I Got The Cane Or Slipper In The Sixth Form

I was caned twice during my sixth form years in the early 1960s, once for skipping school and smoking and once for an offence which embarrassed the Headmistress – an agonising six of the best on both occasions. At my school the girl’s age seemed irrelevant when she was to be disciplined. It was entirely the nature and seriousness of your offence that determined your punishment. It mattered not whether you were a trembling 11 year old or a hardened sixth former - a caning offence was a caning offence. The only thing that changed was that the canings became more severe as you got older. The other change of course was that as you matured and became more worldly-wise, you were much more careful to stick to the rules (a plus in favour of corporal punishment) but equally rather more careful to avoid being caught when you did misbehave. So from memory, there was a significant decline in the frequency of canings as we progressed, and by sixth form, it was becoming much more of an ‘event’ when one of us was caned.

Few, if any, of the girls would have avoided the cane in their seven years at the school, but I think only a minority of us sixth-formers got the cane.

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MaryWat · 70-79, F

@DavidKing Thank you for that fascinating contribution. When I originally wrote about my two canings in sixth form, I never envisage it would generate so many replies (169 at the moment) or still have people contributing two years later.

In particular I admire your naming of school and the headmaster who beat you! Few of us have that courage, despite the passage of the years.

I am presuming, like most of us, you had been caned prior to sixth form, but there really does seem to be be something especially memorable having to bend over as a senior pupil. Your three reasons for getting the cane are so quintessentially typical of the reasons pupils at quality high schools tended to end up in front of the Principal's desk. One of my other canings, in the Upper fifth, was almost identical to yours for treating a 'free period' as an opportunity, with two friends, to find an empty classroom and play a form of shuttlecock!

Thanks again for your contribution. .

DavidKing · 70-79, M

@MaryWat Thank you for your kind comments, Mary. I had been caned once before by Mr Cooper. That was in the Lower Fifth. Pupils were not supposed to enter the main building through the door in the centre. That was reserved for members of the staff and prefects. I ignored this rule one day, thinking no one would see me. I was stopped by a prefect lurking out of sight. I told him to "get knotted". Unfortunately he knew my name and reported me to the headmaster. I got 6. I had been caned once by Mr Cooper's predecessor, the venerable T.T. Shaw. That was in the Lower Fourth. I got it for beating the crap out of a bully. Well worth it. In fact Shaw was close to retirement and well past his best caning days. It didn't hurt as much as the slipper off certain teachers. The cane off Mr Cooper though was something else. He used a much longer cane and laid it on really hard. I cried every time I got the cane off him. The stripes were unpleasantly sore for a couple of days and took about two weeks to fade completely.

DavidKing · 70-79, M

@MaryWat You are absolutely right when you say there is something especially memorable about having to bend over as a senior pupil. I am not sure what it was. Maybe it was because we felt quite grown-up by that age. Having to bend over and have our bottoms whacked seemed a rather childish punishment. Also it was used much less in the Sixth Form. This somehow made getting in trouble and being punished more embarrassing. In the Fifth Form we had been used to seeing boys bend over for the slipper in the classroom. It was a routine event. It was no big deal even though it hurt plenty. A lot of boys got through the Sixth Form without getting the slipper or the cane, so when it happened to one of us it was big news. It was no longer done in public but everyone heard about it. Getting it in private didn't seem any less embarrassing, surprisingly, especially if I was getting it off a teacher I had a good relationship with.