my primary schooling was 1954–57 in the infants school, and 1957–1961 in the junior school. Take the teacher we had in my last year, 1960–61: he would use a blackboard pointer to whack boys in front of the class. This was quite frequent, but I remember only one particular instance, where one boy had bitten another. The miscreant was told to touch his toes and got his whack. But then, when he was about to stand up, he was told to wait and got another. I distinctly remember that there was a tear rolling down his cheek. (We always looked.)
The point is that this was out of the ordinary. Boys only got one whack, and there were so many cases one just forgets. It was part of the furniture. But you remember something which was different.