Cross Country Running along the N&BJR

[Dick Bodily]

 

John's picture (reproduced here) of the trackbed near bridge 120 brought back not necessarily pleasant memories of Towcester Grammar School's Cross Country Runs in the 60s. I wonder if anyone else experienced them.

They were more like commando courses than cross countries and were usually inflicted on senior boys in games lessons if they were not picked to play for the rugby team. They were largely unsupervised and health and safety was mercifully unheard of !

The regular route was to leave the school field by a footpath which led to the foot crossing over the E&W line which was still very much in use then, then it was across an invariably wet ploughed field to the Greens Norton road. From this we followed a footpath to the foot crossing on the by now dismantled N&B line near where John's photograph was taken. This footpath included a water jump or a dipping at the Black Ouse Brook; we were not allowed to use the footbridge. Then we ran along the N&B towards Green Norton Junction with a diversion through the sometimes waist deep River Tove near Bridge 116 thus ensuring that we sped back to school to get showered and get warm again! This dipping was usually supervised either by a teacher or a prefect, naturally when unsupervised it was avoided. At Greens Norton Junction I think we were supposed to take a different foot crossing of the E&W line to rejoin the footpath across the ploughed field, again crossing the line at the other already mentioned foot crossing. But invariably we took a short cut along the still open E&W line safe in the knowledge that the afternoon pickup was somewhere near to Woodford West but I do remember encountering a light engine 8F one afternoon. I don't know who was more startled we runners or the engine's crew!

When I was in the sixth form a county regional event was held on the course, by then the E&W was also closed and the unofficial short cut became official. I was given the task of ensuring that the runners took the diversion through the river at Bridge 116. Surprisingly most of the competitors complied but one school's team flatly refused to enter the river, 'bugger that for a game of soldiers' was their response and they were disqualified. I seem to recall that the team event was won by a team of underage 15 year olds from Woodford Secondary Modern much to the annoyance of the all the other contestants, six form teams from posher grammar schools.

Even more demanding was the road course sometimes used, outwards towards Abthorpe cossroad, then home through Bradden and Greens Norton. All the way on knee jarring paved road surfaces in plimsols rather than trainers which were not available then. A teacher would drive to various points on the route to check that we were not taking any short cuts but the temptation to cut out Bradden and Greens Norton altogether and half the total distance by a short cut back to school from Bridge 121 along the N&B and back along the still open E&W line was all too tempting. We only got caught once and were made to run a mile around the school field each dinner time until we got 'within a couple of minutes of the world record'. Fortunately the supervising teacher lost interest and the punishment was soon forgotten after he had given up a couple of his dinner breaks.  

All good character building stuff !