Memories: Introduced to The Belt

Posted by Traditional School Discipline February 28, 2021

Memories: Introduced to The Belt

The United States had the paddle, England had the cane, but Scotland had the taws, also known as The Belt.

In this personal memory published in 2010 Lou recalls his days as a child in Scotland in the 1960s.

Many people my age grew up in an environment where getting spanked with Dad’s belt was an occurrence we accepted as a part of the discipline our parents tried to instil in us. Nowadays, corporal punishment is frowned on in many countries.

But that wasn’t the case in Scotland in the early 1960s.

The Navy transferred my father to Dunoon, Scotland in the second half of 1962. I remember anti-war marches, strange (to us) accents and words that meant different things in Scottish than they did in American English. But one of the strongest memories is of “The Belt.” But not Dad’s this time.

I can’t speak about the culture of punishment in the Scottish schools today but back then the worse punishment we could receive was whacks from “The Belt” although there apparently were a great many of the belts in the schools.

We had lived there a year before I was exposed to the belt’s reality. And it wasn't my fault. Truly it wasn't. Well, not directly. One class period the teacher was late so some boys threw her books out of the first floor window. When no one claimed responsibility, every student in the class received one whack from her belt, a leather strap about half an inch wide and maybe an eighth of an inch thick with one end split like a snake’s tongue.

One at a time we had to stand and hold out an arm palm up so she could hit us along the forearm, wrist and palm with “The Belt.” It was a painful experience, but not as bad as a later thrashing.

My second exposure was in wood shop class when the noise became too unbearable for the instructor who announced that the next person to talk would get “The Belt.” Unable to hear what he said from my table in the far rear of the classroom, I turned to my table partner and asked what was said. That was all it took for me to be called to the front of the classroom and given two lashes with his copy of “The Belt.”

But those two experiences paled to the last time “The Belt” and I made an acquaintance. Two buddies and I decided to skip an afternoon of school to play snooker (like pool) and eat crisps (potato chips). This would have been the first half of my freshman year in high school in the U.S. and was the only time I played hooky.

When we remembered we had left our books outside on the school grounds and went to retrieve them, everyone had left for the day. Except the headmaster (principal), a stern, large bear of a man. He saw us and called us into his office the next morning to explain where we had been. The three of us withered under his angry stare.

Being unable to offer sufficient reason for skipping classes, we were ordered to line up to each get three lashes from “The Belt.” Those hurt and raised welts on the inside of our arms. But we learned our lesson and were on time for every class afterward.

No, that kind of punishment now in many countries would have the authorities swarming down on our parents and school administrators but such punishment taught a valuable lesson – sometimes things REALLY CAN get worse. Whether the headmaster’s belt was thicker or stronger than the others or whether he was simply more intimidating and hit harder, I’m not sure.

What I AM certain of is that when I think back to my experience with “The Belt” I am reminded that as much as it hurt at the time and as embarrassing as it was, it was the way of the country at that time.

Those punishments never did dim my enthusiasm for living abroad nor did they make the Scottish people any less interesting. What it did, though, was teach me that, in comparison, punishment by Dad’s belt was nothing.

I'm just glad he didn’t have one of “The Belts.”