Some memories of beatings at Eton College
The housemaster encouraged the boys themselves to run the punishment system and a few weeks after my arrival
I was beaten for not heating up my fagmaster's potted shrimps to the correct temperature. And beaten incredibly
hard too.
The way it worked was that the Library would run around the house, taking the longest route to your room, running
their canes along the upright grooved boarding at the same time, which made a kind of alarming whirring noise.
If they started near you, you knew that you were all right. But if they started miles away you just sat there and
shat in your pants. And it was always done at the time of night when you'd actually gone to bed, so you'd be lying
there in your pyjamas when the door would burst open and someone would shout 'You're wanted in the Library in three
minutes.’ The Captain of the House then called you into the room, where the whole of the library would be assembled.
'Explain why the potted shrimps weren't the right temperature and how this is a question of poor attitude,’ he
would intone. And after the inevitable unsatisfactory response: 'I'm afraid I have no alternative but to beat you.
Then you had to bend over a chair in front of everybody. I'd been caned a lot in my prep school but not like I
got it at Eton. It was sheer pain.
I can't remember ever being so terrified in my life as those times when I was sitting in my room, knowing that
I was going to be beaten. Your fagmaster came up to you in the morning and said, 'I'm afraid you're going to have
to have a beating.’ And then you spent the entire day anticipating the punishment. Being small and weedy I was
especially terrified. 'Come down to the Library and wait outside.’ They would make you wait for four or five minutes.
'Come in.’ You would go in, and you knew at once that they were determined upon a beating - no excuse in the world
could save you. The House Captain stood there with his cane. 'There is no excuse for this. Three times you have
failed to light your fagmaster's fire. Go outside.’ And again you had to wait. It was a most refined method of
torture. 'Come in!' they would eventually shout. 'Bend over that chair.' And then they would lay into you with
the cane like they were beating a carpet.
Being beaten was absolutely terrifying, the whole ritual of being beaten, it being so drawn out yet inevitable.
Sometimes you knew you were going to be beaten: you'd been told in advance. Other times you weren't certain. There
was a terrific amount of ritual. The Library had to ask the housemaster's permission after prayers. They would
say, 'We wish to beat so and so.' I don't know what was said then - presumably he asked why and often they would
just reply, 'He is a terrible impertinent nuisance,' nothing more specific. Meanwhile all the boys would have gone
back to their rooms. It was very, very serious to be out of your room after prayers. You went up to your room and
you jolly well stayed. The Library or the Captain of the House were allowed to wander around, but certainly nobody
else.
Later you would know that the Library were sitting in the Library and this meant that someone was going to be beaten
because they wouldn't go there at that time except to beat somebody. And you'd feel fantastically frightened; it
makes me feel chills even now, all these years afterwards. The most junior member of the Library would go out and
summon the boy, who would come and stand outside and then eventually be brought in. He would be informed of his
offence and a ritual began.
'Have you anything to say?' at which stage, if you were extremly bold, you could say, 'I wish to see my tutor.'
You had the right, very legalistic, but it was madness to appeal for I don't remember anyone ever getting off.
You would just end up being beaten even harder, so it was a very bold thing to do. You were beaten with a house
cane and you would then have to say 'Goodnight' and 'Thank you.’
Beatings loomed large as a worry and none of us pretended that it didn't hurt.
The chair was only placed in the middle of the roam when beatings were to take place and often the fag was sent
beforehand to fetch the canes with which he would himself be beaten. The worst part was the suspense, for we might
offend the day before and not be beaten for it until the following evening.
Often 'mass executions' took place when it was not uncommon for all the fags to be beaten at once. We had to kneel
on the chair, bottom outwards, gripping the bottom bar with our hands, stretching towards it over the back. Looking
round under the chair we could see the monster rushing towards us with a cane in his hand, his face upside down
and distorted. The pain was acute.