Memories: the whack made your eyes run

The physical training (PT) teacher would make you bend over then take a run at you and whack a rubber soled plimsoll across your rump, usually just to the side, making your eyes run as you hopped around the gym or sports ground in agony. – Memories from Ted Marriott of his time at Cottesmore School, Nottingham, England in the 1950s and recalled in the Lenton Times, the magazine of Lenton Local History Society.

The headmaster I remember was a Mr Skilbeck. He used to administer the cane for more serious misdemeanours. Pete Bradley and I were both sent before him and received three strokes each. He was correct when he said we would remember this all our lives, but the trouble is I can’t remember why we got them! I think it was for fighting outside school.

Barring the corporal punishment (which everyone accepted as being deserved) I must say I enjoyed my time at this school. The teachers were friendly but strict.

Mr Files the P.T.[physical training] teacher was one to keep the better side of. His method of punishment was to slipper you with one of his plimsolls He would make you bend over then take a run at you and whack the rubber soled shoe across your rump, usually just to the side, making your eyes run as you hopped around the gym or sports ground in agony. It only had to happen to one pupil to keep perfect discipline for the whole class for the whole lesson. Believe me…it stung. But I still didn’t learn and sampled it twice.

Mr Gallagher, a Scot, taught English and maths. His classroom was the first as you entered the quadrangle, and woe betides anyone arriving late. Unless a perfect excuse was given, the victim was punished with his leather strap, which he named Charlie. Everyone in school was scared of Charlie.

Mr Hodgson (Gammy) taught English and had a deformed wrist, over which he hung a leather strap. One afternoon he called me to the front of the class. I thought he was going to praise me for being top of the class in our English exam, but I was painfully mistaken. He strapped me because I had inkblots and smudges over one page in my exercise book. Bastard!

Mr Davidson was a strict disciplinarian. He used to wear leather gaiters and looked a right twit. But we all made sure he didn’t see us smirking behind his back. One time he called out my cousin Trevor to the front of the class. He tilted Trevor’s chin up and gave him two of the most vicious hard slaps across his face I have ever seen. ALL the class gasped in disbelief. Trevor’s face became swollen and a note was written to the headmaster from his mum. I don’t know what the outcome was, but if it happened in today’s society, the teacher would have been charged with assault and fired. Today, I believe in corporal punishment, but that was beyond reason. He was a sadist.

One event that sticks in my mind as being funny now, but not at the time, was when ‘Big Nobby’ Whitehead asked to leave the room. Permission was granted and he walked to the door and the teacher turned his back and began to write on the blackboard. As Nobby reached the door he threw a piece of chalk at the teacher narrowly missing him. He shot through the door as the teacher turned angrily glaring at us as we sniggered behind cupped hands. He threw the book he was teaching from on his desk and demanded to know who threw the chalk. Silence reigned over the class. Three times he asked us then told us we were all getting detention immediately. A few minutes later Nobby walked back in and feigned surprise at the silence in the class.

“It's all right Whitehead, you were out of the room so you can go home now,” said the teacher. “Until the culprit owns up, the class will stay behind.”


Picture credit: Sting Pictures

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