Other teachers used other methods. One female teacher used to rap boys over the knuckles with a ruler. Very occasionally class teachers used the cane, although apparently one teacher caned a boy with excessive force for tampering with his bicycle: we were told about this in morning assembly by the headmistress, who said that the punishment would be deleted from the official punishment book, as though that would be any consolation to the boy concerned! But by far the most common punishment was the slipper: a white canvas training shoe with a corrugated rubber sole. These were used by several of the teachers on naughty boys’ backsides, and I doubt that many of these punishments were entered in the official book.