Stars and Stripes

Some prep school memories

I enjoyed a very happy childhood until the the age of eight when my life changed forever. For it was at that tender age that like so many English boys of my social class at that time (the late 1960s) I was sent to board at a preparatory school. At home neither parent had ever even spanked me, but I was soon made aware that my prep school was a great believer in the efficacy of corporal punishment. My father obviously knew what lay in store, because when delivering me to the school he asked the headmaster with a knowing wink where he kept his canes. This question was ignored by the rather humourless head, but of course I would later find out the answer.

All caning and slippering was carried out by the headmaster. There was a stick and carrot system based on 'Stars' and 'Stripes'. Stars were rewards for good schoolwork. A pink piece of paper was torn from a book not unlike a chequebook and handed to the pupil giving the details of his achievement. It then had to be presented to the headmaster who would colour in a small rectangle next to the pupil's name on the school list. A Stripe was awarded for misbehaviour and this also had to be taken to the headmaster who would once again check a square against the offender's name on the same school list. A Stripe usually resulted in the award of a stripe across the backside. The only escape was to have fewer than three stripes at the end of the school year, when they were mercifully cancelled.

My first slippering was for a dormitory offence - talking after lights out. The whole junior dormitory was ordered to the headmaster's study after breakfast where he sorted out the guilty from the innocent. But he did not punish us there and then but simply told us to meet him in the junior dormitory after lunch. The wait was obviously part of the punishment. We climbed the creaking servant's stairs to the dormitory and the headmaster came up the main staircase shortly afterwards carrying a leather slipper. We each got either three or four whacks, depending upon our previous record. I received three. It was pretty painful but any discomfort was soon compensated for by the respect we were accorded by our fellow pupils and the fact that the headmaster now regarded the matter as completely over and done with. In fact he even joked with us about it afterwards.

My first caning came as a result of receiving four stripes in two terms. The headmaster summoned me to his study after lunch. I had to wait outside his door for several minutes feeling very self-conscious as people came and went. I'm sure it was quite clear to everyone just what this nervous looking schoolboy was waiting for. The headmaster asked me whether I had been beaten before. When I replied yes he seemed quite surprised, saying that he did not recollect the occasion. When I reminded him of my slippering in the junior dormitory he chuckled and commented that he meant beaten with the cane and that a slippering was completely different.

I soon discovered that I had to agree with the headmaster. The pain from the cane was was unbelievable - much worse than I had expected - and the headmaster must have noticed my anguish for after three scorching strokes he said 'just one more to go.' He congratulated me afterwards for taking my medicine bravely but warned that if I misbehaved again it might well be six next time.

The slipper and the cane were an accepted part of life at my preparatory school and in general the administration of physical chastisement was fair. Corporal punishment has now departed from British education, but in my childhood it played a very important part in helping to form the character of generations of schoolboys.