Deeds
The games people play Pip Bennett has been listening to tales from school for years Despite having written a PhD thesis on ‘Ethical Genetic Enhancement in Sport’ (2012), I find as much interest in what people say about games and everything associated with them as ever I did in research. Folk memory about organised games is a rich source, and some of the best stories I have heard about girls’ schools have involved a girl called Flossie. She is therefore the heroine in all the episodes that follow. I will also highlight that while much has changed in social attitudes to girls’ sport, there is still much to be done. It was Flossie, therefore, that one former pupil of a girls’ school told me about. She was competing particularly hard on the netball court and leapt for the ball, determined to take possession, when disaster struck. A packet of cigarettes, Marlboro lights of course, fell out of her skirt and onto the
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tarmac. The games mistress seemed to turn a blind eye to the situation saying something about how she was certain that she could not see cigarettes on court. Withering irony included, one can easily picture the scene, and the probable sequel years later, as these girls, now at university, stand waiting to play lacrosse at the edge of the pitch with fag in hand. Aside from scenes reminiscent of St Trinian’s, the practising of games and physical education in girls’ independent schools has come on in fits and starts. Much of what went on between 100 and 150 years ago would still be recognisable: callisthenics, swimming, cricket and the then novel hockey, lacrosse and netball. Though it was expected that the latter three should be played in such a way that contemporary standards of femininity were not eroded, these major sports, all played by men, offered
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