Who got lines at school ?

@MartinII did the prefects give 50 lines or could you give more ?

@skimpyboy I think the standard dose was only 25, though that does seem rather mild. I don’t remember a fixed upper limit, but all impositions had to be approved by the head boy.

@MartinII I remember once not handing lines in on time to the head boy and he ported me to the headmaster

@skimpyboy What did you get?

@MartinII got a letter for a caning and still had to hand lines in

@skimpyboy I don’t remember a boy ever failing to submit lines I had set. However, several years previously, I failed to submit an essay I had been set by our Latin master as a punishment for messing about in class. When he asked me for it I claimed I had left it at home, which of course was a lie. Amazingly, he just told me to bring it in next day. He was perfectly entitled to give me a detention or have me caned.

@MartinII you had a lucky escape and I remember forgetting things and there was always a punishment , I once in first year forgot trunks for a swimming lesson and that cost me

@skimpyboy In my second or third week at junior school I got a detention for forgetting, or more probably losing, my pencil rubber. We each had a personal record book in which were recorded punishments, commendations etc. This detention was the first entry in mine. I had to take it home, get it signed by my parents (that was terrifying!) and then serve my sentence next day - half an hour sitting straight and in silence, supervised by the mistress who gave me the detention. All very traumatic for an 8 year old! And if you got four detentions in one term, you got the cane ...

@MartinII I got the slipper twice at primary school and there was not many punishments but at secondary there was quite a lot of caning and slippering and our form teacher in first year had a five tick system in a term ,five ticks was a caning

@skimpyboy Bizarrely, the cane seemed to be used more at junior school than at grammar school. We were spanked in gym lessons, but that was private enterprise on the part of the PE master. The only official punishments were detentions or the cane.

@MartinII think most people teacher used both the cane and slipper , apart from that only the head and deputy head caned me

@skimpyboy Only the head was officially authorised to use cp, at both my junior and grammar schools. Most teachers were reluctant to send boys to the head, perhaps because to do so would reflect badly on them. The same mistress who gave me that first detention once sent me to stand in the corridor outside the head’s study. I think she intended to ask him to cane me, but if so she thought better of it.

@MartinII a few teachers at my school were known for using the slipper but only three used the cane , was awful when a teacher sent someone out of class and there was normally another type of punishment to follow