Email to Carolyn:
I hope [your son]'s sports day went well.
At age 9, I learnt a very important lesson in one sports day at Brookhurst School. I wonder if you remember it. Mrs Richman, our class teacher, decided it would be fun for us to have a race in pairs, where each pair of kids was handicapped in some way or other. One pair of girls were tied together by the wrists, another had their ankles tied together three-legged-race fashion, one boy had to carry another piggy-back style, one pair had to do a wheelbarrow race, etc. My partner, a boy who didn't know left from right, was blindfolded, while I had to give him directions as he stumbled in a frantic panic down the track. Needless to say we came last. By the time we crossed the finish line, the two girls with their wrists tied together had collected their gold medals from the podium, been photographed by the Wirral Globe, and completed their second lap of honour.
The lesson I learnt was that the world isn't fair, and teachers are sometimes very stupid.