I would also agree with comments about the endemic and prolific manner in which the cane and slipper were used in my time. Tom Scott’s book The Last Resort, gives away the lie in the title. We all knew that it was, without doubt, the first resort to be used by many teachers, whether this was out of idleness or a natural zeal for a beating. It seemed to me that a boy was just as likely to be severely caned for throwing a paper aeroplane as for stealing or fighting. When the television programme Thatll Teach Em was aired a few years ago, they could only intimate the prolific use of the cane but were forbidden by laws from using it in the programme no matter what the nature of the so-called reality programming style. The television channel forum was very quickly clogged by many who indicated that such a programme could never indicate the reality of school life in the fifties because of the lack of obvious lack of violence.
The Cane and the Double Standard44
