I accept that my bottom is not as tender as it was when I was 12. However, there is a world of difference between a first former and a fifth or sixth former but, I would have thought, comparatively less difference between a fifth or sixth former and an adult – even someone in their forties. Senior boys were caned, and from what I gather, very effectively, in former years, so why did I find my caning not the test of fortitude I was expecting on the basis of all the accounts I have read?

Is it just me or do other adult schoolboys, with experience of the real thing when they were at school, find the same?

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