Not many writers come of age in pubs, standing at the oche. But, as memoirist Cathy Rentzenbrink writes, you can learn a lot from boozers and bullseyes
I won the Snaith and District Ladies’ Darts Championship when I was 17. I was the youngest ever winner. There was a presentation evening where a newsreader from Look North handed out trophies; I got an extra one for getting a 180 during the match. The presentation evening was at Drax Club, and I had to leave my sixth-form college in Scunthorpe early so that I could get there in time. I explained this to my English teacher, whose class I’d miss. “Darts?” he said. “How unusual.” I didn’t get the impression he thought it was unusual in a good way. Still, he let me go. I was an eager student and had recently got a very good mark for my essay on The Bell Jar.
You don’t find much about darts in literature. Martin Amis is a fan. There’s a lot of darts in his novel London Fields. In one of Sylvia Plath’s letters to her mother she writes about her and Ted Hughes having a game in a pub when they are staying with his parents in Yorkshire. I wonder what they were playing and who won? Around the clock? 501? Maybe they both got stuck on double one. That’s called “being in the madhouse” and can go on for ages. Maybe they got bored and decided to settle it by going up for bull. It doesn’t feel like a realistic scene, does it? Darts and literature go together like… not much, really.
Continue reading...from The Guardian http://bit.ly/2GO8Bm5
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