Who doesn’t remember the dreaded PE periods, with over-muscled and under-brained sports masters?
The games of ‘shirts and skins’, when skinny, immature boys would be praying to be on the side of the shirt.
The punishments of push-ups or runs around the oval.
The athletic ‘jock’ kids who got all the praise, and made you feel like an inadequate, insignificant wimp.
The ‘pantsing’of your speedos in the pool by these same ‘jock’ kids, while the sports master chuckled at their ‘fun’.
The indignity of the changing room and the showers, where little boys in their just pubescent state, imagined that everybody was looking at THEM.
The sports master who patrolled these same precincts, and seemed to be just looking for a reason to humiliate you, by smacking your bare bum in front of the other kids, or making comments about your body that turned you crimson-faced.
Were they monsters who enjoyed such pursuits, or did they simply have no empathy?
I imagine that we all have our stories to tell.