In the weeks that followed we caught sight of one or two debaggings being performed in classrooms as we walked past but the question of it being done to us was never raised. During the second week, several of the other girls who were supposed to have started with us actually arrived and Jane and I wondered whether it was fear of this custom being carried out that caused them to delay their start. Jane and I both got on well with most of the new girls in the sixth form with the only exception being a girl called Helen (who became known as the ‘goal post’ because she was very tall and thin). Helen was an ardent follower of the new fashion for equality between the sexes. Perhaps the powers that be thought she would help the switch from all boys grammar school to mixed sixth form college, or perhaps they just didn’t realise.

The  Grammar School had, we discovered, a reputation locally for being a firm believer in the use of corporal punishment and, again as we walked around the school, we saw any number of instances of boys in the lower forms bending over while a teacher whacked them on the bottom with a large plimsoll or slipper as it was known. We also heard about several boys from these lower forms being caned within the privacy of the headmaster’s study. Although sixth formers were also subject to the same punishments, in practice it seemed never to happen to us whether boys or girls.

There was one exception in the first term when a boy from the lower sixth called David was sent to the headmaster, a short bald headed man who we really only saw at morning assemblies in the large hall. David was a fairly quiet type and Jane and I hadn’t got to know him that well. The rumour was that he had been caught with cigarettes on his person and even then anything to do with smoking was very much against the rules.