Fag on Duty - a memoir of public school life

I experienced two big shocks during my schooldays. The first came when I was sent away to board at my prep school at the tender age of nine. The spartan conditions at school were bad enough, but what made matters worse was the feeling that somehow my family no longer wanted me at home. Of course, my parents told me that it was a great privilege to go to boarding school, and that my preparatory school education would enable me to gain entrance to a good public school. But I remained desperately unhappy for my first few years of boarding, and it was only when I reached the top form at my prep that I began to gain some measure of contentment.

This contentment was shattered when the second big shock occurred and I progressed to public school. As a senior boy at my prep school I had enjoyed a degree of status (I was even a prefect) but now I was just one boy amongst several dozen 'new scum' as we first-formers were called. The rigours of my prep school had prepared me for the trials and tribulations of public school life, including the infliction of corporal punishment. However, the fagging system at my new school was a novelty to me, and one which I soon came to hate.

All first and second form boys had to act as 'fags' or unpaid servants to senior boys. The duties included cleaning the fagmasters' studies, cooking and serving study teas, running errands into the nearby town etc. For a boy who was already kept very busy by the demands of his academic studies and the endless hours devoted to games, fagging was a disagreeable imposition. If his fagmaster was especially demanding a boy might find nearly all his spare time taken up on menial duties and would go to bed each evening quite exhausted.

Readers may wonder why boys put up with such a regime. It has to be understood that in those days (the early 1960s) it would not have occurred to any of us to question the system. You generally did as you were told and obeyed the rules, however unjust or ridiculous, and at the same time you were aware of the salutary punishments which could be meted out to those who stepped out of line. Although a fagmaster was not officially empowered to inflict corporal punishment, he usually kept an old slipper somewhere in his study to chastise his fag when he deemed it necessary, and the powers that be generally turned a blind eye to this age old custom.

In my first year I was fortunate enough to fag for the head of my house, a god-like figure who had the command of no less than three junior servants. Although he slippered us occasionally, it was all done in good spirit and I must admit I probably deserved the whackings I received. Life was not so sunny in my second year, when I was deputed to fag for Garrard of the lower sixth who was undoubtedly what would nowadays be termed a sadist. Garrard had inherited a heavy but very flexible gymshoe from the previous occupant of the study and knew how to use it to good effect. He managed to find an excuse to slipper me at least once or twice a week and my life became very miserable.

In the Easter term, just when I thought matters could not get any worse, my fagmaster contrived to punish me in a way I shall never forget. As well as all the usual duties and tasks of a fag, Garrard expected me to bull his cadet corps kit to parade ground standard. He held the rank of sergeant and took himself very seriously, swaggering about in his battledress uniform like some member of a South American junta.

I knew that I would have to join the corps myself the following year, so on the positive side it could be said that I was gaining some useful practice in preparing the various articles of kit which constituted a cadet's accoutrements. Parades were held on Mondays and I had to spend an hour or so of my precious free time on Sunday afternoon cleaning and blancoing Garrard's webbing belt and gaiters, pressing knife-edge creases into the heavy khaki serge trousers and polishing his army boots. The wide webbing belt had fiddly brass fittings which had to be removed and polished with Brasso, and Garrard demanded that he should be able to see his face reflected in the burnished metal. Likewise the toecaps of his boots had to be polished to a mirror-like sheen.

My downfall came one Sunday when my parents made one of their rare visits and took me out for the afternoon. I was rather later returning to school than I had expected and what with evening chapel and preparation I had rather less time than usual to devote to my fagmaster's corps kit. I still carried out what I considered to be a pretty good job but I had reckoned without the imperious Garrard. The next day I was summoned to his study at the end of morning school where I found him standing in his cadet uniform looking very angry. He said that my work on his cadet kit the previous evening had been most unsatisfactory and that he had had to complete the task himself. (What a dreadful imposition, I thought to myself.) I was called a lazy good for nothing fag and informed that I was going to receive the sore backside I richly deserved.

'Since the slipper doesn't seem to have much effect on you I think you require a good caning.' Those words certainly came as a shock to me, but I was even more taken aback when Garrard told me I was to go into town after lunch and purchase the requisite cane myself! I was given half-a-crown for this purpose and told to obtain 'a good swishy punishment cane' from the hardware shop in the town centre.

I can still recall my extreme embarrassment at having to go up to the shop counter, observed by several lunchtime shoppers, and ask for a 'school cane'. My black jacket, wing collar and straw boater made it very obvious that I was from the 'big school' and the shop assistant could not resist remarking, with a twinkle in his eye: 'I hope this here cane isn't to be used on yourself, young sir.' I made sure that the implement was well wrapped before nervously conveying it back to school and depositing it in the absent Garrard's study. He had left a note on his desk that I was to report to him directly at the conclusion of afternoon lessons.

I had not told any of my friends of my predicament, although they may have wondered why I was loooking so despondent that afternoon. They all sympathised with me for having the misfortune to fag for Garrard, who had the reputation of being a petty tyrant, but I was too ashamed to tell even my best pal just what treat my fagmaster had lined up for me later that day. When I reached Garrard's study he was not yet back from the parade ground but the shiny rattan cane, with its curved handle, was lying on his desk ready for use. I was tempted to break it in two, but I knew that Garrard would merely send me to buy another, this time from my own funds, and would most likely whack me even harder.

Not long afterwards I heard the clatter of hobnailed army boots in the corridor as Cadet Sergeant Garrard approached. It was a warm spring afternoon and he was perspiring in his thick serge battledress as he stamped into the study.

'So here you are - and there is the cane! Let's get this regrettable duty over with, shall we? The slipper's obviously not much use for lazy scum like you - let's see if the cane will impress you.'

The fact that Garrard was in army cadet uniform seemed to make him an even more demoniacal figure than usual and I was trembling with fear as I bent over the back of the study armchair, gripping the arms tightly.

'Push your backside right out. That's the way. I'm going to give you six...'

'Please, Garrard. I'm sorry about not bulling your kit properly. It's just that my people came down yesterday to take me out and I got back later than I expected.'

'That's no excuse at all. Now just shut up and take your punishment.'

I heard an ominous swishing sound as the whippy cane slashed through the air, landing with a resounding 'crack!' across my tighly-stretched trouser seat. The cane hurt a lot more than Garrard's slipper and my regulation school trousers seemed to offer scant protection. Five more times that vicious cane lashed across my backside, producing an intense stinging pain, and I found myself fighting back the tears. I was determined not to give the sadistic Garrard the satisfaction of seeing me crying, but by the end of the punishment salty tears were flowing down my cheeks and my face must have presented a picture of pain and distress.

'This cane appears to have done its work well judging by the unhappy look on your face,' sneered Garrard. 'You made a good choice - well worth the half-crown it cost!'

'Can I go now, Garrard?' I asked. My injured backside was still throbbing and the haughty look on my tormentor's face served to increase my misery.

'You can go once you've helped me out of my cadet boots.' Garrard plumped himself down in the chair over which I had just had to bend to be thrashed and stretched out his long legs. I was made to kneel in front of him and unbuckle his webbing gaiters, then unlace and remove the heavy hobnailed army boots from his sweaty feet. It was probably the most servile moment of my school life and when I at last escaped the depressing environs of my fagmaster's study I was thoroughly beaten - in both senses of the word.