My how you English boys and girls were spoiled for choice, obviously your teachers were far too soft with you! Would you prefer the slipper or the cane, young man? Hands or bottom? Now or later? Hard or soft? Please tell me if it’s too sore and I’ll do it more gently, or I’ll stop right away. Interesting that you have these reports of choices being offered.
Over 150 years ago, when the tawse was administered across the buttocks, boys didn’t like the change to having their hands leathered as there was no protection or padding. Perhaps that’s why down south many preferred the cane or slipper across the bottom with trousers, skirts and pants to give protection and take away the sharpest sting of the punishment. Nothing like a bit of padding to help protect the rear.
Up here we did as we were told and any choices were left to the teacher. To belt him/them now or at the end of the period? How many strokes and how hard? Single hand or crossed hands? We didn’t have to think over the options, all the thinking was done for us. Our function was to obey, get our hands up for the belt and endure what came, like lambs to the slaughter.
I had six strokes of the cane, pretty full on from memory, from the now infamous Mr. Derek Slade when I was a pupil at St George’s School in Suffolk. My offense was to have been caught with a copy of a porn magazine called, from memory, ‘Fiesta’ (nothing at all to do with the eponymous car, I can assure you!), that had been passed around my classmates and had, not to put too fine a point on it, acquired some rather sticky pages by the time it got to me. I was 13 at the time.
I received several lower numbers at school normally two or three strokes but in the fifth form I received three “six of the bests” and yes they really were the best, the last time was on thin PE shorts and that left a long term impression I can tell you.
From the age of 13 to 15 I was caned 3 times, mostly for disruptive behaviour in the classroom of my Grammar School. The first caning was administered bending over a table to my trousered bottom. The second on my pants and the third and final one across my bare bottom. The first two occassions were very painful but the third was so severe over a week past before the bruises began to fade.
I was caned slowly anddeliberately with a good 30 seconds between each of the six strokes. Expertly the headmaster aimed to beat my bottom from top to bottom without striking the same place twice. Every stroke that fell reduced me to my knees on the floor screaming out with pain and clutching my buttocks as if to ease the pain. The headmaster on the other hand was enjoying wealding the cane with great force made more painful by the fact that I was of slim build with slender legs and my small firm bottom confined the target areas intensity. When it was over, to relieve the pain, he massaged my bottom with Calamine lotion to reduce the bruising. This continued for a good 10 minutes, telling me all the time that he was sorry to beat me so hard as he was very fond of me. Looking back I wonder whether he received physical gratification from caning me and watching my buttocks quiver as he beat me. Perhaps, if the caning had taken place off school premises I might have been sexually abused. I’ll never know.
I was caned a total of four times at my (boys only) secondary school in the 60s, and on two of those occasions I was given the maximum six strokes. The first time was when I was in the third year, aged 14, for fighting in the playground (any boy caught fighting was given six), and the second was in the fourth year, aged 15, for climbing onto part of the school roof to retrieve a football.
the only time i received the cane at school was in my last year,was when i was 17 year old senior boy, the caning was allways done after school on a friday, as to try and mess up your weekend if you had a girlfrind.Senior boys received only six strokes nothing less,mine was six strokes in the secretarys office after she had left, and was allways done in private.
I too received “six of the best” at school. This happened on two occasions when I was aged 16 and 17. Both times the caning was given by the Deputy Headmaster in his study while I was bending over touching my toes. It was very painful, although I’m glad now to have had the experience!
On other occasions I, like many in my class, received six whacks across my bottom with a slipper or a leather strap. The strap hurt like hell and left purple welts across each buttock.
The slipper was used more often and in all my school years was the “weapon of choice” for most of my punishments. I received six whacks on several occasions in the third, fouth and fifth years – so aged 13ish to 16.
During my 13 years of schooling I received the cane three times. I received the cane for the first time when I was ten years old when my primary school headmistress gave me three strokes of the cane for general class misbehaviour.
I received “six of the best” at ages 13 and 15. My first offence was for misbehaviour on the way to school and for not having my full school uniform on (I did not have my school cap on). My headmaster gave me the cane on my bottom and I remember having tears rolling down my cheeks and jumping up to rub after each stroke so I made quite a display of myself. My second offence was for truanting class and I was caned with two friends. My friends and I had to wait outside our Headmaster’s study with our hands on our heads and noses to the wall. He called each of us and administered our punishments. I was the second boy caned and it was horrible having to listen to my friend receive his punishment before I received mine. I was glad my ordeal was over and I don’t remember hearing the third caning as I was focused on how sore my bottom was.
Both occasions left my bottom covered with red tramlines and I had light bruising on my bottom, my second caning also left two angry red welts. We were treated fairly by our headmaster despite what personal opinions others may have as to the merits of school corporal punishment. Ulimately I had broken the school rules and I was punished accordingly and within the appropriate guidelines and standards of the day.
I received my sole caning in November 1969 when I was 14 and at Grammar School. My offence pesistent laziness in maths. The punishment three strokes administered by my Headmaster to my bottom. I was made to remove my blazer and lower my trousers prior to punishment so my thin white y fronts which to add to my pain and embarrassment were marked,were my only protection.
The caning though painful was not quite as bad as I’d expected, and although I twice came close to being caned on subseqeunt occasions I never felt it again.
I felt no rancour I had been lazy and warned beforehand so the caning was deserved and certainly no one would now canr acuse me of being lazy.
I was caned several times at secondary school (UK.late 60s, all boys) but only got “six of the best” once. in the 3rd year, aged 13/14,for fighting in the playgound. Got it from the Deputy Head. The other lad got the same. My bum was sore for ages.
I was a fair-haired fifteen-year-old in the School House at public school. The Head Boy was a ‘blood’, that is, good at Rugby Football, Cricket, Hockey etc. And he had a crush on me. I didn’t want this, feeling absolutely nothing for him. Also it made me unpopular since other boys thought that he treated me differently. They may have been right – though I was not preferred in any conventional sense.
I had eight black marks, which meant Six. I waited in the day room doing my prep with about thirty other boys. Footsteps coming down the long passage.
A boy enters and, smilingly, whispers a message to the prefect taking prep. He departs. At last the prefect looks up. “Lyons to Fiedler’s study”. I get up shakily, and make my way back down the corridor, out of the building, past the Abbey church, vast and forbidding. Into the study block, up the stairs. Knock on Fielder’s door. Wait. “Come in”. He is sitting at his desk. When he swings the chair round, I see that the his trousers are swollen at the crotch. There is a cane, lying on the couch. “Well, Lyons, eight black marks. Anything to say?”
“No Fielder,” I reply.
“Go and wait for me in the cloisters.”
Back downstairs, along the study passage, knowing that the boys are relishing this. To the undercroft. And wait. Eventually, Fielder’s footsteps. He appears with the cane.
“Move in front of the notice board. Bend! Feet apart! Lower! That’s right, grip your ankles. Wider!”
I can see him through my parted legs as he moves to the side, and folds back my jacket. He flexes the cane between his hands, and lays gently it across my buttocks, adjusting his position. Legs astride. Trousers positively jutting.
The first stroke – as always – didn’t hurt for a second or two. But then…….
The second and third came slowly, deliberately. Fielder’s left hand was in his pocket, caressing his stiff cock.
The fourth was frightful. My grip on my ankles failed.
“Get down! Down, I said!”
I looked round, pleadingly. His eyes seemed glazed.
“Down!” he hissed. “Or there will be extra strokes!”
I reached down once more. His breath was laboured.
On the fifth stroke, I cried out. The hand in his pocket was moving more quickly now. Then it slowed.
And the sixth! Christ it was awful.
“Alright, off you go then.”
I literally limped out of the undercroft out past the Abbey again. A small party from the Girls School was comig out of the main door, giggling. They had obviously heard.
I got six of the cane three times from the headmaster aged 14-15 for accumulated demerits. Bending over, trousers on. Had advance warning but didn’t bother with padding. London, 1967-8. The headmaster seemed to regard the punishment as a bit of a chore and didn’t hit especially hard.
I found I could take corporal punishment pretty well and once I knew what to expect it didn’t really bother me. Preferred it to detention. But the main deterrent to bad behaviour was the fear of a bad report at the end of term which would lead to interminable lectures and a bad atmosphere at home.
I went to a very strict all Boys’ Boarding School in the West Country when I was aged 7 in the 1970’s. The cane was a feared but daily ritual. As one grew older however (aged about 9) one began to realise that there was real potency in punishment. The early hints of a submissive-dominant role play balance. For people on either side and in between it was often very erotically charged – for the boy being caned / the Headmaster or Prefect caning / Matron afterwards / the other boys viewing the marks, touching them, sensual, sexual, sadistic. It meant many things after those initial split seconds of acute pain! Our School was very traditional so six strokes was the minimum. Never hear of anyone getting less than 6 strokes. rare to get anything else but occasionally a 7th or even 8th stroke. When the Headmaster was especially sadistic the last stroke was deliberately on the top of the thighs just below the bottom. That was never pleasure. So, always six.
“Our School was very traditional so six strokes was the minimum” says Anthony.
I’ve never heard of any school with a six-stroke minimum.
I find the very idea inherently absurd but, as you say that minimum was not only traditional but ‘very’ traditional, I’d be obliged if you’d name me a few other schools that had such a minimum.
Even in the era just after the war I do not recall six strokes as being the norm. As i recall six was reserved for the most serious offences like stealing abd bullying. I also recall that as time moved on, six strokes became even less common as boys were not so tough. Six of the cane is going to leave a boys bottom very sore indeed and is not something that i ever came across that boys got use to…..it was a feared and dreaded punishment…..hence it was rare that six strokes were given.
I went to a catholic grammar in north london during the seventies and often received various types of a caning. In the 1st year we were told on the Monday to report to the year master on the following Friday afternoon for the strap, myself and another lad turned up after worring about it all week, he didn’t say anything just hands out, we both held them steady then crack down came the strap so hard I yelped then my other hand got, a thick red swelling came up instantly. It hurt for about half hour afterwards. Then in the 2nd year I got six really hard wacks of the cane across my bottom for doing I never knew what.
I received my one and only caning at the hands of our Deputy Head, aged just short of 15 – in 1967. School in north Cheshire. My first visit to him, but he told me that my age (4th form) dictated that it would be the senior cane. And he announced that my crime – stealing club funds (for which I have felt extreme shame ever since) without doubt warranted the “full six”, even though it was my first time.
But he also asked what would be the reaction of my parents. I said that I was sure I would be punished at home also that night – my father kept a gymshoe for use on me. In that case he reduced the award, very fairly, I thought, to only 3 strokes. Perhaps he was really making allowance for the shock that it would be for my first time.
Got it on seat of trousers, bent over armchair. I stupidly got up after the second (couldn’t take it), so ended up getting 4. But again to my shame, I never told them at home.
Our boys Deputy Head (no cp for girls) was the one responsible for serious discipline infringements. Being on report to him (Thurs after school) almost inevitably meant the cane. So I knew what I was in for. He was the only one used a cane – otherwise the slipper (gymshoe) was in frequent use. There were not many canings – perhaps an average of 2 a week, judging by the queues. There was one in front of me, that day.
I was scared stiff. I have to admit, I cried during and after. He showed me the punishment book entry – but I could hardly see it.
It was even more painful that I had expected. My failure to keep down meant that I had the extra stroke lower than perhaps he had originally intended – just above the top of my legs. Serious tramlines.
And I was supposed to tell my father, to get his slipper on top of that. I’m afraid I couldn’t face that.
I can not image many 14 year olds willingly telling their father they have had reduced punishment at school so need to receive punishment at home! There is no way on this earth I would have told my parents had I been in the same position as you. Fortunately for me my parents did not subscribe to the idea punishment at school meant punishment at home but even so I never informed them when I had been in trouble.
I feel it was very unfair to give extra strokes for failure to stay down or keeping a hand held out during caning. Everyone has different reactions to pain, if one person can keep their teeth gritted and stay still, well good for them, but some can not cope so well and jump up or remove hand. If they are given extra stokes for this, then it seems to me they are being punished for an involuntarily reaction to pain.
First no CP for girls, a subject on which there has been much discussion here and which many people regard as unfair, and even as disadvantageous to girls, though it does seem to have been policy at a lot of English schools. Cases have been reported here where under those circumstances girls have actually tried to get boys caned, secure in the knowledge that they were safe from the penalty.
Second the application of extra strokes for failing to hold position while being punished. I think this is most unfair. I assume the rationale for it was that the person being caned had failed to obey the instruction to stay in a particular posture throughout and thus deserved extra punishment.
reactions to pain vary enormously. I know people who are instantly doubled up with pain at the slightest trauma, whereas in my case you can whack me over the head with a concrete block and five minutes later I’ll turn round and say, ‘hey, be careful with that thing’. However as I was never caned I don’t know if the pattern would have been the same. Clearly ritually inflicted pain is in a different category from that routinely encountered in everyday life.
I wonder if there was also a view on the part of the person inflicting the punishment that by moving, standing up or whatever, the severity of the punishment had somehow been reduced, and the extra stokes were to compensate for this. I’ll have to pass on that one in favour of those who’ve been caned at school. For the same number of strokes is a caning where you briefly break position less painful than one where you maintain the posture as instructed
I find it interesting that he totally omitted to mention the most significant factor affecting his decision to cane you rather than impose some other sanction. In my opinion, that offence did warrant the cane but it’s clear, from your subsequent post, that the school didn’t agree. That offence, per se, was not considered serious enough to always be punished by caning. Another child, perhaps with a worse record than you, could have committed exactly the same offence, possibly as your accomplice or even as the instigator, but would not be caned.
Personally, I would be very put out if I had been caned for something a classmate just got a telling off for, especially if that classmate had a worse record than I (unlikely I admit but not impossible) but it’s been claimed that boys don’t think like that. I’ve never met one who would have been (or was) happy if (or when) that happened so I be interested to know how you would have felt if that had happened.
I have to say that I was not unduly surprised about the extra stroke for trying to stand up. He did tell me beforehand to stay bending over, otherwise he would simply take the stroke again. But the sharpness of the pain – to which I was completely unaccustomed (although warned by friends) – made me react like that. I wish my memory had over-ridden my legs. I can’t comment on the comparative effect of interrupted or not canings, having only had the former. But the last stroke, as I commented above, was by far the most painful, and the marks the longest lasting – because it was so low down, a consequence of being last (and having to be fitted in?)
As far as the differential boys and girls approach, I don’t recall any particular ill-feeling, although a certain amount of vicarious interest in the events from the other sex. In my case, my colleague in crime (as the joint recipient of the proceeds, if not the action) was my gf – who got off scott free as far as the school was concerned. She was not as lucky at home, when her mother worked out what had happened, and why.
My grey shorts clad bottom felt horribly exposed.I sensed the headmaster raise the cane and then heard the SW00SH as the cane slashed across those shorts.
WHACKK!
I felt the impact but for a brief moment I felt nothing, then the cut came alive, alive with a searing stinging pain that raced along the stripe with the speed of a bush fire.I bellowed in agony, unable to believe the pain, it was much worse than I’d expected. Just as the stinging was reaching its most excruciating point the cane sliced in again.
WHACKK!
I could feel tears beginning to trickle involuntarily out of his closed eyes. I felt the headmaster rest the cane across the middle of my shorts and gripped the bar of the chair even tighter my knuckles turning white.
WHACKK!
The third cut seemed to hurt even more than the first two
WHACKK!
my hands left the bar, to go to my caned bum. Somehow I forced them back. I felt my legs kicking and I seemed to have lost control over my body. I had started to cry audibly.
WHACKK!
AAAARRRRGHHH.
WHACKKK!!
It was the hardest stroke yet and sounded like a pistol shot and my hands went straight to my bottom.I could feel how wealed and swollen it was through the material of my shorts and underpants and I tried to bring myself under control.
At 14 I was still going to school in the same shorts I had started with in form 1…because I was a “growing boy” this meant those shorts were getting shorter and tighter and also the wear made them fit like a second skin… so you can imagine they offered minimal protection when spotted with a shanghai or as we called it a ging in my locker.A teacher walked past unluckily for me result 6 of the very best.I could barely sit down for the rest of the day and over the next 2 was very very uncomfortable doing so just as when I was caught smoking….with 4 others I was 4th in the queue I was a trembling mess before getting the 6 cuts after getting them I danced about I can assure you also that year I got 3 cuts for being sent out of class for talking I counted myself lucky it was 3 but I still cried
I went to a boarding school in the 1960’s and got the full 6 of the best on 2 occasions. The punishments were carried out in our dormitory before bed and in the first 2 years were over pyjamas which offered scant protection. In the last 3 years they were removed and given on the bare bottom. Normally the caning was administered by the dorm teacher but for serious offences it was the headmaster with matron as a witness. I got 6 from the dorm teacher who was a lady and 6 from the headmaster.
The first occasion was for repeated bad behaviour in my third year and Mrs F gave me 6 of the best on my bare bottom. It was done in front of my 9 mates and I was left to sleep on my stomach because of the pain.
My second offence was smoking with 4 mates and the head sent us to our dorm to await our fate. We were ordered to get ready for bed even though it was only mid afternoon. He arrived about an hour later with matron. We were ordered to drop our bottoms and lined up. I was fourth in line and watched spellbound as he beat the first 3 lads. He hit much harder and used a longer cane than Mrs F. I was then ordered to bend over the chair back and put my hands on the seat while I got the full 6. I had never experienced pain like it and struggled to stay in place. When it was finished I was told to stand at the end of my bed. I waited as the last lad got whacked and then we were told to turn so matron could check us before being to to go to bed until teatime We all laid face down and there was a lot of bottom rubbing. The marks were more noticeable than any previous caning I got. At teatime it was a struggle to sit.
I was very glad that it was a boys school because the thought of girls seeing our embarrassment would have been too much.
I was at a private small boarding school from 1963 until 1968 in southern England. There were 10 lads in each dorm and 2 dorms per year group. This made a total of 20 lads per year for the 5 years. There were 11 teachers including the headmaster and each dorm had a separate teacher in charge. The same teacher stayed with the dorm throughout the school so I had Mrs F for 5 years. Mrs F was the only female teacher at the school and was married to the maths teacher. She taught foreign languages, art and music. The relationship was unusual in that she was a friend in times of need as well as our teacher. The school generally considered us lucky having Mrs F because she was a fairer teacher than some of the male teachers and especially better than the headmaster. Also I had come from a state primary school where the large majority of teachers were female so I was used to them being around. I got my fair share of canings and slipperings from them and was described as boisterous by one of them. It was for this reason that I was sent to the boarding school. The main difference between primary school and boarding school was that the canings were on the hands and I never got six strokes at one time. Also Mrs F had caned me in the first 2 years on my pyjamas and so it did not seem unusual to be caned by her as I progressed through the school. Mostly in the earlier years I got 2, 3 or 4 strokes. The canings were fairly frequent and Mrs F used her flexible friend on at least one occasion per week I would guess. I think the strangest thing at the school was that matron used to be a witness and check the boys after the caning. This applied even when the teacher was a male. She was truly a frightening lady and I tried to avoid going to her even when ill.
You are correct in your thought that the caning on the bottom applied to all canings in the last 3 years not just six stroke punishments.
Regarding the comment about girls, there were no girls at this school but there were at the primary school. I remember well how they teased me when I got the cane there so would have been horrified if they knew about me getting 6 on the bottom. Mind you the boys teased them when they got caned as well so I think it was all fair in the end.
You confirm that you were at a small private boarding school for boys. As I noted in my October 26 2013, 12:56 AM post above I don’t think that caning on the bare was all that unusual at such schools in the 1950s and into the 1960s. What was perhaps a little unusual at your school was reserving this fate for older boys. I think it was probably more usual the other way around, or as a general practice for all ages. It would be interesting to understand why your school might have decided on their policy.
Did the staff give you any information about why this arose please? Or was there any speculation about the reason by pupils? On the face of it a more severe punishment experience for older pupils might seem a possibility, but you noted above that pyjamas offered scant protection anyway. The loss of the protection afforded by the fairly substantial trousers and underpants worn by schoolboys in the period in question might well make for a more painful experience. Not so the loss of pyjama trousers, where the only thing to increase might be embarrassment.
But in a boarding school situation even the embarrassment factor is limited. Boys will be more used to seeing each other naked and being seen naked by staff than would usually be the case in a day school. Very unusually indeed I would think, you were caned on the bare by a female teacher. In a normal teacher-pupil context that would be highly embarrassing for the boy even if not for the teacher. However as I expected you say that the relationship with that teacher was rather more than might normally subsist between a pupil and a teacher.
By virtue of the boarding school situation and the dormitory teacher relationship, and the fact that the latter continued throughout your time at the school, there was inevitably a pseudo-family element in the relationship with Mrs F. Similarly so with Matron, despite your dislike of her. Your sans protection caning by Mrs F probably was embarrassing, but nothing like as embarrassing as it would have been if carried out by a female teacher when you were still at your state primary school, and that despite the age difference between the two situations, which might otherwise be expected to heighten the embarrassment for an older boy.
As a matter of interest can you recall how Mrs F handled your first caning on the bottom? You say that you’d been caned by her in the first two years when you could keep your pyjama trousers on. Did she comment on the requirement for a change of procedure or did you simply present yourself accordingly, knowing the rules?
You said that your six of the best from the headmaster was much harder and administered with a longer cane than your six strokes from Mrs F. Can you recall please anything about the respective periods the marks lasted, and whether in the case of the caning by Mrs F you noticed any significant difference from her previous canings in this respect? Marks would I guess be a possible reason for the on the bare from the third year decision. If it was decreed that from the third year onwards you’d be caned significantly harder it might have been decided that it would be safer if the caner could see the damage being done by the harder strokes. I don’t recall seeing this mentioned in a school context, but a school could certainly have gone down that path.
You comment on the reactions of boys and girls at your primary school to pupils of the opposite sex being corporeally punished. From memory this varied over the years in primary school. In the early years when girls were generally regarded by boys as strange alien creatures (and doubtless vice versa) I think there was just interest in seeing what would happen and how they’d react. In later years when they’d been recognised as fellow human beings that interest was still strong, but usually overlaid with some sadness and concern if you liked them and it was a severe punishment.
I am not sure why the school had the policy, we were just told that was how it worked, not why. The boys assumed that it was meant to be more painful and embarrassing because older boys should have known better. As you say the embarrassment was not as bad as some school because the lads were used to seeing each other naked. However it was extremely embarrassing being watched by matron and to some extent by Mrs F especially if one got an erection as a result.
Canings in the dorm were very ordered and we were told by Mrs F on day one of the first year that we were to wait for her instructions or we might get more She also told us about the change in the third year although we did not think much about it until it happened for the first time. The procedure was that our name was read out first. In the third year onward we were then ordered to remove our pyjamas including the top before being called to the chair. We were told to stand behind the chair and bend over with our palms on the seat. Mrs F would then adjust us until she was satisfied. This usually meant feet slightly apart and well arched. She would then tap the cane several times before starting.
I can not recall how long the marks lasted but do remember a very restless night and wriggling the next day when sitting.
Regarding the girls, in primary school it was very much accepted that the girls and boys teased each other after a caning and sometime giggled during it.
In view of the many strange and unsettling things which might happen in a school where the more common sexist regime was reversed I am happy that at the only mixed school I attended, my Infant and Junior School, sexism didn’t really rear its ugly head. Well at least it didn’t except that in the top class, which was out-stationed in one of the town’s public buildings, when changing for PT the girls got a comfortable changing room and we boys had to change in a sort of large cupboard under the (admittedly fairly palatial) stairs.
Oh, and I suppose in the Junior School more boys than girls got the slipper and more girls than boys got the ruler on the hand and smacks on the leg. The latter was pretty evenly distributed in the Infant School though!