As for my mothers attitude – while my mother didn’t object to corporal punishment, she thought that six cracks with the strap (the maximum allowed) was excessive for the first time a boy was given the strap. And she believed it was the first time I’d been strapped because I hadn’t told her about the other times. Her impression was that I’d spent over two years at the school being really well behaved – and that this was the first time I had been in significant trouble. That wasn’t quite true. Once I was forced to tell her the truth (or at least most of the truth) she calmed down and switched the focus of her anger from the school to me.
And I’m not sure how long I carried the marks of that strapping for. They were there that night because my mother saw them, but I don’t know how long they lasted. I would guess a few days because I don’t recall much comment in the changing rooms at school and we had sports training twice a week, and normally people did comment if someone was showing signs of the strap