Obituary
You may not have thought of him for many years, but for anyone of my age the name will instantly conjure up a whole list of memories.
World’s Strongest Man!
Policeman!
Highland Games!
Shot put!
Budgerigars (never ‘budgies’)!
That’s a decent cultural footprint for the big man to leave, and from his Wiki page I have learned that he still holds the British shot put record he set in 1980.
Also, years before the Beastie Boys were defacing Volkswagens, Geoff was destroying their wing mirrors
(Btw there’s a new Wallace and Gromit coming out for C*******s, even though Peter Sallis has also left us..)
At university in Birmingham in the late seventies, Wednesday afternoon was compulsory physical activity. There was plenty to choose from but one had to be chosen. Me and my mate settled on the gym. There was the mystery of a sauna. We’d never seen nor heard of one before but it sounded fantastic. There was also a pool. We thought we could do a few weights, relax in the sauna, then cool off in the pool, compulsory physical activity complete.
First day and the guy in charge of the gym was Geoff Capes. He got paid to train for the olympics and occasionally deal with minor inconveniences like us. He was tough. This was in the days before this had equipment. Benches were propped up against walls and sit ups were done at a 45 degree angle. Ropes were shimmied up at speed. Repeatedly. Press ups were on fingers. Weights were enormous to be bench pressed and snatched. I have never worked so hard in my life.
We never did get to the sauna or the pool. All we could do afterwards was shower and lie down.
Compulsory physical activity! Compulsory! As foppish Art School layabouts that word wasn’t part of the vocabulary. On Friday afternoons it was vaguely suggested that we might attend something called General Studies which most weeks comprised a showing of Battleship Potemkin, with occasional showings of Metropolis or A Clockwork Orange thrown in for a little variety. One memorable Friday we were treated to a reading by a visiting lecturer to a selection of the poetical outpourings of Alan Ginsberg. I have no idea why any of this was considered desirable. We usually voted with our feet and decamped to the pub or just buggered off to get the weekend’s festivities off to an early start.
I’m astonished too, by the idea of compulsory PE at university. I did a similar course to Tiggs, in London, if a year or two earlier. Yes, I vaguely recall, in the first 2 years, that lectures did not always take place on Wednesday pms, but no organised activity being necessarily expected of us, unless drinking was deemed a sport. There were active rugby, cricket, soccer, rowing clubs etc, associated with the hospital, but they too were more adjuncts to drinking.
Some Universities in the States still have a mandatory swimming test you must pass before graduating
General Studies, yes! We had that in Sixth Form and then it morphed into something called Civics. Which essentially meant every Thursday afternoon we sloped off to the local snooker hall.
Did I ever mention that the snooker hall was owned by the bassist from Splodgenessabounds?
“Yes, yes you did,” replies a weary Aftetword.
Tuesday night in downtown Reading was “Band Night”, i.e. gig night. Load in/soundcheck started Tuesday lunchtime, gig from 8pm to 1am, Load Out typically by 3am.
I had double Control Systems followed by Double Electromagnetic Theory from 9am to 1pm Wednesday, which I sat through propped up by revolting machine-made coffee and by dipping my face into a sink full of cold water every hour. My Wednesday afternoons were mostly spent asleep.
{Edit} As an aside, when it came to Finals revision, I realised I could get away without answering any questions on either Control Systems or EM Theory, so it had all been a waste of time and I could have stayed in bed.
I thought Uni was all horizontal jogging..
Reminded me, and apologies for the tangent, that MIT students have to pass a 100 yard swimming test (or take lessons to achieve a certain level of swimming) to get their degree.
I thought that was the Miskatonic University, and given the local denizens of the deep, off Innsmouth.
Is that the venerable educational institution where The Donald studied Retorical Testicular Exclamation?
Rhetorical Testicular Exclamation? Three more from them later, surely?
I think they may have renamed themselves ELP at some point.
That is quite surprising, as it wasn’t even mandatory in the sixth form at school in the seventies, and I think isn’t now, and so those of us weren’t interested were given gardening or something which just meant we kept out of the way and chatted. This was much to the disappointment of the games teacher who muttered that he would try to block anybody who didn’t play sports from going to university, Nonsense of course, as all of the other teachers would have overridden him, even if he could have done anything about it. They had the strange idea that their job was to encourage learning.
When I was at university Wednesday afternoons were reserved for sport. Not obligatory and I didn’t bother. Strange as I always played sport before and after those times
I was young, fresh faced, and had never spent a night away from St. Helens without my parents. I believed every word I was told.