In some ways, you could say that it was pretty inevitable that a dyed-in-the-wool spanko such as myself would end up being educated at a socially extreme school.
I was born after corporal punishment in UK state schools had been banned, but while it was still permitted in private schools. My family were – and are – devout Christians, and I attended a private school run by our church. It was part of a lawsuit (alongside 40-odd other schools in the late 90s and early noughties, which maintained that banning CP was against religious freedom. I pretty much won the spanko lottery for kids born in the UK at the time!
The school had a paddle for boys and strap for girls. The school, which is still going today, caters for children aged three to 18, and had around 200 pupils across all those years while I was there.
To be fair to the school, corporal punishment wasn’t the first, or even the second resort; however, nor was it the last. I would say that a there was a paddling or strapping at least twice in the average week, more often boys than girls.
I was still at that school when CP was finally banned at private establishments too. However, for practical purposes, at least for our bottoms, the ban didn’t really mean much. Instead of teachers punishing you, they would give you a red piece of paper with the prescribed punishment on it, to be given to your parents.
Your parents would then apply the punishment, sign the sheet and send it back with you to school. Since the school was attached to the church, you couldn’t get away with hiding these punishments, because everyone knew everyone.
I did get the paddle twice at school itself, and I have to admit it wasn’t too bad. The child in question had to confess his ‘sin’, then bend over the back of a chair to receive between three and five hard smacks on the fully-clothed bottom. You would then pray with the headteacher. All CP was reported to parents. Unlike some children, if I got spanked at school my parents didn’t punish me again, although they did regularly smack both myself and my brother.
When the ‘red slip’ system was introduced, it was actually much worse for our boyish bottoms. I would get it far harder at home than I used to at school. The punishment would be given on the seat of our underpants, and Dad was usually give us between 10 and 20 really hard smacks.
I don’t know if the ‘red slip’ system is still in place. I hope it doesn’t, but sadly I have very little contact with my family any more. However, in retrospect, I do feel lucky that I ended up at that school. I quite enjoyed being paddled, which I know most kids didn’t!
Contributor: Martin