Charles Windsor's Schooldays

This British TV programme marking the Prince of Wales' fiftieth birthday took a look back at his (in the main unhappy) schooldays. Corporal punishment was commonplace at Prince Charles' preparatory school, Cheam in Berkshire, and contemporaries remembered whackings with the cane and a bat-shaped paddle. One ex-Cheam pupil recalled that boys invariably had to drop their thick flannel short trousers if a paddling was ordered, ensuring that the standard dose of three whacks would really sting, and one such punishment was recreated in the programme.