Memories: Brutal prefect beating

The cane made a swishing sound before it struck my backside. I didn’t flinch. I had placed my head under the top end of the prep-room table exposing my pyjama’d bottom for an accurate strike by the Head of House, John Kitching, wielding the dreaded yellow-and-black Malacca cane known as ‘The Black Adder’. Four times that cane descended. End of beating – Martin Lewis recalls his time at Tonbridge School, Kent, England, in the 1950s.

I had entered the prep-room at 9 o’clock at night with the six house prefects standing along the wall, nonchalantly standing on grubbers (tuckboxes). Silent assassins. I stopped in the drying room on the way back to the dormitory and composed myself. I was the first one of our eight to be beaten, and the others wanted to see the results. They were shocked to see huge bloody weals. They didn’t know what to do, but one of them decided to take a photo for future reference, little knowing it would take 65 years to surface. That photo is as impressive now as it was then.

I had erred by accumulating three house offences in a week – leaving the bath dirty, late for something and not answering a ‘prep-room boy’ call. If anyone transgressed thus, the house praes met, the housemaster was consulted and if permission was given, a beating occurred. This did not happen frequently, I just lacked discipline.

Soon after, on my 14th birthday, a notice went up in the School Hall summoning me to the School Praes Room at lunch-time. This invariably meant a beating and it was now public knowledge. Before lunch my history teacher Chas Bullock goaded me by saying ‘looking forward to your appointment, Lewis?’ and later ‘must be something pretty serious’. Bastard. Later that evening I was caned for breaching a school rule - going out on Sunday without my barge (straw boater) to get a prae a paper. Six strokes administered by the Head of School, the same John Kitching. During that first year I was beaten five times. I achieved cult status without even trying. But I soon found out that a silk square under my pyjama bottoms would help considerably, so it no longer hurt.

Near the end of my fourth year I was beaten again, wrongly, by Housemaster Stredder no less. This was the only time the Housemaster had beaten anybody all the time I’d been there, so it had to be a very serious offence. It wasn’t actually.

My study-mate Jackson and I had no prep, exams were over. So we decided to play cards, using as counters his sixpences saved up all term in a jam-jar. The Head of House burst in and accused us of gambling. Despite our protestations we were caned- not only humiliating because of our seniority, but also because we were innocent.

Jackson left two weeks later but I was due to be made a prae the next term. It would be my last year, but it was unprecedented for a boy who had been beaten so many times to become a prae. However, on return I was duly promoted and thrived on the added responsibility.

Manor House was the toughest. We had 30-second cold showers at 0700 even when it was snowing. We had to do exercise every afternoon, if you didn’t it was a beatable offence. If there wasn’t an organized rugby or cricket game you had a choice of court games, hockey, athletics, rowing or the house daily run. No exceptions. We were all very fit, none of us were fat. There was a fagging system but there was absolutely no bullying in Manor House.

Discipline was a very important part of life. We all knew the rules, and obeyed them. Later, when I faced harsh times at Army Officer training I was very grateful for the grounding I got at Tonbridge, and even the caning. It made me more disciplined, efficient, reliable, punctual, and readier for challenges. I am one of the few who support caning because I responded to it well, it did me no harm and a lot of good.

After Tonbridge I never led an undisciplined life.

Extracted from In the Shadow of Empire, My Life in the Colonies, by Martin Lewis.

Picture credit: The Magnet

                                                       For more True Memories, click here

For more items including Prefects, click here

Traditional School Discipline

Traditionalschooldiscipline@gmail.com