Corporal punishment survey 77

I should add a note about my mentor, who in other schools would have been called my tutor.  He was a young Oxford graduate with around five years’ teaching experience when I was assigned to him aged thirteen.  He was a classicist, teaching Latin and Greek in the sixth form, and a formidable squash player. I met him frequently and always alone – we would sit drinking cocoa in front of a log fire and gradually I fell under his spell – telling him ll there was to tell about my successes, failures, hopes and fears – I think he knew me better than I knew myself.  Our meetings were usually after evening prep, and I usually went dressed in pjs, dressing gown and slippers so I could slip into my dormitory after lights out without disturbing anyone.  He was a mentor in the true classical sense, having responsibilities not only for my social development but also my behaviour.  If there was a complaint about the way I had spoken to or behaved towards a member of staff or their wives, it was his duty to discipline me as and how he saw fit.  We would sit discussing my latest outburst in a calm, rational way, and having listened to my side of it too, he would decide what had to be done.  Sometimes, for a minor indiscretion, he would send me to apologise, but for a more serious act of rudeness he would tell me that I would have to be beaten before going to offer my apologies.  It didn’t happen often, but some people seemed to bring out the worst in me and my tongue just ran away with me.  The ritual was always the same.  He would tell me to undress and put myself over the arm of his Chesterfield sofa, and I would hear his cupboard open and close as he fetched his rattan cane.  Then the sound of his gown and jacket being removed. He would tell me how much he regretted doing this, and then he caned me.  As a thirteen year old it was usually six strokes but as I got older, more.  Then, as I slowly stood up with my bare bottom on fire, he would take me back to the fireside to recover.  Being caned by my mentor was a totally different experience from my housemaster’s punishment.  I took Housemaster’s caning as an act of defiance – he could humiliate and hurt my body but inside I remained unscathed.  With my Mentor I accepted my punishment as just and necessary, and the simple act of undressing and putting myself in position for the cane was an act of atonement and complete submission to his authority. I accepted the agony of the cane strokes knowing that he thrashed me with genuine regret and often there were tears in his eyes as well as mine.  On the occasions that he told me that I must be punished in the presence of the master I had been rude to – I accepted that too.  Not just because i had to but because I wanted to purge his disappointment in me and taking the cane was the best way to do that.