Letter: Fun and games?

Philip Beresford
Thursday 13 May 1999 23:02 BST
Comments

Your support helps us to tell the story

From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.

At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.

The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.

Your support makes all the difference.

Letter: Fun and games?

Sir: As a product of a public school in the 1960s where the sports stars were regarded as gods by staff and pupils alike, I can still - 30 years later - recall every humiliation heaped on me as someone who hated rugby.

One of the more pleasing aspects of the annual surveys ranking schools' performance is that those with this fetish for sports above all are at last being rumbled academically. I am delighted to see that my old school is very much in the third division, and on a recent fleeting visit (the first for 30 years) I was also pleased to see that it had been forced to go into teaching English to overseas students to make ends meet.

Parents are at last wising up to the fact that being good in the scrum is not necessarily the best way to deal with life in the 21st century.

PHILIP BERESFORD

London W5

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Comments

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in