Not a Games Person

Synopsis

'This is the story of a girl who lost a race - who has always lost all races...' You either loved it or hated it, looked forward to it or dreaded it, but we've all been forced to do it. Sometimes a note could get you out of it, but the following week there you'd be again, writhing on a cold and dusty gym floor in your underwear. We've all forgotten our kit, endured the sweaty changing rooms, the freezing cross-country runs, the pubescent torture of communal showers supervised by a (fully clothed) teacher. PE is one of life's great levellers, a uniquely ruthless aspect of school experience which shapes us all and leaves its traces in unexpected and lingering ways. In this latest addition to the acclaimed series of Yellow Jersey Shorts, Julie Myerson explores the ecstasy, but mostly the agony, of school sports and PE, Skinny, timid, knock-kneed and 'not a games person', according to her teachers, Myerson now asks the question: why not? Always physically energetic and quick on her (big) feet, what was it that made her so reluctant to join in and - especially - so afraid to compete? In this mostly light-hearted yet occasionally devastating exploration of her school life, Myerson attempts to answer the question with all the energy and courage she never quite managed to put into school PE.