Memories: Bertie the Biff, Tom Tickle and Oscar

For the persistent offenders among us, those who clearly felt any punishment was worth the trouble they intended to cause, I seriously doubt the presence of the cane, ruler, strap, bunsen burner hose et al proved to be a major modifier on their behaviour at any point. –  Journalist Grant Shimmin of the Timaru Herald, New Zealand, reflects on Bertie the Biff and other exotic punishment tools.

Jeff Elston in the Timaru Boys' High School archives with Bertie the Biff and the coffin he was consigned to 

Bertie the Biff, Tom Tickle, Oscar; it reads like a slightly macabre roll call of schooldays past. In some ways, indeed, they describe, in the sheer mocking tone of their names, a chapter in Western education in which teachers were all-powerful and discipline was king.

Not the worst chapter, I suspect, for everyone.

I know I and many others survived it and thrived, probably because we allowed our behaviour to be shaped by the ever-present threat of a short, sharp shock.

But for the persistent offenders among us, those who clearly felt any punishment was worth the trouble they intended to cause, I seriously doubt the presence of the cane, ruler, strap, bunsen burner hose et al proved to be a major modifier on their behaviour at any point.

If anything, corporal punishment probably just reinforced their dislike and distrust of authority.

I’d love to see how some of them turned out. I suspect the conventional wisdom of the time, that they were bad apples who’d never amount to anything, would be turned on its head in many cases. Their determination to follow their own individual paths will have led many to great success.

But this isn’t so much a psychology essay as a reflection on those so-called “good old days”, when the threat of a bruised backside was never too far away.

Bertie the Biff, as you may well have read this week, was the means of discipline of choice of a long-time physical education master at Timaru Boys’ High, George Hillind.

The other two names I started out with are ones from my own educational past, though Tom Tickle was the only one I actually became personally acquainted with, being a model student and all.

From memory – not surprisingly, I didn’t actually get to examine “him” – Tom Tickle was a length of flexible reinforced plastic, perhaps with some rubber in the mix. He was often mentioned, in slightly ominous tones, by his wielder. Often enough that we all felt he was to be feared.

I encountered him one fateful day in Standard 8 – that's about Year 10 in modern New Zealand vernacular – when my friend, Malcolm Wheeler, and I were caught talking by our stern Afrikaans teacher, a Mr Van der Westhuizen.

“Wheeler and Shimmin, come here,” he said. It wasn’t barked, he didn’t really change tone significantly from what he’d been telling the class before breaking off in mid-sentence, though there was an obvious air of exasperation about the utterance.

“I'm tired of talking about this,” he said, having spotted the pair of us whispering, surreptitiously we thought, to each other. Plainly, it wasn't the first time.

Needless to say, the “legend” of Tom Tickle meant I felt the colour draining from my cheeks, even if I didn’t see it.

Despite the order in which we were summoned, the arrangement of desks meant I got to him first, and so was first to bend over at the front of the class and make the acquaintance, twice in quick succession, of this feared implement of correction.

Obviously, it hurt at the time, though I don’t recall tears springing to my eyes, or anything of that nature.

Some gymnastics with a handheld mirror at home that evening revealed the presence of two red stripes across my backside, but I certainly couldn’t claim to have been caused unbearable pain.

Malcolm was quick to point out to me the following day that the general view of our classmates was that he’d been hit significantly harder.

Maybe Mr VDW had taken a while to warm up, or perhaps, on reflection, the order of our summonses reflected the fact that he was considered the instigator of our transgression. Yes, that’s almost certainly it.

Oscar and I managed to avoid formal introductions, despite his being wielded on a regular basis by another Afrikaans teacher, Mr Ferreira – are you sensing any sort of pattern here?

Which was just as well, as he happened to be the thick end of a broken snooker cue. Even in the hands of a genuinely amiable teacher, his application to the tender nether regions of a succession of classmates appeared brutal. Approaching the end of year exam, Mr F introduced a series of short daily tests, asking us each to select our own passmark out of 10. As the top student in the subject, I had to aim high and plumped for nine, which I fortunately managed never to fall short of. Oscar’s powers of motivation were legendary!

There were numerous other disciplinary implements at my high school in the early 1980s, sadly unaccompanied by imaginative names, though the bunsen burner hoses brandished by my Std 6 Physics teacher, Mr Legge, were legendary for their lack of impact.

Not that they couldn’t have inflicted severe pain in the right hands – ones joined to arms with more flexibility than his possessed – but the man we all affectionately called “Boris” was far more mad scientist – without being a particularly engaging teacher – than crazed caner, and I never saw a classmate walk back to his seat without a grin on his face, if not trying hard to suppress a laugh.

I’d have to say I’m glad corporal punishment is no longer practised in schools, because I think the “If you won’t listen, you’ll have to feel” approach lacks imagination. It smacks of trying to hammer square pegs into round holes. I know I wasn’t harmed by it, but that’s probably partly a function of my personality, and my academic bent. Others may well have been.

Thankfully students today have more learning options than I had, and in some cases different ways to learn. If that’s in part a result of us bidding farewell to the cane, it can only be a good thing.

Picture credit: John Bisset/Fairfax NZ

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