THINGS don't get any clearer as time goes by. From abroad – Australia if memory serves, which it often doesn't – comes the news that school exam papers are no longer to be marked with red ink because red is an aggressive colour which might scar young minds.
I can see where they're coming from here, for the scarring bit was certainly true in my case. My exam papers were never particularly distinguished and, as a consequence, usually attracted more than their fair share of red ink. When the time came to r
eveal all in the happy home, a fair amount of heavy scarring tended to take place, in the course of which I was frequently told I'd come to no good if I didn't smarten up and do something about myself.
Of course, I realise that the latest measures against red ink are not so much designed to spare pupils from the wrath of ranting parents as to protect fragile young psyches from insidious pressures and in this respect, I feel they, the measures, might be somewhat on the nit-picking side. Certainly, when I was a bright-eyed schoolboy reporting for duty complete with shining morning face and all that, red ink, as far as I can recall, was the least of my worries. What has become lost in the mists of time was the tendency of teachers to throw things at the pupils.
As a teacher's temper began to fray, as it almost invariably did, speedy action became the order of the day. Chalk, which was always lying handy, provided missiles of convenient size, capable of being thrown with reasonable accuracy at close range and which delivered a suitably stinging impact.
As the offensive mounted, blackboard dusters were brought into play and they were serious. A direct hit from one could give a pupil double vision throughout an entire French period. The blackboard T-square was the classroom equivalent of the Big Bertha (the gun, not the golf club), a formidable affair about two feet long and built from great oaks, which, when flung, winged its way towards its mark like a revolving girder. It wasn't the most accurate weapon, but, such was its size and speed that, even when it missed, it created terror and havoc among the ranks.
There were, I understand, cases of blackboards mounted on wheels being employed to ram the odd pupil. I never actually witnessed such an incident, though I did see a variation on the theme when a pupil was taken by the scruff of the neck and propelled at a good lick at a wheel-mounted blackboard at the far end of the classroom, the wild gallop concluding with pupil, teacher and blackboard collapsing together in a great heap over which hung a mushroom cloud of chalk-dust. It was a magnificent spectacle and only fear of recrimination prevented the rest of the class from according it loud and prolonged applause.
All highly regrettable, of course, and to be abhorred, but I would suggest that in an environment like that, red ink would figure pretty low on the Richter Scale of psyche stress. Indeed, if stress is what's required, golf has it by the lorryload and it's stress of the most devious and sneaky variety. Where else in sport, or life itself for that matter, can someone get worked into a state of suppressed rage by someone else not doing something?
Many golfing situations lend themselves to this form of silent suffering and they range from trolleys with squeaking wheels to people who seem to carry small change about in their pocket for the specific purpose of jingling it at critical moments. I went through a phase of becoming wound up by a mild and inoffensive man whose habit it was to say: "That's golf," at moments when I was at a particularly low ebb. At first I thought he was trying to make me feel better.
The way I play, low ebbs are common and there have been rounds when this man would say "That's golf," perhaps half a dozen times. That's a lot of "That's golfs," especially when the first one has reduced the recipient – that's me – to a babbling wreck who doesn't know how many more "That's golfs" there are to come. When I say the recipient is a wreck, he is, but he can't babble – at least, not out loud. The man at the root of all this doesn't know he's doing it – that is, the recipient doesn't think he does, but then again, can he be sure?
The Velcro fastening, though a wonderful invention, has, nevertheless, a touch of madness about it. It spawned a sport which involves Velcro-clad people hurling themselves at Velcro-lined walls and sticking to them. Then, there's the golf glove. I once played in a winter foursomes match when my partner, attempting to putt, was disturbed at the moment of truth by the screech of a glove being opened. The experience reduced him to rubble. Normally sound on the greens, he became a bag of nerves. He later told me he couldn't concentrate because he kept waiting for the next screech. It's surely the bitter end when you don't know where your next screech is coming from.
The full article contains 885 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
