Kids were getting the cane routinely every day and it’s a very important scene because the headmaster is going on about the collapse of standards and how people don’t respect authority in the way they used to, but he is so blind to the fact that he canes the wrong boy. The young boy got a couple of strokes, but we gave him extra pocket money afterward, and, within seconds, he was smiling through his tears.’
In fact, the group of boys were far from happy after the caning had been administered on the first take. ‘I had never had the cane and Ken or Tony had assured us that we wouldn’t really get caned,’ said David Bradley. ‘So we didn’t put our hands out how we knew they should be put, lowering your thumb as much as possible and gently flexing your fingers so that the cane hits flesh, as opposed to bone, when it really hurts. When we were actually caned, we were really upset, not in terms of tears, but angry we had been lied to. So we decided that we wouldn’t do it again and went on strike.