12 sixth-formers caned for pub visit
This true story reads like the kind of fiction I might have written myself.
It is the end of the school year at a suburban grammar school in 1959 and the headmaster tells the school assembly that the pub is out of bounds. Needless to say, some senior boys take no notice, they go and are found out. Then it’s six-of-the-best all round. According to a national newspaper report at the time, 12 sixth-formers were caned. If they were in the Sixth that would have made them seventeen and eighteen years old.
Then 66 years later a copy of a letter the
headmaster sent to the parents of the boys at the time surfaced on a Facebook
site.
He said he caned them for ‘flagrant
defiance of my instructions’.
And yes, the headmaster’s name really was Birchall.
The school involved was called Purley
County Grammar School for Boys, which became Purley High School for Boys, and
again made the news in the 1970s for the frequent canings dished out there. See
a detailed account of all that on the Corpun website here.
As published in the Daily Express, 24 July 1959
Here’s the letter the
headmaster sent to parents.
Main picture credit: Generated by
Artificial Intelligence (A.I.)
Traditional
School Discipline
Traditionalschooldiscipline@gmail.com
What a souvenir that letter is - I'd love to have something similar with my name on it but sadly have nothing. I know letters were sent to my parents but presumably thrown away.
ReplyDeleteThat is a rare and to be honest daunting letter to have a copy of and have not seen anything like it. You can still sense the headmaster anger and to have all 12 listed on the same page , must have been some very tense talks when the letter arrived. But again does prove how cp was believed in, and the fact of 12 lots of six of the cane delivered out was a standard newspaper report which would have been a talking point in many households. Very powerful letter even after all these years
ReplyDeleteThe other great thing about this letter and the report is that it validates that headmaster did sometimes dish out a large number of strokes in a session. 12 lads and a full six strokes of the cane applied to all of them. 72 strokes given for a clear offence. It would have been a clear example to all the school the headmaster was not to be messed about with. Not aware of my headmaster doing a dozen lads like this, he did cane me and three others but thankfully only three strokes each but despite headmaster looking ancient to us at the time they had the strength to deliver when it counted.
ReplyDeleteThe Headmaster clearly had some stamina. I wonder in cases like this it was better to go first or last. Our Headmaster always looked old but certainly was a real expert with the cane.
DeleteSixty years ago you could get away with that sort of thing.
ReplyDeleteAnd at least one of them with his hands in his pockets. Yes l think l'd go for at least six each for him and the others if any. That is just insolence even though they look respectful enough. Does it say if they had to touch the floor or were beaten leaning over the desk?
ReplyDelete