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Sir John 260283
And a special thanks for providing the additional nitty gritty when requested . Like some others here I choose to have a small internet footprint and try and steer clear of groups and social media. Other than an effectively dormant Fakebook account (set up by a well meaning Third Party), I only belong to 2 other groups both of which are closely related to guitars. So this icing on the cake is particularly well appreciated by me.
In your last post I, and I suspect most others, was particularly intrigued by the reported activities of Ms Martin . I have reservations about the “run up” technique which I have previously expressed at length elsewhere in this esteemed forum but this good (gown wearing!) Lady appears to be able to put it to good use. Do we have further info regarding the actual fate of Deb, whom I assume was a girl. ,
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Dennis 2224
I wonder if you will be covering Lincoln and Lincolnshire in your researching. ?.
Although very rare you have discovered a few records of bare bottom punishments.
They will give some creditability to my own bare bottom caning at between ages of 10 and 11 as previously entered.
Dennis 2
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Another_Lurker10K289
I am indebted to you! In my determination to try to fulfill my former role in this estimable Forum, that of linking any past contributions mentioned, whether serious, light-hearted, embarrassing or otherwise, I dived straight in to look for your excellent post that you mention above. To my amazement the Forum Search engine let me in for the first time in weeks – or possibly months – and the account of your severe and quite clearly unjustified primary school bare-bottomed caning at the age of 10 is to be found here.
Please accept my apologies for my beach of courtesy in not mentioning or acknowledging your prior mentions of the cricketing career of Ms Janet Dines and hard caning female teachers dealing with naughty schoolboys. I do not have a particularly good memory. Indeed I am more of a future person than a past person, so my memory of past events is not overly exercised in everyday life. For any apparent memory expertise I may ever have displayed here I have always relied heavily on the various tools provided by the Forum’s hosting sites, first Network54 and now Tapatalk. Such tools are of interest to me because of my interest in website facilities, and thus I tend to exploit them. Recently Tapatalk, or rather its gatekeeper Cloudflare, have banned me from many of the tools for some inexplicable reason and I have had to rely on memory alone. I tested that memory in relation to the topics above and it failed me. Again my apologies.
Thank you for the suggestion in your most excellent #10 contribution regarding the greater incidence of girls at school in my own schooldays, and indeed earlier, in your recent surveys. I think that you are very probably absolutely correct in your hypothesis that older people are more attracted to nostalgia based general interest locality groups rather than specifically school based groups. Incidentally I hope that readers who have missed #10 and found themselves here due to a spurt of activity in the thread will ensure that they look back to the previous page. Your #10 is not to be missed!
Your additional information on boys caned by Ms Dines was most interesting. It has often been claimed here, and vigorously propounded by at least two female former contributors, that women can cane just as hard as men. The pain imparted is said to depend on skill and technique, and muscular strength is not critical.
Ms Dilys Martin at the Highfield Secondary Modern School, Liverpool, is an amazing find! Interestingly in this Liverpool Echo article from 22 October 2016, when she was an 81 year old resident in Burscough, near Ormskirk, Ms Martin says that when she started at the school in 1956 as a 21 year old newly qualified teacher (and by my extrapolation for at least three or so years after that) she was then ‘Miss Jones’. I wonder if that throws up any more instanced of boys and girls she caned? Possibly not. As a newly qualified teacher she might not have been allowed to cane for a period. You say to me in #10:
As a connoisseur of collecting accounts of schoolboys receiving SCP from female teachers only you will know if you were lucky (or not) that you didn’t live in Liverpool and fail your 11+ as you could have ended up at Highfield Secondary Modern.
An interesting speculation! Due to 11+ date of birth rules had I found myself at the Highfield Secondary Modern after failing the exam I would have joined the school in September 1954, age 12 (just). Ms Martin (or rather Miss Jones) started in 1956, presumably in September. At that time school leaving age was 15, and I don’t think Secondary schools had 6th forms in those days, so I would have left a year after Miss Jones arrived. As noted, I doubt she was allowed to cane in her first year so I’d probably have escaped that fate.
However, having to bend over age 14 to 15 to be caned by a 21 to 22 year old Christine Keeler lookalike. And what’s more an academic gown and heels wearing Christine Keeler lookalike! It’s an intriguing prospect and one which I think might well have had even more effect on my psyche than Miss B’s leg smacking and my almost but not quite sharing in the severe gym kit clad slippering of my female classmate at the conclusion of our shared two years in the top class of junior school (that 11+ date of birth thing again).
As an aside, in the good old days when we had such things, Christine Keeler was for some time designated as an honorary life member of this estimable Forum, along with two cats and several other persons of varying degrees of repute and actual existence. I was late joining the great and the good at the head of the index page, and even then it was as Brian of Nottinghamshire Community, my Forum Management imposed alter ego, because Another_Lurker was considered far too disreputable even for the honorary life member list!
The run up technique of caning, as allegedly practiced by Ms Martin, has been discussed here in the past, perhaps most notably in the case of the gymnasium caning by prefects in the film ‘If’. Two of our still active contributors, both former BBC employees with extensive experience of film and television, proved very conclusively with the aid of frame grabs and careful analysis, that whatever the run-up technique employed by the prefects did do, it certainly didn’t aid the efficacy of the caning. They also comprehensively demolished the claim that the caning was real and shot as a single sequence.
I’m largely with Sir John 2 on running up. I don’t recall seeing the technique practiced live, but from film and practical consideration I certainly have reservations. A couple of steps forward as the cane is swung perhaps. But running the length of a corridor or a gym? Possibly practiced by an agile and very skilled caner such a run up technique might not detract too much from the efficiency of the caning in terms of pain imparted by each stroke. However even if perfectly executed it would be unlikely to add significantly to the speed of the cane. Few individuals are likely to run at much more than 10 mph or so in normal clothing, but if I recall correctly discussions here by persons far better qualified in the area than me, the impact area of a cane might well attain over 100 mph from a skilled static swing. A run up might though have a very considerable detrimental psychological effect on the recipient which would heighten adverse perception of the punishment. Perhaps the later is the context in which Ms Martin deployed it, but how the heck did she do it in heels? Possibly a topic due for some further discussion, along with any other comment on Ms Martin. I do hope so!
Your mention of Calversyke Middle School in Keighley, where a male teacher allowed a female pupil to strike a male pupil with a trainer, intrigues me. Doesn’t sound quite the sort of thing I’ve searched for for years but never expect to find, but interesting nonetheless. The nearest to that that I’ve encountered was another British male teacher who used to select a girl from his secondary school classes to whack mildly erring male classmates with what was described as a miniature cricket bat, but which I guess might have been a paddle. The reference was in a community Forum where everybody seemed to know everybody else, and nobody disputed the contributor’s account.
As was my practice I didn’t note the URL but relied on remembering roughly the search term I’d been using when I wanted to post on it here. Alas when the time came a couple of days later I couldn’t find it again, and I never have since. Like the case of the disappearing small local radio station Forum with several parents praising the beneficial effects of the caning of girls at a certain East London school and stating this as the reason they’d sent their daughters there, I suspect the miniature cricket bat host had simply gone off air. A great technique though. Bread and circuses, keep their attention and get ’em eating out of your hand teaching tactics exemplified. Keep an ear open for the interpersonal teenage dynamics of your pupils and you can bet that any boy declining to bend over to be whacked by the chosen girl will earn the derision of his classmates.
You question reasons why we find ourselves here. Many and varied I think. I’ve referred to a couple of mine above. Add a real but innocuous slippering, a nearly but not quite encounter with the size 12 leather soled sandal wielded by my initial form master at secondary school and the cane on the court table during my first and only appearance before the prefects’ court and you’re about there. But of course it might go right back to very youthful encounters with officious girls playing at being school mistresses. Or to furtive researches into the likely fate of a young pre-teen acquaintance who was ‘sent away’ by a court after a catapult episode for which I’d manufactured the ammunition and discovering that he might well get caned on the bare, a fate almost too dreadful to contemplate for the CP averse juvenile Another_Lurker
Maybe it stems from disappointment that a girl who occasionally child minded me never did describe to me her severe school caning, as threatened by her Mum who provided domestic help to my Mother and who had been less than pleased with some aspect of my behaviour and sought to install a fear of what might happen if I did the same thing at school. The girl concerned was rather strict and bossy in her child minding capacity, though apparently sometimes naughty at school, and perhaps I hoped she’d give me a practical demonstration. Or it could be the discovery later in life that I had a distant relative who as a policeman had allegedly assisted at the birching of the youthful Percy Toplis, the so called monocled mutineer. Who knows? Best not to worry about these things and just get on with participating!
As regards your possible reaction to participation in earlier days of this estimable Forum, I think you’d have found it an excellent environment and been a much appreciated contributor. Lots of active discussion, a notorious naysayer and doubter, a few prolific contributors who proved fictional but generally very interesting, a smattering of PhDs and other highly educated and academic persons, sometimes over 30 posts a day and perhaps a more international audience than now. In the days before the Forum became closed and membership only, at Tapatalk insistence, Google loved us. You could post here and be on the search engines within a couple of hours. I seriously considered using hidden messages to promote the SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) of clients but didn’t – honestly!
The score cards will follow. I’m struggling with a broadband problem which is inhibiting my searches. As usual I didn’t note URLs!
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Dennis 2224
It is very good news that you are now able to use the Forum Search engine.
I have pondered over my severe Junior school bare caning many times especially whilst driving past the war memorial when on a hometown visit. The war memorial is still well maintained by the town council even though the old primary school has long been bulldozed down and has new buildings on the old site.
Many a child back in 1948 suffering from a mild form of ADHD would have been then labelled as being head strong and in need of a firm hand as in my case. I had always been a difficult pupil and it was the last straw for me when the headmaster saw me in his view larking about on the memorial
It was well warned that any child seen playing on and around the memorial would be severely punished. Examples were often made of all children who did.
I well remember the awful sharp sting of the cane was very painful indeed being in contact with the bare skin but in comparison to my second and only other severe caning of six of the best well laid on for truanting in the Secondary Modern School aged 12. The six well laid on cane strokes over tight trousers were far more painful, it even took an effort to stand up from bending over the chair back due to the movement causing additional buttocks pain. I was never caned again.
The only other CP I received was hilarious. I was getting a spanking in front of the class with a size 12 plimsol but the teacher had to stop with a coughing fit due to the huge clouds or playground dust being raised from my trousers.
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stujos23522
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Another_Lurker10K289
It was indeed good news for me that I could get into the Forum Search Engine yesterday. Alas today the situation has returned to normal. 
While there however I did try to find your account of your six of the best at Secondary School. I was unsuccessful, and the reason appears to be some discrepancy in the Internal Tapatalk record keeping. In a post somewhere here, which I stumbled across last night but cannot relocate due to the access problem returning, I referred to a contribution of yours made on some date in 2020 and ‘liked’ by then active contributor Alice Ottley.
This is strange, because currently Tapatalk shows you as not joining until 2021! Further although yesterday the ‘Author’ column showed you as having acquired 3 likes, only 2 liked contributions appeared in the Tapatalk record of your liked posts. And the mystery deepens! The number of posts in your list of posts is one less than the number Tapatalk shows you as having made. Although this sort of stuff is what I thrive on, most people wouldn’t worry about it, and if I were you I wouldn’t either! 
As I mentioned in an earlier discussion we had here, I can sympathise with your ADHD. I almost certainly had some sort of ‘ism’ or ‘disorder’ when I commenced at Infant school. Indeed traces of it persisted into my 50s and some would say well beyond that. I mildly disliked and largely ignored other children while being quite at ease with adults. I could already read and write and liked to write lengthy and rather violent stories about pirates and the like. Alas the writing was quite likely to be right to left rather than left to right, and the spelling left a great deal to be desired. I was also left handed.
In those unreconstructed days of the later 1940s the ‘isms’ and ‘disorders’ either hadn’t been invented or weren’t recognised in the UK and such matters were dealt with in two ways, at least in my school. Children classed as naughty and different were smacked or otherwise punished until they reformed or recovered or both. Children like me classed as well behaved but different were gently guided along the path of righteousness until we too reformed or recovered sufficiently to pass muster. There was a slight punitive element, even for the likes of me. Writing with the left hand was not acceptable and I was kept in at play times to practice using my right hand. Since I didn’t enjoy mixing with other children at play time anyway this was not a problem.
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I, Researcher279139
Unfortunately Deb (female) provides no further details of the events of that day. There are a couple of other accounts from other girls claiming to have been caned by Dylis Martin. However, the specific detail are the details are very sparse. I too am sceptical of the run-up technique actually being effective. Especially, if it involved descending the stairs as surely the primary focus would be on maintaining balance. At least on a flat surface it could be argued that it would increase momentum. However, I think that there is enough evidence out there that this was a technique employed by some. I think Another_Lurker has probably hit the nail on the head with it being all about intimidation.
Hello Dennis 2,
I have already posted some accounts from Lincolnshire (excluding North & North East Lincolnshire – which I will cover with the Yorkshire & Humber region) here in the East Midlands thread here. You will have to scroll through the Leicester accounts first as I foolishly included them in the same post. Unfortunately, I didn’t get a huge amount of information to be fair. However, I will revisit Lincolnshire when I do a second run.
Hello Another_ Lurker,
Regarding Janet Dines, I’m sure you’ve seen it before but there is a photo (I need to find another image hoster) of her being presented with a leaving gift at Northwich County Grammar School For Girls from around 1978. I know that looks can be deceiving, but in my eyes she appears to look like a rather frail individual. To quote a previous monarch ‘I may have the body of a weak and feeble woman. But I have the heart and stomach of a concrete elephant’. Perhaps, this could be applied to Janet Dines. This of course would support theories that caning was not about brute strength but technique. I’m far from an expert, however I could imagine that a fair amount of power could be induced by a simple by a flick of the wrist. Or perhaps flexing the using the recoil/rebound as it springs back. Of course, it is worth noting that as a former accomplished cricketer, it is likely that Janet Dines had a wiry strength within her arm. Finally, we know way of ascertaining her height. Although, she has in the past been described as tall and thin. Obviously, if she was/is? a tall lady this would increase the velocity.
On the subject of Dilys Martin, there is a lot more information within the group. The majority of accounts mostly from gentlemen recounting their experiences then what I have posted. It would probably take me a couple a full couple of days to extract everything. At the moment I’m focusing on the 70 or so schools from the Greater Manchester area, then I have Lancashire to look at before concluding with the North West with Merseyside. Highfield and Dilys Martin was more of a coincidental find. I have encountered other cases of female teachers punishing teenage boys Once my current project has been completed make them available.
In reference to the taking a run-up, despite doubting its actual effectiveness, I don’t doubt that it happened. Perhaps some of the cases of this method that occurred post 1968 were influenced by the movie ‘if’. I wonder if this movie served as some sort of a catalyst for a bit of cross fertilization. Was the movie initially influenced by earlier practices from the elite public schooling and as a result the technique was observed and then copied by some teachers in working class comprehensives? I don’t believe this would be the case for Dilys Martin. I’ve not dated the accounts, however, I get the impression some of her canings prior to 1968.
Another teacher based in the North West who used the run-up technique to punish female and male pupils mostly in the 1970s was a P.E teacher named Ms Short at George Tomlinson (Secondary) in Bolton. Unlike, Dilys Martin Ms Short’s preferred implement was a slipper (though I have found one account her using a Bunsen burner tube). As well the Run-up technique, there are also multiple references of her using a hop, skip and a jump technique. Furthermore, Ms Short was also a bit of a looker in her day with a lady named Wendy remembering:
‘All you boys drooled over Miss Short, us girl knew a different side during gym lessons – she also had a slipper which she would set off running from 20 feet away swinging her arm on the run up and wallop it across a girls backside’
Now, perhaps I’m thinking too deep and have cricket on my mind, but based upon this description could Miss Short have based her technique on a bowler? Cricket was never my strongest sport; however, I can imagine that with the correct technique and timing a combination of a run up and a near vertical swinging arm could have a higher velocity then a stationary batsmanesque swing?
Other absurd punishment techniques I have encountered, include the jumping off chairs, this method seemed especially popular in cases when the pupil was taller than the teacher.
Finally, as stated above, I’m probably thinking too deeply and I am still undecided whether or not, run-ups, hop skip & jumps or a gaining a vertical advantage followed by assisted gravity increased the severity of the punishment. Why wasn’t this topic covered on Mythbusters? I would though, agree with you that at the very least, these methods would certainly have had some sort of psychological effect for the recipient and increased the intimidation factor.
Sir John 2, Another_Lurker like this post
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Another_Lurker10K289
Once again many thanks for your superb follow-up service for queries raised. As I’ve noted previously I used to try to do this here, but my efforts fell far short of your excellent standards.
Those run-ups and associated high activity caning techniques. Quite fascinating! You may well be correct that films which have depicted caning techniques alleged to be in use at ye olde public schools attended by the great and the good could have influenced methods used at Bash Street mixed secondary and like establishments.
The film ‘If’ in 1968:
And ‘Another Country’ in 1984:
certainly errm ‘glamourised’, for want of a better word, caning procedures. However as you point out the former was too late to have influenced the technique of teachers such as Ms Dilys Martin and the latter was too late to have had influence in the State School sector at all. I do though recall what I think was an older film, showing a prefect, or was it a master, taking a quite enormous run up. Something to do with Roald Dahl or one of his books I think. Anyone remember the title?
Opps, late addition! I think it’s ‘Galloping Foxley’, televised 1980. Also too late to influence the state sector much. Appears to be on YouTube but must go and sadly haven’t got time to link it
Noted caner of schoolgirls (and I understand schoolboys too in the early days of the school when I almost found myself there) Ms Joan Thomas at the Rodney school was said to have sometimes used the jumping from a height technique. As with many stories about canings by Ms Thomas I suspect a degree of exaggeration, or possibly an outright lie.
The prefects at my olde public school founded in 1513 didn’t take a run up. Their tower room atop the school was far too small for that. Any attempt to extend the area of operation by opening the door and utilising the corridor would almost certainly have involved falling down the stairs. Nor did they dress up in fancy waistcoats or other regalia. And that leads to another question. Why would teachers cane in academic gown and sometimes, allegedly, mortar board cap as well? And even, as claimed for Ms Martin, high heels! Such accoutrements must surely hinder rather than help caning performance.
As we’ve said, it has to be to do with punitive psychology and the ease with which stress can distort perception. Exactly like the cane on the table of the prefects’ court on my first appearance there. Nobody was going to get caned that day, because an appeal to the headmaster against a prefects’ caning was allowed, so by tradition all canings were deferred until later in the week. As a first offender I was unlikely to be caned anyway. But the cane did its job. It certainly frightened me and impressed me with the seriousness and solemnity of the occasion!
And enter the fateful room and find the teacher arrayed in academic gown and possibly cap, especially if, as in many state schools, these weren’t normally worn in day to day teaching activities. Instant reaction, ‘Oh gosh, this is serious, he (or she) has dressed up for the occasion. I’m really going to get it in the neck (or rather on the bottom)’. Similarly, being bent over and awaiting the impact of cane or slipper only to see the teacher disappear into the distance and then come charging in waving the punitive implement is suddenly going to seem very much like having your bottom bared. It probably isn’t going to hurt a great deal more, but your brain says it is, and for the effectiveness of the punishment that’s what counts!
And finally, if on conclusion of your listings exercise you decide to produce a bumper edition of ‘Great hard whacking female teachers I have found and their encounters with lucky naughty schoolboys’ you will certainly have my avid attention, and others have expressed interest in the past. Add naughty schoolgirls as well and you’ll certainly pull ’em in. Sorry about such insistent and time consuming frivolous personal requests hindering what is a major academic undertaking on your part. In my case blame that juvenile local majority of bossy little girls inclined to careers as schoolmistresses, or perhaps it was Miss B and her leg smacking techniques or maybe just happenstance. Who knows, I certainly don’t!
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Dennis 2224
Thankyou for showing me the East Midlands research details.
I have actually been a forum member since about 2004 and have thoroughly enjoyed reading many brilliant articles from the many greats i.e. American Way.
When Tapatalk made some changes in 2020 I was unable get back into the Forum so I re-joined by changing my sign in and title details.
I never made any posts until sending the ones that you have seen and the one less post problem could mainly be due to my poor computer skills.
A few of our Tapatalk members feel that some teachers enjoyed dishing out SCP but mainly based on my many observations of classroom SCP I strongly disagree.
I am sure that although the teachers may have agreed that SCP was the best deterrent and followed the school rules in applying it I feel that they did not like doing it.
I had some very good teachers and they often appeared to be annoyed and disappointed with pupils when they had to apply SCP.
