Country life
When men are men
Leanda de Lisle
A dramatic hat will embarrass your nine year old son and infuriate your husband by blocking his view. He is far keener on see- ing the fruit of his loins win a race than the horse he put a tenner on at Ascot. So it's best to leave your Philip Treacy Cartwheel at home on sports day and take your binoculars along instead. Prep school boys look identical in their white shorts and tee- shirts and a case of mistaken identity can have dire consequences. A couple of years ago an ex-public school boy who had mur- dered his father with a rice flail claimed he had, in part, been driven to it by the terri- ble memory of Daddy cheering on the wrong boy.
You could take a camera along as well, although when I did it proved to be a bit of a mistake. My eldest son, then only five, spotted me lifting my Nikon as he hurled down a race track. He stopped dead, still yards from the finish, put his hands on his `Yes under the new guide lines you can divorce after one year, but only ifyou can prove that you are both happily married.' hips and said 'cheese'. But then I suspect he is more likely to grow up to be Brad Pitt than Linford Christie. He is small but per- fectly formed — like all the great film stars — and his little legs just don't propel him as fast as his coltish peers. Not that that bothers me. The only contribution I made to sporting events at school was introduc- ing a fashion for wearing knee-length bloomers under my hockey shorts.
I felt organised games were pointless and team spirit just meant allowing yourself to be pushed around by a hairy woman in an aertex shirt. I became an expert at wheedling my way out of sports day by painting gigantic bruises in biro ink on my thighs. However, I won't be telling my son any of this. My husband has made it plain that if I so much as hint at my disinterest in sports day, he will murder me with a rice flail. But anyway, I accept things are differ- ent for boys. It strikes me that sports day is the modern equivalent of the mediaeval joust — a preparation for war. Strength, speed, good hand eye co-ordination and the ability to work in a team are the essen- tial attributes of a fine soldier. Which must be why Waterloo was said to have been won on the playing field of Eton.
Of course, war has been rather unfash- ionable since the one that was supposed to end them, so it is interesting that school games remain so important to parents. The number one reason people who live in cities continue to send their offspring to rural boarding schools is that they offer the wide open playing fields their city equiva- lents don't. As nobody in their right mind would admit to wanting their sons to grow up to be efficient fighting machines, they talk about the need to channel masculine aggression instead. That seems fair enough. Sport is a substitute for war, as well as a preparation for it. But what function does sport play for girls? 'Well' one London based father suggested to me, 'there's the fresh air . . .
Here, on the playing fields of England lies the last bastion of machismo. Men can be men and women stay in the sidelines, cheering or weeping, as appropriate. No wonder sports day is taken so seriously.
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