Memories: 12 on the trousers or 9 on the bare

A boy had earned for himself, by some piece of open rebellion, a Headmaster’s caning. The Head offered him the choice between twelve strokes in his trousers or nine on the naked buttocks. –Extracted from The Autobiography of an Englishman, by “Y” (Futura, 1976).

The Head, an enlightened traditionalist, firmly believed in the use of the cane, which was strictly regulated. A caning by him was the supreme punishment, short of expulsion; housemasters were allowed to cane, as were prefects – but on one else. The Head’s canings were reputed to be very severe, and they were dreaded, but I never saw nor heard direct evidence of them. I was never caned at Pryde myself.

None of the housemasters was reputed to enjoy caning for its own sake. One alone was conspicuous for the frequency and savagery of his canings. He was dreaded by his house, and everyone was sorry for those in it. Yet his ferocity stemmed, I think, not from any form of perversion but from a simple ambition to make his house the best disciplined in the school.

He was quite humourless and a fervent admirer of Frederick the Great. But he had many good qualities, and I was always grateful for his kindness to me and his showing me especial favour in several ways. He gave me occasional presents in the form of books. Perhaps he was an inactive homosexual in love with me; if so, he kept it very dark. He later married and left, to become head of another school.

Prefects’ beatings were another matter. I certainly heard discussion among our house prefects, with whom I was on excellent terms, as to the technique in using the cane to best effect. But I think caning was used, not so much as an outlet for frustrated sexual appetite as for the gratification of a growing sense of power common among adolescents verging on manhood.

No one was caned when I was at Pryde otherwise than decorously, with trousers on. I don’t recall that anyone was caned even in pyjamas. The Head’s ideas were all pervasive. The caning code emanated from him and was treated, at any rate outwardly, by the masters as an unpleasant necessity, to keep order.

I was on one occasion so rude to a weak master that my housemaster, in sheer spontaneous disgust, threatened to cane me, senior though I was. He would undoubtedly have been right to do so, though I froze with terror at the threat. It passed off, and was certainly effective in improving my culpable behaviour towards the master.

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In view of the Head’s personality and views as I knew them, it was a surprise to me to hear from a young man who had been at Pryde fifteen years or so after I had left that the boy had earned for himself, by some piece of open rebellion, a Headmaster’s caning. The Head offered him the choice between twelve strokes in his trousers or nine on the naked buttocks. He must have been a good-looking boy: he was still personable when I met him a dozen or more years later.

The boy chose the smaller number of strokes. The Head administered the strokes and then gave the boy a glass of sherry!

Picture credit: Sting Pictures

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