St Mary’s Primary School ski jump as seen from Harold’s recreation ground. On a clear day if you stand at the top you can just make out Dunstable’s dreaming spires.
Villagers in Harold are getting increasingly angry over the ski jump that was forced upon the local primary school. Denounced as an eyesore it was built despite strong local protest in what some are calling an exceptionally heavy-handed grass roots campaign to get more children competing in winter sports.
“It’s not my fault,” wailed Alison Lee head teacher of St Mary’s as she stood in what was once the school playing field staring up at the sixty metre high ramp. “The British Olympic Association sent questionnaires out to every primary school so I filled it out thinking we’d be sent some Olympic posters and lesson plans or that at best a couple of terribly nice posh boys would come and do an assembly on the biathlon but then I got a letter back saying that to encourage future Team GB Winter Olympic stars St Mary’s had to have a ski jump.”
The ski jump which has an inrun of 36 degrees, seven bar start platforms at various heights and has been built to easily accommodate world record jumps of 246 metres or more has yet to be used for its intended purpose.
“I tried to explain that it wasn’t suitable for young children,” Mrs Lee told us. “Thanks to all the academic hoops we have to get the kids to jump through to impress OFSTED there’s only time for two twenty minute PE lessons a week. Once a class of four and five year olds have struggled into their ski-jumping boots and body suits it’s time to take them off again and start another numeracy hour.”
The British Olympic Association remain unrepentant for forcing what they insist is an important and worthwhile gift on Harold however they are dismantling the bobsleigh track they had built around Harold Shining Future Academy and IT Achievement Haven (formerly Harold Comprehensive) following reports that the village dogging society had built an eight-consenting-adults bobsleigh and out of school hours was putting the track to decidedly non-sporting use.
You must be logged in to post a comment.