I was the recipient,along with my best friend, of what I can only surmise to have been a very severe caning, using the descriptions of other posters on this forum as a comparison.
My headmaster was a very massive,muscular,ex- rugby fullback, and he had extraordinary strength.
As in every caning that he administered, he delivered it using every ounce of that formiddible power.
This is why a headmasters’ caning was dreaded and feared by even the toughest young tear-away in the school.
Although a relatively infrequent event, everybody was aware of what a sentence to the headmasters cane betokened.