When I think back I figure it would have been great to tell the Headmaster to foxtrot oscar; but, at the time, even at the age of 16, I had been conditioned not to.

The evening of the day I had been caned, I was kicking a football around with some classmates and told them I had had the cane at lunchtime on my final day at school, (they had finished their exams about 3 weeks ahead of me). Pretty well all of them told me I should have just walked out of the office, including one who I later learned was one of the other two boys caned (after his last exam) for missing the same detention as me !

How we each behave in a given situation and how we like to think we would behave are not necessarily the same.