In her opinion, the majority of aborted canings were due to a bad initial decision as to the type of punishment to select for that individual. This left her with difficulties in particular when in those days there were certain ‘mandatory’ penalties in the boy’s school, for smoking, bullying, and cheating. Etc.. This she indicated had been worse in the US where, as a VP, she had been required to follow a set tariff for paddlings which she saw as unsatisfactory.
In our case in School, canings arose in two ways, those she chose to initiate where the punishment was determined and administered by herself, and those where students were sent to her for ‘suggested’ punishment by junior staff who were not authorized to cane.