I stumbled across your site by accident and was fascinated. I’m 59 now, so I well remember the days (70s and 80s) when corporal punishment was still liberally and routinely dished out, particularly at school.
I came from a working-class family (the youngest of three, with an older brother and sister) and went to ‘normal’ primary and secondary schools and although my parents did believe in a smack – or at least the threat of one – it was at these schools where I experienced real corporal punishment.
On the first occasion, when I was about eight, a girl in my class pinched my bare leg as I sat down on a bench, just as the bell went for the end of playtime. I was so upset that I walked up to her in the line of children beginning to ‘fall in’ to go back to class and pushed her.
Unfortunately, she fell over a bag or a ball and went down quite heavily, hitting her head (badly enough that her parents complained). Of course, she let out a mighty wail and I was hauled off to the headmistress’s office, where I was soundly spanked over her knee. After that, I spent every playtime standing outside her office for God knows how long.
I found the punishment humiliating, unpleasant and painful. I wasn’t proud of it at all but after I did quite enjoy the kudos of having had my bottom smacked. Other girls asked me about the punishment and the headmistress even mentioned it in assembly – I will always remember the words ‘I had to spank a girl yesterday’ as she berated us all about slipping standards of behaviour in the playground (a boy had broken a window with a football a few days before).
I also found that teachers often labelled me a ‘naughty girl’ because of the incident and I was made to stand outside the class or do lines for talking, which I’m sure wouldn’t have happened to me otherwise.
Actually, perhaps they would – one teacher used to walk around the class with Sellotape and threaten to stick it across a child’s mouth for talking in class. That actually happened to me once – naturally, my own children can’t believe such a thing would happen.
My other main experience of CP in school was when I was 10. It was the last day of the autumn term and everyone was excited and happy about Christmas and its forthcoming presents.
There was snow on the ground, so we weren’t allowed to go out to play – I imagine this was a nightmare for the teachers as we kids were so excitable but couldn’t run around, especially the boys.
On this particular day I had worn knee-high boots to school, with zips up their sides. My mum liked me to dress nicely (I was quite feminine, unlike my sister!) and she had bought me the boots for Christmas and given them to me early because of the snow.
All this was fine but I had forgotten to bring shoes to change into. I had already been told off about this by our class teacher, Mrs Allen. However, she was pretty soft and I hadn’t exactly got into trouble about it.
Anyway, on this day Mrs Allen was late back from her lunch for some reason. All the children were already back in the classroom and began to mess around – I remember one boy had a balloon with him and was knocking it around, others were chatting loudly or just messing about. Me and a friend amused ourselves by writing on the blackboard (I think we wrote ‘Merry Christmas’ or something similar).
All of a sudden, the headmistress marched into the room, taking in the chaos. She started yelling at us to sit down and immediately confiscated the boy’s balloon. Then her gaze fell on me – chalk in hand, and still wearing those boots.
At this point Mrs Allen returned and the headteacher turned to her. “I have just witnessed a riot in this room, Mrs Allen!” she said. “As for this girl (she pointed at me), not only does she appear to think she can take the lesson, she obviously cares so little about the rules here that he has worn boots school!”
The class was immediately put into detention, which caused a groan to go around the room. But my fate was far worse – I was told to follow the headmistress down to her study. Once there, I was made to bend over her desk and given four strokes of the cane whilst the school secretary watched, recorded it in the discipline book and later handed me a letter to give to my parents.
Needless to say, a smarting bottom wasn’t quite the start to Christmas I’d hoped for!
Contributor: Charlotte