He was the epitome of physical fitness: tall, lean and ramrod straight. He carried himself with the dignity of the police officer he had been until his retirement. And he was, quite fittingly, our school’s physical trainer and athletics coach. Mr Tomlinson (or Tommy as we cheekily nicknamed him) enjoyed his PT classes as much as we disliked them. In fact, we cynically branded them “Physical Torture”. Clad in baggy khaki shorts that exposed his spindly legs, this 65-year-old would actively demonstrate physical exercises with the ease of the professional gymnast. It was we that found these exercises a problem. Arms flailing and torsos bending forward, backwards and sideways in unison, we stoically sweated it out. A common quip then was that we didn’t need a bath after a PT session, for we were literally bathed in perspiration. “C’mon, swing those arms freely!” Mr T would bellow. “They’re not going to fall off! Nor will your shorts tear if you throw your legs apart!” One day the inevitable happened. As Mr T vigorously demonstrated an exercise we heard the telltale sound of the ripping of fabric: the central seam of his shorts had given way. “Wipe that grin off your faces!” he snapped, masking his embarrassment, beating a hasty retreat to the cloakroom.

Mercifully, Mr T’s dour British sense of humour often relieved the drudgery of PT classes. Some of his exercises, bordering on contortion, were guaranteed to make even the most well-mannered lad break wind unwittingly. Once when this led to an eruption of giggling, Mr T remarked with an absolutely straight face: “I see we’ve a budding trumpeter in our midst!” On another occasion, fed up with a consistently unsuccessful high-jumper, Mr T smirked: “You’ll probably set a record for the number of times you’ve sailed under the crossbar rather than over it!” And an aspiring long-distance runner who failed to complete a 1500-metre race was chided good-humouredly: “You won’t make it even to a lifeline, let alone the finishing line.” Yet, thanks to Mr T’s unrelenting perseverance, the school did turn out several champion athletes over the years.