JIM WICKS (June 24) recommends carrying a large stick when walking through a field of cows. As someone who has experienced a close encounter of the bovine kind, I’d recommend avoiding them altogether.

At school, our games period was a double lesson first thing in the morning, and in the winter our games master would often send us on a cross-country run. This would allow him to retreat to the warmth of the staff room, where he could mark books.

The greater part of the run was along the river bank, often through thick early-morning mist, and one morning I had a rather bizarre experience. I was plodding along, head down, when I suddenly found myself flat on my back.

In the gloom I’d run into a cow’s backside.

I don’t know who was more surprised, although the cow actually seemed quite unperturbed. She simply looked at me in rather a pitiable fashion and returned to chewing her cud.

Fortunately, the collision didn’t provoke any involuntary bowel movements, although it was a close-run thing on my part. Longdistance runners go on about “hitting the wall” but I can confirm it’s nothing compared to running into a cow’s a**e.

VJ Connor, Bishop Auckland.