Three-bar and five-bar gates

I attended a boarding school in the early 1950s where the cane was a fact of life. A boy who was to suffer corporal punishment had to go to the housemaster's study just before lights out at 9.30 pm. You reported for punishment in your pyjamas and depending upon the gravity of the offence would receive either three or five hard whacks of a whippy cane.

You had to bend down over a sturdy wooden stool, gripping the legs tightly, so that your backside presented an easy target for the cane. It was a very unpleasant experience and I suppose that I must have been whacked in this way up to half-a-dozen times each term - which was about the average for most boys. My first caning came as quite a shock - it stung like hell! - so the next time I donned two pairs of underpants beneath my pyjamas. Big mistake! The housemaster detected my subterfuge and made me remove the underpants and my pyjama trousers. I received five exteremely painful whacks across my bare bottom and cried myself to sleep that night.

The weals from a housemaster's caning were visible the next morning for all to see in the showers. We schoolboys had nicknames for the two levels of punishment: a three-bar gate and a five-bar gate. I can recall showing off a fresh set of weals to a couple of new boys and warning them that this is what they would have coming if they didn't watch their step. You can imagine the looks on their faces.

We slept in dormitories with a row of about seven beds on each side and, boys being boys, we sometimes became involved in pillow fights or midnight feasts. If the housemaster got an inlking of what was going on he might suddenly burst into the dorm. Any boy out of bed would quickly find himself bent over the bed end and given a three-bar gate. If it was his second such offence that week a five-bar gate would be inflicted.