The quickest pair of hands

Text: an original contemporary personal-essay-style practice extract.

At the riverside clean-up, Leon gave each volunteer a pair of gloves and said that nobody was expected to stay for the whole morning. After I filled my first sack, he lifted it as if testing an impressive weight. “We’ve found our quickest pair of hands,” he announced. The other volunteers smiled at me, and I began the next section before anyone had finished tying their first bag.

At the break, I removed my right glove and found a pink patch forming across my palm. I was walking towards the water table when Leon called from beside a patch of nettles. “Could our champion rescue this corner?” The question produced friendly laughter. I pulled the glove back on and said, “Of course.” Each time I slowed down, Leon seemed to arrive with another compliment just before pointing out something else that needed doing.

When the final sacks were counted, he thanked me in front of the group. Then he noticed the way I was holding my hand. His expression changed. “You should have stopped,” he said, sounding genuinely surprised. He was right: he had given me permission at the beginning. Yet leaving after being called the quickest would have felt like proving the title wrong. I had volunteered for a morning’s work, then behaved as though I had volunteered to be inexhaustible.

In this extract, the writer tries to show that public praise can make it difficult for someone to admit their limits.

Evaluate how successfully this is achieved. Support your views with detailed reference to the extract.