Memories: ‘Invisible power’ stops Head Boy beating juniors

I remember clearly thinking that I ought to be able to bring the arm down with force enough to inflict pain, but unaccountably being perfectly unable to do so. – author Brian Masters recalls his time as head boy at Wilson’s Grammar School, south London, in the 1950s.

At Wilson’s discipline was entrusted to the head boy and five school prefects. We had for this purpose our own room, to which boys would be sent by lesser house prefects or occasionally by teachers. After perfunctory questioning the punishment was inflicted, with a rubber-soled slipper on the backside if you were lucky enough to find one of the five drones on duty, or with a vicious cane if you were brought before the head boy.

In my year as head boy I recall the miscreants actually rejoiced if they found me in the prefects’ room, as word soon got about that my whacks did not hurt.

I remember clearly thinking that I ought to be able to bring the arm down with force enough to inflict pain, but unaccountably being perfectly unable to do so. I was not weak; I was unwilling. Some invisible power seemed to stay my hand before the cane reached its object.

Other former boys at Wilson’s had different recollections of the cane. Mike Pike, who was at the school from 1956 to 1964, recalled ‘For serious breaches of discipline there was the cane administered by the Head Master on hands or bottom. It was a thin whippy cane and usually came as six. Other masters were permitted to cane but I know some never used this sanction on principle. School prefects were permitted to “whack” juniors with a flat stick on the bottom.’

He wrote in the Old Wilsonian, a magazine for Old Boys, in Summer 2013, about visiting the school with a group from the class of 53.

He recalled, ‘The classrooms seemed hardly big enough to swing a cane, and there were a lot of references to the cane which might be more an indication of the calibre of those in attendance rather than the officious regime ....

‘Mike George as a former School Captain, was allowed to administer the cane himself in those days whilst his fellow prefects could use the slipper. The prefects’ room was at the end of the corridor which also contained the headmaster’s study and the prefect used to leave the door wide open as he took a run at you in order to maximise the momentum as he inflicted punishment, which was for such heinous crimes as talking during the lunch break.’

He concluded, ‘For our part we invariably re-joined “it never did us any harm” whilst, in truth, it never did us any good either.’

Picture credit: British-Discipline

 

Partly extracted from Brian Masters,  The Evil That Men Do (Random House, 2011).  He also spoke about this in the BBC radio programme In The Psychiatrist’s Chair in 1997 which is available here.

 

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