The day my self-defence classes paid off

Marlborough College has developed something of a reputation for churning out wives for the great and the good. It is wrong, though, to assume the place operates like a ‘girls in pearls’ finishing school, where everyone practises their deportment or learns how to arrange flowers, while waiting for their prince to arrive.

Instead, Marlborough girls leave school knowing how to build a fire, camp on a hillside and fire a gun. CCF is popular. I have happy memories of mock exercises on Salisbury Plain. Equally happy are memories of our self-defence lesson, which was given to girls in Upper Sixth.

I remember it well: the 14 girls in my house (Morris – named after William Morris, despite the fact that he hated the school) gathered in one of the sports halls. Our coach was a man who specialised in martial arts. It all felt rather ridiculous. When might we need these skills? But it was an amusing way to spend an afternoon.

We learned how to deliver a blow to the nose using our palms. The coach said that we should push our hand upwards as it made contact, for maximum impact. We then practised on each other, but of course we had to stop just before the crucial point of engagement.

Inevitably, one girl didn’t quite pull back in time. Her partner was swiftly packed off to the sanitorium, with a wodge of tissue shoved up her nose to stem the flow of blood now dripping onto her house top – or ‘stripe’. Our house colours were blood red and bone white, anyway, so a little blood wasn’t the end of the world. We liked our stripes to have some character; some girls even cut off the arms for a more rugged look.

Next, we were taught how to deploy a house key as a weapon, with it lodged between our fingers like a corkscrew. Then came the lesson in how to break free from an assailant’s grip, using a clever method of twisting one’s wrist away from their hand.

Before long we had moved onto knife assaults and how to escape should we find ourselves with someone pinning us down, wielding something sharp. This was definitely more of a complicated manoeuvre and seemed unlikely to work. That said, it was reassuring to be told we weren’t completely helpless should we find ourselves ever at knife-point.

It was all great fun, of course, with lots of laughter as we wrestled each other to the ground. Afterwards, we tottered off to Norwood Hall for supper. And life carried on.

Fast-forward to my first year after university, four years later. I was living in Mumbai by this point, and most weekends, my friends from work and I would travel down to Goa by train. We would catch the sleeper train on a Friday evening, travel for 12 hours, and arrive in Goa early on Saturday morning. Our accommodation was a beach hut and it cost almost nothing. There was always a big party further down the beach on Saturday night. Then on Sunday evening, we would travel back to Mumbai by train, and arrive first thing on Monday morning. I now feel completely exhausted by the thought of it.

Most of these trips blurred into one, but one stood out. It was New Year’s Eve. An hour before midnight, I made the mistake of walking back from the party to my hut, alone (Mum: I’m sorry). I wanted to pick up my phone so I could text my friends back in the UK when the clock struck midnight.

As I returned to the party, a local man grabbed me and tried to pull me into the sand dunes. He was shorter than me, and had oily, slicked-back black hair. He was wearing a dirty white vest. I remember his mouth, which was stained with red betel juice.

And just like that, it all came back to me, the moves we had been taught suddenly re-exerting themselves in my muscles as the adrenaline kicked in. The arm twist worked! And then, for good measure, I managed to land my hand in his face. I escaped and ran back to the party.

I was grateful to find my friends in time for the New Year. I was grateful, too, that it was a diminutive man who tried his luck. I wouldn’t have been able to fight him off had he been much bigger. I was grateful he didn’t have a knife.

Most of all, I was grateful for those earlier lessons that had prepared me a little for the unexpected surprises life can sometimes throw at you.