Memories: Wayne Sleep and mass punishment

 Wayne Sleep, the British dancer, director and choreographer, was a schoolboy in the 1950s and 1960s. When he was 11 years old he failed the examination that would get him into grammar school so was instead sent to West Hartlepool Technical College.

In his autobiography, he recalls, ‘I arrived, eleven years old, for my first day at the Tech. The school towered above me, a Gothic creation suitable for torture. I reeked of newness, in my first school uniform – grey socks, shorts, blazer with brand new, empty, leather satchel slung over my shoulder. The school list stipulated shorts for my age. When I got there I found out that no one else my age was wearing them. They all had long trousers. A really good start.’

Corporal punishment was routine, he recalls. ‘If you were late five times your punishment was one stroke of the strap at the end of term. I was late at least fifteen times. Three strokes of the nasty two-thonged leather strap. At the end of term I joined the (long) queue outside the headmaster’s office. He always complimented me on my good manners before he had me bend over. But these good manners, courtesy of Mum, never did me an iota of good in staving off punishment. And I was a regular termly visitor to his study.

‘We were a very noisy and mischievous C form and some of the teachers decided that if one of us was out of order, then we were all out of order, and we would all get the strap. This had no effect on us whatsoever. It only proved that corporal punishment is a useless form of prevention. For me the real humiliation was when I, as the guilty party, had to collect the strap book from the headmaster’s office. It was the expression on the face of the secretary, whom I liked, when I appeared. ‘Oh no, Wayne, not again.’ Her sadness at my misdemeanours was worse than physical punishment.

‘I never told my mother. Except once. The pain was too much and I winced when I sat down for tea. Mum cross-examined me, and then insisted o seeing the green and blue welts across my bum. It was all I could do to stop her storming up to the Tech and raising the roof. All five foot of her.’

Extracted from Precious Little Sleep, by Wayne Sleep (Boxtree:1996)

Wayne Sleep:

Picture credits, Alamy and Royal Academy of Dance

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