Memories: ‘My backside looked like a zebra crossing’

 ‘I went for the cane each time – my backside looked like a zebra crossing. Initially I kept my school jacket on to deflect the blows and wore layers of white Y-front underpants. He soon woke up to this and made me strip to my singlet.’ Corporal punishment has always been part of the culture and tradition of all boys’ schools, especially in the 19^th and 20^th centuries. Launceston Church Grammar in Tasmania was no exception and the birch or cane was wielded as a means of instilling discipline, as this tribute book to the school shows.

Physical punishment and occasional ‘floggings’ were all part of the fabric of school life. Corporal punishment was not just regarded as a necessary evil in the school but as an actual benefit to the students, as it was thought to be character forming. No pupil could hope to gain the respect of their peers until they had been given ‘six of the best’.

I think it took up to the 1970s for Grammar to drop corporal punishment.

Those who remember Miss Stubs at little Grammar will recall that she was not averse to producing a cane but more often than not would produce a wooden ruler and apply it to the hand or knuckles. The only other little Grammar headteacher was Rev Maddox who kept a suite of canes in his office.

Several senior teachers wielded a mean, whippy cane to students who misbehaved and required disciplinary actions. Trevor ‘Tadpole’ Sorrell was well known for this in his position as master of the boarding house for most of this period. Others such ad Jack Parish and MAP Mattingley, who also stood out amongst the senior teaching staff for practicing the art successfully.

Headmasters Roff and Jones were known for their disciplinary methods, but it was ‘Jika’ Travers who is best remembered for caning a whole class of boys in the late 1950s. Both Alf Champion and Paul Richards were members of that particular class and remember this vividly, and Jika turning up with three canes in his hand.

There were many other instances of these disciplinary measures, with an array of cuts delivered from one blow to what was commonly referred to as ‘six of the best’. It was not uncommon in the boarding house to see several boys lined up outside Trevor Sorrell’s office in the late afternoon awaiting punishment.

…

In his book Cheeky: Confessions of a Ferret Salesman, Robert Cheek is scathing of his treatment and constant canings by ‘Jika’ Travers in the 1950s.

I started brilliantly at Grammar and was dux of the junior school, but it went downhill from there. The constant travelling, being too tired for homework, rebellion against tough discipline and putting sport first, took their toll. My school memories are mostly of Saturday morning detentions when Dad had to run me in from Evandale in the De Soto – six stinging cuts with the cane to the backside from Jika and teachers I loathed. The canings were brutal and frequent. Exasperated by my almost permanent detentions, Jika gave me the choice of a thrashing instead.

Thinking of my dad, I went for the cane each time – my backside looked like a zebra crossing. Initially I kept my school jacket on to deflect the blows and wore layers of white Y-front underpants. He soon woke up to this and made me strip to my singlet.

 

Extracted from A Private Education, Launceston Church Grammar School 1940 – 1965, by Paul AC Richards and Peter Mercer, available here.

Picture credit: Unknown.

 

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