The loneliness of the long-distance learner

When I was a boy, there used to be a comic called Victor which featured, among other things, a strip called "The Tough of the Track" - all about Alf Tupper, welder by day, connoisseur of Fish'n'Chips by night, who had an innate ability to run long-distance races better than anyone else. It was your typical working-class-boy-comes-good-and-sticks-it-to-the-Toffs story, the ones that proliferated in the 40s and 50s and 60s and 70s and 80s, when quite frankly, it was pretty shit to be a working-class boy, especially one feels, in the north of England. Even though, if I remember rightly, Alf was from London. He'd sleep on a mattress in the kitchen, work hard, never sleep, eat F'n'C four times a day, and then run a two-minute mile in full welder's gear while carrying his kit bag and changing into his plimsolls (but I am a bit hazy about that last bit...)

I thought of this as I saw today's version of the Long-Distance Runner. Sat alone, digging deep, trying to recall the basics of French grammar while being aurally assaulted by twanging accents and the background noise of 20 kids he's never actually met.

Resilient? You bet.