At my junior school in the mid 1970s it was very common to receive a bare leg smacking. It involved a teacher delivering anything up to six painful slaps to either the back, outside or front of one of our bare thighs. The teachers were experts at this punishment and left most children in floods of tears afterwards. The lads wore very very short shorts and knee length socks and they sported very visable red slap marks after their smacking for a good hour afterwards. The girls wore skirts and knee length socks and their skirts were lifted half way up their thighs so they were slapped on their bare legs too. The pain was excruciating and slapped legs were left stinging and smarting afterwards particularly on cold winter mornings. And for the record being slapped on the front or outside of your bare thigh was more painful than having the backs of your legs rattled
