-A-Side Rugby. Bless her.’
Now, of course, any activity that is remotely competitive is considered politically incorrect. This, and the shameful sell-off of school playing fields, is strangling the grass roots of the nation’s future sporting excellence.
At my daughter’s school, they’ve got around this by integrating sport into the academic course work prescribed in the National Curriculum. For instance, when they did the Romans, her class built and raced their own chariots, and two of her friends were partially eaten by lions.
Just one of the many advantages of a private education, I suppose.
