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I Used to Get the Cane At School

The cane was awful!!

I hated the cane and being sent for it was a wholly frightful experience. It was made far because by having to take your "execution slip" as we called it, to the secretary first to make an appropriate time if you were unlucky enough for the Headmistress not be immediately available. The smirk on her face was more than just humiliating as she would call through and say "shirley xxxxxxxx is here with a teacher's note".

It did not mean one would necessarily be caned, that depended partly one's record and offence but mainly on her mood I am sure! I would go into her study praying she were in a reasonable mood because if not I knew I would be leaving her study with my bottom on fire and with marks that would last for some time. That resulted in another pet hate, going to PE or games with cane marks on my bottom and especially in the showers afterwards.

If I did get caned then I would have to take the note back to the secretary so that she could make an entry into the punishment book. I have never knew anybody that was caned on their hands but she would ask "were you caned on your bottom or hands", my face would grow as red as my bottom as I answered between sobs.

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badminton · 61-69, MVIP

I have always been against CP in schools. Some adults do get sexual excitement from spanking children and teenagers. CP should only be an activity between consenting adults.

miscreant6x6 · 56-60, M

@badminton And it often is.

TAReturns · M

@badminton Too true

Sharon · F

@badminton [quote]Some adults do get sexual excitement from spanking children and teenagers. [/quote]
The clearest proof of that are those schools and teachers who only used CP on boys. Obviously they had some method of dealing with disobedient girls. They had so much confidence in those methods that they even felt able to tell girls [b][i]"don't worry, it doesn't matter how badly behaved you be, you wll never receive CP." [/i][/b] The fact that they didn't use those same methods with boys, chosing to beat them instead, is proof that they had some ulterior, almost certainly sexual, motive.

miscreant6x6 · 56-60, M

That Secretary sounds pure evil. Must have got off on it all, eh ?

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miscreant6x6 · 56-60, M

@Disciplinarian You did say wink, didn't you ?

Disciplinarian · 61-69, M

@miscreant6x6 Oh, if only one letter had changed....

miscreant6x6 · 56-60, M

@Disciplinarian hehe. I need caning for such wicked thoughts.

Strictgram · 70-79, C

Shirley, I've been waiting to hear from you, please write.

Strictgram · 70-79, C

Shirley, Still waiting to hear from you. Please write.

NataliaT · F

A very lucid description of the sort of discipline many of us experienced at school in those days. But you summed it up perfectly in just two words! "[b]Frightful experience"[/b]. It was indeed.

We did not have such a formal ritual as an "Execution Slip". You were either taken or summoned to your "execution". And in either case it did invariably mean you would be caned - remission was unheard of.

I also agree with you about PE and the showers after. Even though in those days punishment marks were a common sight in showers, when it was your own bottom that had the stripes of a recent caning, the thought of PE and showers the next day, and having to put on a facade of nonchalance as your classmates made ribald comments, used to make me positively ill the night before.

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Sharon · F

@Rebecca54 The cane was quite rare in my junior school, only a very few of us got it. In secondary school, very few of my contemporaries escaped it completely.

Rebecca54 · 70-79, F

@Sharon I expect about 50% of my contemporaries were caned. It would have been less had not 10 girls been involved in an issue on a field trip in the 3rd form. They all had to visit the headmistress in turn and bend over the chair for 2 whacks - the first time for most of them. I was not involved and only found out when some of them were showing off their marks the next day

MaryWat · 70-79, F

@Rebecca54 Yes, that was exactly my experience too. A much thinner, darker cane, shorter and without a crook handle at Junior school - and usually (disgracefully) across the hand. Secondary school much longer and thicker, with a crook handle, but still remarkable flexible. And always applied to the bottom.

Phoebe1990 · 31-35, F

Love the old time stories thanks.

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TommyBoy · 31-35, M

@NataliaT Do you think that could be the happy medium?...moderate and well supervised corporal punishment? I imagine that definition is relative/subjective.

NataliaT · F

Of course you are right. And I did note that it was difficult to envisage. The challenge is that , as well as definitional problems, "moderate CP" involves an element of pragmatism and even compromise, whereas those opposed to it in any circumstances tend to be ideologues and zealots, where there can be no middle ground, no compromise.

TommyBoy · 31-35, M

@NataliaT I feel like that overall outlook is the norm for almost all controversial topics. No one wants to meet in the middle, even discuss a middle ground. Each extremes definition of the other makes both seem impossible.

OnlyRhonda · 36-40, F

The secretary seems to have been an obnoxious woman. I think she enjoyed her job, though.

CarolineP · 70-79, F

@OnlyRhonda I suspect there were special secretarial courses for desiccated spinsters destined to become school secretaries. A precondition for entry was proven dislike and envy of schoolgirls in their youthful prime, all excited about the joys of the life in front of them. The total antithesis of their drab, weary lives. So nothing pleased them more than to come and call you out of class, and escort you to the Principal's study for what you knew was going to end in a humiliating and painful punishment. Or to interrogate - as in the case - the sobbing girl after her thrashing. In Germany, in those days, such women did have the alternative of becoming guards at a concentration camp. In UK, school secretary had to suffice.

OnlyRhonda · 36-40, F

@CarolineP I missed the entire corporal punishment at school scenario, being too young, but our school secretary also took delight in baiting pupils waiting to see the head. As you say, there must have been a special course for them,

SW-User

This sounds very familiar to me.

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CarolineP · 70-79, F

@MartinII In those years, you tended to assume that what occurred in your small universe was universal, and that in all girls schools, getting the cane for serious misdemeanours was the norm. Clearly it clearly wasn't. Even within one Educational Authority there were huge differences. The late and unlamented ILEA (Inner London Education Authority) there were girls school that used the cane promiscuously, and others where CP had been abolished.

As Superjulie notes, it very much depended where you lived. I don't think it even reflected class or social environment. It was the luck of the draw. My area was tough working class, and we all got the cane. My current best friend came from a very posh part of the UK. Her school was also a vigorous user of the cane.

MartinII · 70-79, M

@CarolineP Thank you very much for that. I agree it varied from school to school, as well as between types of school and different areas. Also it seems that in some mixed schools boys and girls were treated equally, whereas in others boys were much more likely to be caned than girls were.

I’d love to talk more if you are interested. May I message you?

CarolineP · 70-79, F

@MartinII I don't do on line chatting, but will happily correspond on a messaging basis.

harveyrider · 56-60, M

The cane is a very serious punishment indeed. I am pro corporal punishment in schools but the cane should be used sparingly

MaryWat · 70-79, F

@harveyrider In an ideal world, this would be the ideal arrangement. The problem is there was too much evidence your common sense approach was not abided by.

TommyBoy · 31-35, M

@MaryWat Sadly, part of the human condition on average is taking things too far.

Sharon · F

We didn't have any of that rigmarole. Just into the office and bend over.

TommyBoy · 31-35, M

@Sharon Straight and to the point. Still sounds intense.

MartinII · 70-79, M

When someone was caned at my school, the headmaster’s secretary had to type out a small card which was placed on the noticeboard outside the head’s study, for everyone to see. It would say “M Smith [then the boy’s form and house] has been beaten for smoking” or whatever.

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SW-User

@Tripdelta4 Luckily not for me.

Sharon · F

@Tripdelta4 I didn't and nor did any of my friends as far as I know.

NataliaT · F

@Tripdelta4 Certainly not in my experience. In the UK, there was often a remarkable separation between school and parents. School dealt with discipline issues at school, and parents with discipline issues at home and "ne'er the twain shall meet". Other than term reports there was little or no contact between school and parents. Most schools didn't have parent-teacher evenings, and my school almost specifically discouraged parents from contacting the headmistress. Apart from after-school detentions parents need never found out that their little darlings had been punished at school.

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TheThinker · 56-60, M

Poor you! Having it delayed like that must have been absolutely terrible.

TexChik · F

Brits enjoy hurting weaker people far too much

Disciplinarian · 61-69, M

Very nicely written memories of the golden age of British discipline!

anderst · 46-50, M

i am happy that i never get the cane but sorry that you get it :(

TommyBoy · 31-35, M

That all sounds harrowing to say the least! What a will breaker.

TommyBoy · 31-35, M

The cane does sound just awful!

Gerrywell · 56-60, M

Did we chat before?

This message was deleted by its author.

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shirleym56 · 61-69, F

@MaryWat "That being the case, the probable benefits of caning are simply outweighed by the risks of abuse." I think that is where I am with it

MartinII · 70-79, M

@MaryWat I very much agree with what you say. It is of course the case that the widespread approval or acceptance of corporal punishment in our schooldays was based on some combination of emotion, instinct, what people were used to, rather than any considered analysis. One indicator of this is that although most schools seem to have used the cane to some degree, or at least kept one in the head’s cupboard, the extent and severity of use apparently varied hugely from region to region, school to school, even sometimes within schools.

It’s remarkable how dramatically orthodox opinion has changed on this and many other subjects in what is, historically speaking, quite a short space of time. I suspect people’s real, private opinions haven’t changed quite so much.

MaryWat · 70-79, F

@MartinII Good post, and I think your last paragraph is especially insightful. The change from a school environment where corporal punishment was almost a given, to an environment where it was not just abandoned but wholly excoriated, was truly dramatic. Metaphorically at least, I have to pinch myself to ensure I am recounting real punishments which really did happen to me in schools [i]as part of the natural order of things[/i] just half a century ago.

And of course you are right: whenever "public opinion" is polled, a majority still see some worth in school CP, at least as the ultimate deterrent. Admittedly a 'gut' reaction, but at least indicative that the elites are way out of line with mass opinion. As usual.

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