I'm a little fellow. Luckily, before I realised that I had the chance to serve my country. I was in some form of self-denial when it came to my, what shall I call it, “shortness”. Or maybe my “height-disadvantaged” status. My father was no help. He's the same height as me and yet he used to play rugby. So, not being one of the world's greatest footballers, when I moved to Inverness I joined Highland Rugby Club. I used to get a game with the 4th Fifteen. To be honest, and I don't think any of my team-mates would deny this; we were a bunch of has-beens and never-will-bees. But we had a lot of fun. I even scored a try once against the Royal Air Force. No-one was more surprised by that than myself and the two RAF guys who failed to stop me charging across the line.
One day I was in the Post Office at Queensgate in Inverness, I spotted one of the star players from the local rugby club back home in the queue. It turned out he was a forestry college in Inverness. It turned out he'd recently been signed up by one of the big Scottish clubs, Boroughmuir I think, by this time. I told the guys at Highland that I'd seen the guy, Alex Moore, but it turned out they knew he was in town. It had already been arranged that he would train with Highland week-nights and play for Boroughmuir, let's say that's who it was, on Saturdays.
And guess what part of his training involved: running over the top of me with all the speed and force of an express train. It was worth it when the Rugby Internationals came around. When Alex carved his way down the wing knocking various opponents side-ways, I had the satisfaction that he'd perfected his technique by trampling me into the ground. They also serve who only get the be-jesus knocked out of them in training.