I have already related the case of an incident at junior school where the teacher was about to cane a boy and suddenly decided he could not go through with it and hurled the cane across the room, much to the relief of the boy , no doubt.
At grammar school there was a much more bizarre incident. The ceilings at my school were covered with patterned tiles which had holes in them of various sizes.
My headmaster, who was a small, very ferocious Welshman, was about to cane about four boys and had them lined up in his office. He lifted up the cane and the tip of it got caught in a hole in one of these ceiling tiles.