And I could watch raindrops racing down the window as if they were contesting the Grand National. Red Rum always seemed to triumph at Aintree in those days but this was the year he retired and two before his name took on a more sinister meaning in Kubrick’s phantasmagoria that was The Shining; Danny using his mum’s lipstick to scrawl that backwards warning on the bathroom door.

But I remember the day like it wasn’t 47 years ago. A soggy but sunny Thursday afternoon in East Sussex and we were in the headmaster’s office. Having addressed my parents for most of the meeting, attention turned to me, the prospective pupil.

And you, young man, what do you want to be when you grow up?

I could have said music journalist, parliamentary clerk or speechwriter but I wasn’t clairvoyant and these were niche roles into which I’d stumble decades later. I could have said astronaut, newsreader or something to do with dinosaurs. I was a young eleven-year old. I could have said nothing while adjusting my NHS specs and trying not to look bored.

Do you think I could play for Man U or maybe Oxford or Ayr? All the United’s. I didn’t say Scotland because, you know, one should be realistic, even as I imagined myself stepping into the boots of Martin Buchan, Dave Langan or Steve Nicol.

Mr Wilkinson smiled and then he took my dream like it was a small glass ornamental swan, wrapped it in a handkerchief, a clean handkerchief, there being no snotters in this metaphor, and, having found a toffee hammer in his bottom draw, brought the instrument down on the object with maximum force. Even as an obtuse kid, with all the street smarts of Oliver Twist before he met the Artful Dodger, I could sense a no from his body language.

What actually happened is Mr W explained to me, his being a school for partially sighted boys and girls, that it was unlikely I would go on to play football at the highest level. But there was a school team for the older boys and sometimes they got to play against other, well, special schools. The school was progressive in the context of the time but they didn’t pander to the delusional. I would have to make do with scoring six times in a local Cubs’ 5-a-side tournament six months later, my devotion to the dream, and desire to prove myself, confounding other teams whose players were themselves likely last picks in their playground kickabouts.

Later, the shards of my glass swan beyond repair, a challenge too far even for those magicians in The Repair Shop, I graduated to other daydreams. How about the bloke who read the football results? The Fall’s Mark E Smith got to do that once. Theme from Sparta FC? I could have been a contend-ah.

I’ve rarely heeded the advice of those who said nah you can’t do that , not unless it involved wheels. Having failed my cycling proficiency test, I did have to concede that perhaps it wasn’t a good idea to think I could drive. And also on balance that I probably wasn’t the best look-out when we were out fly postering after dark for Twiggy, our little indie/60’s club in early 90’s Edinburgh.

Nor could I say on holiday in 2000, sat in a rickety small boat in Borneo, crocodiles lurking half a mile up-river, that I was able to see that green snake in a tree which our guide was pointing at. Can you see it now yuh? Can you see it now yuh? He was becoming ever more animated, standing, boat rocking, pointing with an oar, almost poking the thing, and it would have been easier to fib, but no, I couldn’t see a green snake in a green tree in a green rainforest.

Lately I’ve been day-dreaming again, not about bicycle kicks or reading the classified results, but of an assistance dog with a lolling pink tongue and a pair of brown eyes. The two of us making friends wherever we go, dog biscuits in my pocket and poop bag at the ready. Alas he shall remain an imaginary dog for fear of alarming our very much real cat who is now regarding me not unkindly but with a look that says nah you definitely can’t do that.

Rodger Evans