IN MY DREAMS I’M 17 AND A RUGBY HERO

Stanley Johnson Real age: 78. Spirit age: 17.

EVEN now, I dream about my schooldays when I played prop in rugby for Sherborne, aged 17.

The other side (Marlborough? Clifton?) kicks off. I catch the ball full-toss and charge straight for the line, looking neither right nor left, to score under the posts.

Of course, I’m not arguing that the grit and determination you acquire on the rugger field as a schoolboy is the end of the story. Yes, I wanted to gain a rugger blue at Oxford after I left school, but I also wanted to get a First and be President of the Union.

As it happened, I flunked all three goals, but there was one great consolation prize which I have cherished all my life: I won the Newdigate Prize for poetry with a 98line poem called May Morning. I had to recite it at the university’s summer prize-giving ceremony, Encaenia.

Charlie Chaplin was one of those honoured that year. He signed my programme and, 56 years later, I still have it.

In a nutshell, my spirit age still hovers around 17. I have the sense that even though I hung up my boots years ago, it’s worth charging full-tilt towards the goal.