Last updated 13:24, Thursday, 22 May 2008

SUNDAY sees the annual raft race in Bellingham, when a flotilla of bizarre craft will be propelled down the River North Tyne by brawny types using everything from muck shovels to bare hands.

It’s an occasion which always sends a shiver down my spine, for in the early days of the event 20 years ago, I was one of the intrepid sailors who took part.

Floating down the river on a home made craft may sound like something from The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, but if the river is low, it will be a punishing journey.

The North Tyne at low ebb is a long way from the Mississippi, and the gentle sail is more akin to a cross country run, in which the craft has to be carried rather than sailed upon.

Now carrying a hastily constructed Heath Robinson agglomeration of wood, metal and plastic on the flat is arduous enough, but doing it on a river bed, with slippery boulders, unexpectedly deep holes, and ankle-turning shingle is something else entirely.

My ship-mates were all hearty farming types, used to humping sacks of sheep feed and recalcitrant yowes around, while I lifted nothing heavier than a pen, and although there was considerably less of me now than there was then, I was far from fit.

Things did not start well, for at the mass start, several of the rival craft disintegrated, and liberated oil drums became something of a hazard to shipping.

Our craft then turned turtle, but we managed to right it and clamber aboard.

The first hundred yards was fine, but when we ran aground the morning dissolved into an agony of carrying the craft, which now seemed to weigh as much as the Titanic.

I was soon bleeding from a thousand cuts, my glasses were awry, and my arms felt like newly cooked strands of spaghetti, as we bumbled and struggled along.

Finally, after what seemed several eternities, I realised that the roaring in my ears was not the surge of my blood, but the approbation of the vast crowd gathered on the Tyne Bridge, which represented the finishing line.

I staggered to my feet to milk the applause – and then realised they were not raising their arms in triumph, but to hurl missiles at the helpless mariners below.

I didn’t mind the flour bombs so much, but the eggs were something else. One smote me on the inner thigh, and the bruise remained long after the summer had disappeared.

I should have realised that sporting excellence and myself did not exactly make easy bedfellows.

I think back to my grammar school days, and the horrors of the cross country run.

It was a compulsory event, in which even the fat and wheezy boys were obliged to take part, and whilst I was a regular choice for the rugby XV, running was not my forte.

The cross country went through bandit country, near the edge of a vast council estate, where the perceived posh kids who went to grammar school were seen as legitimate targets for abuse.

Indeed, one year, the constabulary had to be called out when lead runners came under fire from a grassy knoll, from a disaffected ex-pupil armed with a powerful air rifle.

Turning up at the finish was the only objective, and some methods used to get there made Dwain Chambers look a positive paragon.

Competitors were spotted clambering on to buses, or had parents parked at strategic locations to whisk them round hidden parts of the course.

I tended to hang around towards the rear of the pack, but one year, I fell in with a lad who fancied himself as a bit of a Gordon Pirie – and he goaded me into racing for real.

There were startled shouts from other runners as we spread-eagled the field, locked together like Vladimir Kuts and Chris Chataway, heading for a one-boy wide gap in a far distant hedge.

Finding reserves of strength I never knew I had, I managed to get my nose in front, and arrived at the gap moments before my rival.

Triumph soon turned to agony though, for the gap wasn’t a gap at all.

A thoughtful farmer had filled it by stringing two invisible strands of barbed wire across the opening, most of which was now wrapped painfully around my heaving chest.

My opponent swept by with a malicious cackle, leading me to believe that perhaps he had known about the obstruction all along!