I Witnessed Corporal Punishment At School
Or in this case, the immediate aftermath.
In my third year at secondary school I had a small part in the school play, which that year was "The Scottish Play". Rehearsals took place after school, and one afternoon the rest of us were kept waiting by the absence of the sixth-former who was playing Macbeth. Eventually he arrived, looking mutinous and walking with a little difficulty. It was obvious that he had just been caned ("beaten for smoking" I subsequently discovered). Those of us who had never been caned ourselves had, I think, mixed feelings: sympathy and embarrassment for the beaten young man (I guess he was 17); fear that one day it might be our turn; but also, perhaps, a certain misguided curiosity to know what it was really like.
In my third year at secondary school I had a small part in the school play, which that year was "The Scottish Play". Rehearsals took place after school, and one afternoon the rest of us were kept waiting by the absence of the sixth-former who was playing Macbeth. Eventually he arrived, looking mutinous and walking with a little difficulty. It was obvious that he had just been caned ("beaten for smoking" I subsequently discovered). Those of us who had never been caned ourselves had, I think, mixed feelings: sympathy and embarrassment for the beaten young man (I guess he was 17); fear that one day it might be our turn; but also, perhaps, a certain misguided curiosity to know what it was really like.
