Garden caning ends up in court
A boy who refused to do some weeding during a gardening class at school was sent to fetch a cane. What happened next ended up in the law courts.
As
published in the Bucks Free Press, 14 August 1942
Picture credit: Darrien
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A small correction, it was a different boy who was sent to fetch the cane, not the one who was hit with it.
ReplyDeleteI think the wartime situation must have had some effect on the decision of the magistrates. I guess people were expected to help out growing vegetables etc while rationing was in force because of the Battle of the Atlantic. So when a kid refused to do gardening work because of not wanting his clothes dirty, there wasn't much sympathy.
Otherwise I would have expected the magistrates to have taken it more seriously. Because this is really more like a random assault than a proper ordinary caning. Lots of people got caned on the hands but they weren't supposed to get it hard enough to leave their hands bleeding hours later. Canings on the bottom could cause bleeding (according to Roald Dahl) but even that was mostly only in rare cases I think.
Plus if a teacher is giving a punishment then it would either be a caning on the hands or a caning on "the body" (I guess that means the kid's bottom). It's weird to do both and it just makes it seem like the teacher was furiously beating the kid and acting out of anger. Normal caning procedure didn't involve holding the kid by the wrists while hitting their body with the cane. Why would that be needed for an 11 year old?
Plus in addition the cross-examining of the "witnesses" seems designed to undermine what they've said when what they've said is perfectly reasonable. The idea of "ok maybe the teacher didn't punch the boy in the face, maybe he just hurt his face falling down", just sounds silly.
Very interesting that the kid is an evacuee. I wonder if his foster parents are just the family that he's been allocated to while evacuated. Or if they've actually taken custody of him, similar to the old guy in "Goodnight Mister Tom". Either way it's a weird scary situation for a little kid to be in. And then having to deal with crazy teachers as well.
Watching old shows about the war, "Put that light out!" is a catchphrase. So the other story on that page seems odd too!