Room 2D

From Uniform Girls 8 It was a rather damp and muggy Autumn afternoon. Earlier, the ground had been filled with excited, enthusiastic kids running, jumping, throwing a variety of objects, or simply horsing around. By and large, they were unsupervised. Technique was at a discount. Being there and doing something energetic was all. That was the reason, reflected Herb Wainwright, why British athletics, on the international scene, was in such an abysmal state. We got ecstatic about winning a bronze, very excited about coming fourth or fifth, even gratified if one of our team reached a final. It wasn’t good enough in his view. The Americans, the Russians, the Germans were out to  win . Coming second or third was considered a failure. That was the difference. Britain, in this present age, lacked the true competitive spirit. Herb gazed around the near-deserted ground. Hurdles had been left lying on the track, javelins lay like cas...

From Janus 19 White as a sheet and petrified of what lies ahead, Polly Smyth returns home from school. Not at the usual time, however, and not to ‘home’ as most of us would think of it. Polly has been sent home by her headmistress in the middle of the day after being caught cheating in a mock exam. She was spotted by the invigilator furtively consulting a pocket French dictionary concealed in the waistband of her navy blue school skirt. Appalling this misdeed may be, but it is merely the latest and most serious in an endless series of offences Polly has committed against school rules. Because of the pathetic abolition of corporal punishment at Polly’s school, all her headmistress can do is send a misbehaving girl home and telephone her parents to explain the reason. Polly’s case is slightly different because she is an orphan who has lived with a succession of foster parents who found her too difficult to cope with. She ...