Headmaster doesn’t know where to buy himself a school cane
Who knew it but some headmasters found it difficult to purchase a school cane? Apparently, there was a time when they were on sale in every toy shop. Toy shop? But, alas this was no longer the case. In an article in the Birmingham Post in October 1958 ‘Mercian’ discussed the problem faced by a local headmaster.
Then, scroll
down to a report from twenty years later to see where the Greater London
Council purchased 4,000 (yes four thousand!) of the blighters.
Truly, you
couldn’t make it up.
Canes on sale
in modern Malaysia. Picture credit: Unknown
Talk
of the Midlands, with Mercian
In the days of our youth canes could be bought – and
were – at more or less every toy shop.
It always seemed that their presence cast a shadow
over the place, particularly when they were hanging up in full view.
Nowadays, things are very different. The headmaster of
a Birmingham school who wanted a cane and has experimented with one or two
quite ineffective substitutes was rapidly coming to the conclusion that buying
one was cloak-and-dagger operation.
His staff, as well as he himself, had been on the
look-out, had made enquiries at toy shops and in local markets without any
success.
They had even been advised not to say what they wanted
it for but to pretend that it was for a play.
The headmaster, incidentally, is far from being the
flogging type. He simply holds the view, subscribed to by a good many teachers,
that caning, used judiciously and sparingly, is sometimes necessary and
effective.
“It does not maintain discipline,” he said, “but the
fact that it is there and is known to be there is useful at times.”
When this dearth of canes came to our notice we made
some enquiries.
One headmaster said he thought he knew where they
could be obtained – but they had to be bought by the dozen. He himself had
“inherited” one.
Another headmaster, who said he had used a cane no
more than twenty times in the last eleven years, pooh-poohed the story about
difficulty in buying one.
He said if our headmaster would send one of his senior
boys out to get one he would have no trouble. He had not gone about it in the
right way, that was all.
To send one of the boys seemed a good psychological
approach, but it was debateable whether he would succeed where the staff had
failed.
We tried the toy shop patronised by our own children.
The owner of that business had not seen one for years – but then his wife
suggested trying an educational supply firm in Birmingham. It was obvious – and
successful. Sixpence each.
The next objective, now that the school has an
effective cane in the headmaster’s cupboard, is to see that it stays there.
The official cane supplied by Birmingham
education department in the 1970s, embossed with its name so only “authorised”
canes were used by teachers. Picture credit: Unknown.
School
canes ... from a porn shop
More than 4,000 canes for whacking a city’s naughty
pupils have been ordered through a SEX SHOP.
The shop sells contact magazines and soft porn books
offering a wide variety of services.
Now, embarrassed authorities have launched a probe
into the affair.
The canes have been ordered by the Greater London
Council’s supplies department for schools run by the Inner London Education
Authority.
Supplying them, through the porn shop in a Leeds
basement, is Canadian-born Ken Brown.
Cheaper
He makes the canes in his own workshop, but uses the
sex shop as an accommodation address.
Last night Robert Mitchell, chairman of the GLC’s
professional and general services committee, authorised an investigation into
Brown’s connection with the shop.
Said Mr Mitchell: “Brown offered the canes to us at a
cheaper price than the previous dealer.
“We have always thought that his address was where the
canes were made.
“It is important that we are not involved with a porn
shop.
“An investigation will be made into Brown’s alleged
connection with it.”
As published in The Daily Mirror, 28 October 1977
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