The neighbours’ children came for their share early (and the parents dropped in later). When I was at University in Canada, Halloween was a big deal. So, there I was on Tuesday, October 31, 2023, putting my column together and realised it was Halloween. I started this article on Tuesday so it would go to the newspapers on Wednesday evening for them to publish on Saturday. Like Paul, I paid for all when I stopped the teacher, “Sir, I always follow my spirit instead of drinking it like my father.” One of the boys reached home before me and told my mother, who expressed her anger to my father claiming that I told the whole school that he was a drunkard. The only way the games could be a foot is if it was a football match.” Another jumped up with, “Sir, they had spirits there? I fraid those creatures you know.” Wanting to show that I was a reader and knew about spirits, I made what was a joke for me but not my colleagues. What happened was one of the boys asked, “Sir, I thought it was a war but it sound like it was a dog race!” That was bad enough but what made the teacher leave was the same boy asking, “Sir, sir, how could the game be ‘ah foot’? You say it was a war that was going on. The games afoot:/ Follow your spirit…” That was the end of the class for the day and the teacher for a whole week of medical treatment. You mean the king put the men to fight a war with only their pants on?” The teacher gave him a hard look and continued at full throttle, “I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips/ Straining upon the start.

The King started with “Once more into the breach, dear friends, once more” and it was bad enough when one of the boys asked, “Sir, Sir, ‘breach’ in those days was ‘pants’. We were doing Shakespeare’s “King Henry Five” for our exams and our teacher “went to town” on the king’s speech to his soldiers to get them ready for the war against France.

The game's afoot webs