Bent over. I was given 4 strokes across the backside for skipping assembly. I had the option of 4 1 hour detentions but as I had other commitments that was a non-starter.
I think the head knew that and really laid it on. The marks lasted for at least a week and it was sore for a couple of days.

very much like me for cane then, did he check for padding?

No I think it would have been obvious if I had had any added protection. It wasn’t my first experience of the cane but fortunately it was the last.

Sirromse has commented about being checked for padding before a caning.  Could it be that the head was checking for wallets, keys or coins in back pockets rather than just for padding?  Of course, the check would also reveal any misguided attempt to have an extra layer of protection!

hcj44 wrote: ↑

May 10, 2020

Sirromse has commented about being checked for padding before a caning.  Could it be that the head was checking for wallets, keys or coins in back pockets rather than just for padding?  Of course, the check would also reveal any misguided attempt to have an extra layer of protection!

I mentioned a housemaster at Rugby School asking a boy to remove a small wallet or note case from his back pocket in a recent post here. This was back in the late 50s/early 60s. Possibly in the past, the days of thicker grey flannel trousers that were more generously cut, almost baggy compared to modern trousers padding might been better concealed.

This is just for the record, for completeness, since a lot of contributors seem to have owned up to their misspent youth.  (It is not a conversation starter – not really interested in cross-examinations.  WYSIWYG.)

State primary school, aged 5-10: smacked legs on about 5 or 6 occasions in two successive classes aged 7 or 8, by two lady teachers. Slipper (gym shoe), one occasion, six smacks on shorts from a male teacher.

Boarding prep school, aged 10-13: multiple slipperings, too many to count, from a number of teachers mostly male. Not a Dotheboys Hall – frequency was high, but severity was low. Three canings (two fours and a six) over shorts.

State grammar school, aged 13-18: two fairly informal whackings with slipper, aged 14 or 15. Once three whacks, the other time four whacks, I think.

Here endeth the record.

RobinResearch wrote: ↑

Mar 23, 2010

Corporal punishment survey

Hi, I don’t know if this forum can help, but I’m trying to put together some realistic data regarding the use of corporal punishment in schools.

Reading this and other internet sources of information it is clearly very hard to distinguish between genuine accounts of CP, peoples fantasies, and role play.

School punishment books are difficult to find, or access. When they are available they only show the information that the establishments wished to disclose. They also only reflect official punishments, generally administered by the Head, consequentially they are not very representative of the general use of CP within schools.

If I study references in the media, the reports are generally only written when the incident was questionably outside the law. In England where I live, and indeed went to school, corporal punishment was legally practiced up until 1986. Therefore there would be no reason for the media to cover anything except the unusual.

Many of us however have witnessed (often first hand) the use of corporal punishment at school. If you have (as indeed have I) I’d be very grateful if you’d reply to this post giving as much accurate information as you feel comfortable with. However to keep this thread out of the realm of fantasy, I’d ask that you only post facts, and leave the creative writing and long discussions to other forums.

The information I’d love you to provide is the following:

About You:
Gender: Male
Approximate age when punished: 11
Approximate year of punishment: 1994
Crime committed or alleged: Didn’t do my lines

About the punishment
Administered by Head, or Staff member:
Gender of staff member: Headmaster
Location punished (Classroom, Office, Hallway etc): office
Type of punishment (Cane,Slipper,Paddle etc): slipper
Number of strokes: 6
Applied to (Hand, Bottom, Legs etc): bottom
Position adopted (Standing, Bending over Chair, Desk etc): bending over chair
State of dress (Over Trousers/Skirt, panties, bare etc): over trousers
Privacy (In private, In front of Class, With another teacher etc): in private

About the school
Name of School: PHS
Town: London
Country: UK

Effectiveness
Were you ever punished again for the same offence?:
Do you consider the punishment effective?:

Any other relevant info:

Many thanks for your participation. I will reply to this post myself with the details of the CP I received.

Note: I see no reason why schools should not be named as they were operating completely within the law.

May I please say a personal welcome to the Forum to Liblib5050, who in the preceding contribution has utilised a rather unusual method of reporting his slippering in 1994.

The delivery may confuse some, it did me initially, but closer examination will reveal that ‘Quote’ rather than ‘Copy and Paste’ is used to list the questions and relevant details are then provided.

You seem to have been rather unlucky Liblib5050, six whacks for a trivial matter of not doing lines does seem a little severe.  I was more fortunate on the one occasion I didn’t do lines.  I judged that the Master concerned, whom I had met in the street on his way back to school at lunch time, was too inebriated to remember that he had given me lines for not raising my cap to his satisfaction, and happily my judgement proved correct.

I have always remembered the incident, as it was my one direct encounter with the gentleman concerned during my time at the school.  He was later much praised as a beneficial influence by a fellow pupil who went on to become Home Secretary and Chancellor of the Exchequer.

Welcome to Liblib5050. I assume that PHS is Prospect House School, which is and always was a rather upper-crust prep school in West London.  Your account rings perfectly true. A small amount of corporal punishment survived into the 1990s, in smallish private schools including PHS.  It was drastically reduced from a decade or two earlier, in both frequency and degree, but the attitude among those schools was “it used to work then, and it still works now”. They stayed quietly under the radar because the media were always eagerly seeking out stories of “the last whacking schools” in the independent sector.

I wouldn’t particularly agree with Another_Lurker that six with a slipper across an 11-year-old’s trouser seat was a severe punishment. It sounds about right. Eleven-year-olds have more resilience than we give them credit for.

About You:
Gender: Male
Approximate age when punished: 6
Approximate year of punishment: 1989
Crime committed or alleged: Making mistakes in spelling test

About the punishment
Administered by Head, or Staff member: Teacher
Gender of staff member: Male
Location punished (Classroom, Office, Hallway etc): Classroom
Type of punishment (Cane,Slipper,Paddle etc): Ruler
Number of strokes: 4
Applied to (Hand, Bottom, Legs etc): hand
Position adopted (Standing, Bending over Chair, Desk etc): holding out hand
State of dress (Over Trousers/Skirt, panties, bare etc):
Privacy (In private, In front of Class, With another teacher etc): in front of class

About the school
Name of School: PHS
Town: London
Country: Uk

Effectiveness
Were you ever punished again for the same offence?:no
Do you consider the punishment effective?: no

Any other relevant info:
I was called to the front of the class and told to hold my hand out. I got two whacks on one hand and then had to hold out the other hand for another two. It hurt terribly.