My Life

My Life - Oswald Mosleywind, and decided to mix it with him and rely on sheer speed and constant attack. Itook the next four hits and won the championship. All these things are good lessonsfor life; never hold too long to methods which do not work, be firm and fixed inprinciples, but infinitely flexible and adaptable in method.After the anxious moments in the foils championship, the sabre competition was notdifficult. I won the sabre championship with ease and emerged with what was thenclaimed to be a triple record: the first boy to win with both weapons on the same day,and the youngest boy to win with either. My joy was enhanced by the radiant delightof my friend Adam. I was left with a sense that although still a very stupid boy, I hadbecome something of a physical phenomenon. It never occurred to me at this stagethat I could ever be anything else. As an intelligent and sensitive child I hadexperienced acutely what I suppose can only be described as a sense of destiny; butall such brooding presentiment of that strange blend of triumph and disasterinseparable from great experience was now submerged in the first exuberance ofphysical vitality.It was all splendid for the time being. Even my ambition to compete successfullyagainst the Etonians was also achieved by another route. We went to Eton to fight amatch between two teams of three for five hits up each fight. I won each fight five hitsto love, a total of fifteen hits to nil; it was a highlight of my young life. A member oftheir team was a magnificent specimen of some eighteen years old who rowed in theeight, as my brother John also did at Eton a few years later. His surprise wasconsiderable to find that in the subtle business of the sword strength counted fornothing against speed and skill; one of the main charms of that fascinating sport.Fencing certainly gripped my early life. I even contrived by long persuasion to inducemy mother to allow me to leave Winchester at sixteen in the hope of pursuing it in awider sphere. My argument was based on the general ground that I was wasting mytime by staying any longer, and I certainly felt this was true as I had then doneeverything which interested me. However my plan first to enter the Britishchampionship and then to go on a fencing tour of Europe was frustrated for tworeasons. My mother began to sense that the European tour might be a little gay, whilemy father's temporary reconciliation with my grandfather deprived her of the meansof financing the venture with ease. The first point was an error, because the bestchance of keeping any boy on the straight and narrow path of parental approval is toencourage him to pursue an interest to which he is wholly dedicated. He will not inthese circumstances play the fool with either mind or body. The second was certainlynot her fault, for without my grandfather's assistance for any special venture she wasmuch too hard up. So I have been left wondering ever since what would havehappened to me in the British championship of 1913, and if that competition hadbrought me any success, in the world championship of 1914. I should certainly havegiven it priority over such an early entry to the army by starting at Sandhurst in 1914,and would only just have completed my European experience when the First WorldWar began.This was my last serious chance at the world championship, for after that I was neveragain first-rate. At the end of the war the full use of my legs was gone for good. It wasten years before I returned to the sport at all, and then at first only for exercise.Gradually I discovered that by adapting my style to my new condition I could be quite30 of 424