Letter: Not so clumsy

Dr Amanda Kirby's article on dyspraxia brought back vivid memories ("Finger on the pulse", Real Life, 16 February). I remember so well the torture of school sports to a clumsy, ungainly child, and the shame of being last to be picked for everything.

This was the early Sixties, and dyspraxia was never mentioned. On more than one occasion I was ordered by the PE teacher to write out a hundred times "I must not let my team-mates down". The humiliation eventually led to my leaving school at 15.

I am now a director of an insurance company but I still loathe organised sport and exercise by cycling and walking, where balance and poise are not so vital. I continue, however, to fall over, and drop things down my suit, and however much I spend on clothes I still look scruffy.

Sometimes I wonder whether the musclebound cretins who were my PE teachers ever had any idea of their impact. I went through my entire schooldays thinking myself a failure because I could not play sports.

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