Most teachers were not monsters; most schools used corporal punishment moderately. In most cases the cane was meant to be a swift, unpleasant sting to remind you that skipping gym or using a swear word was not OK…. Not a horrendous flogging. But of course, most boys passed on the most terrible horror stories swearing blind that a friend of theirs got ten thousand whacks with his trousers down and couldn’t sit down for two years. So I am sure that lots of boys were relieved at how relatively lenient real-life whackings were.