Memories: Pants down and over the knee
One of the great strengths of the Internet is that it gives people the opportunity to tell their own stories in their own words. I have lost count of the number of people who have written about their experiences of corporal punishment during their schooldays.
Most of the writers see it
as something they experienced, but did not “endure.”
Here’s an example of what I
mean. It was written
by Allan “Dizzie” Downes on a
website for ex-pupils of Kingham Hill School, in the Cotswolds in England. Today, it describes itself as a Christian
co-educational independent day and boarding school for children aged 11–18,
Dizzie remembers discipline
at the school in the 1940s, which included a pants-down, over-the-knee
slippering.
[Discipline] centered around 3ft
of prime rattan about half an inch thick and wielded with great expertise by
the then headmaster, John Woollan.
Now though the cane kept 180 boys
in order it was never used in gay abandon in order to do so – a couple of
canings a week maybe, if that, but when it was used it was used with a will –
and bloody well hurt!
Such beatings, as they were
referred to in those days, were usually carried out in the morning just after
assembly where the headmaster at the end of assembly would call out the name / names
of any deserving boy with instructions to “See me in my study immediately after
assembly where he will be dealt with accordingly.”
In my case this happened only
twice in my time on The Hill, both well-deserved and I was the unobliging
recipient of two extremely painful doses of six of the best thus using up the
schools weekly quota in one siting or, more to the point, in one bending!
Now I'm not saying we were abused
in any way, in fact far from it as more boys were warned or let off than were
actually caned but not many boys that I knew (excepting me of course!) could
take a caning in silence or indeed, tried to. Apparently, screaming one’s head
off and hopping up and down between strokes helped ease the pain – which of
course it didn’t and only made it worse. But the idea was there even if the
principle wasn’t!
The slipper to my knowledge was
never used excepting on one occasion when a mate of mine was slippered with his
pants down across Woollan’s knee down at the Warden’s house one evening for
nicking a tent out of the scout loft which he said was worse than the cane even
though he had never felt it in order to make a comparison and where at the
time, and what made it appear really weird to all us boys, was why the slipper
and not the cane, and why down at the Warden’s house to receive it?
However, “Pecker” Doris Brownhill
kept the Plym house oiks on their best Sunday behaviour with a hefty slice of
truck tyre where the enthusiastic and over use of it got her dismissed from the
school for good and her rubber strap burnt on a bonfire where you can find a
photo of the ceremony being acted out on here somewhere.
Housemasters were also authorized
to wield the rattan but very few did although my housemaster, Mr Phelps of
Sheff House, laid on a blistering six of the best worthy of any Oscar whenever
the need arose which wasn't very often – about a dozen times during my time
there – where he usually referred you to the headmaster if he thought a caning
would do you more good than an extra iced bun at supper time and who probably
could do a far better and more memorable job of it!
Picture credit:
Darrien
For more True Memories, click here
Like a lot of the stories here went to a uk boarding school cane was used occasionally but I tended to get bare bottom over the knee spankings with slipper and hairbrush very embrassing some how the cane did hurt a lot but the spankings seemed. Lot worse sometimes!!?
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