My First School Caning

Fear and terror. A fear that gnaws away in the pit of your stomach combined with a terror that makes your legs turn to jelly. Those were the the feelings that consumed a shy 13-year-old schoolboy as he attempted to summon up the courage to knock at the door of the deputy headmaster's study. I was that schoolboy - and I was trembling with fear because I knew that once I passed through that impressive mahogany door I would soon be bending over for my first ever whacking...

What had brought me to this unwanted encounter with the cane? I came from a modest family background and had attended the same state junior school as most of the other boys on the council estate where I lived, progressing from there to the local comprehensive. This was not a shining example of the comprehensive principle and very few pupils went on to the small sixth form, yet alone university. I was an only child and my parents had always wanted the best for me so when my father heard that a private school was offering scholarship places to deserving cases he lost no time in entering me for the examination.

The 11 plus had long ago been abolished in our area, but I suppose that the exam I took - at the age of 12 - was much like the old grammar school selection test. Suffice it to say that I passed with flying colours and was offered a place with most of my fees paid. My parents still had to find a proportion of the fees, together with the not inconsiderable cost of the school uniform, sports kit and other extras. I believe they had to borrow from relatives to cover this expenditure.

Cranwick School was a day boy establishment, housed in an imposing Victorian gothic building. My uniform as a second year boy consisted of a grey blazer, a grey viyella shirt and (much to my embarrassment) a maroon cap and grey flannel short trousers, worn with long grey socks. I had never had to wear a school cap before and had not gone to school in shorts since the age of nine.

After the somewhat lax regime of my previous schools, the strict discipline at Cranwick came as quite a shock to me. Boys were expected to be both hard working and obedient and there were all sorts of petty rules and regulations. The school was also a stickler when it came to uniform and woe betide the boy whose dress was unkempt.

There had been no corporal punishment of any description at my state schools: the cane had been abolished by the local education authority some years before. However, as a private school Cranwick could set its own rules and the college prospectus made it clear that corporal punishment was employed 'when deemed necessary'. I remember feeling distinct butterflies in my stomach when I read the relevant paragraph.

Every morning I had to leave our family house in my distinctive uniform and walk though the sprawling council estate to the stop where I caught the bus for Cranwick School. I did not look forward to this morning routine, for I often bumped into former classmates from the comprehensive school who found my cap and short trousers objects of amusement. Their own uniform was very basic, the only obligatory part being a plain black blazer and school tie, and of course they wore long trousers. Because of my embarrassment I soon got into the habit of carrying the cap in my satchel, despite the school's rule about wearing it when out of gates.

Once I had settled down at Cranwick I began to thrive academically. The strict discipline was conducive to learning and the classroom work was complimented by copious amounts of homework. It was a failure to spend adequate time on some French homework that brought me my first detention - I had not expected that I would be so rigorously tested on the vocabulary I was supposed to have learnt the evening before. I received a further detention a fortnight later for being seen out of gates without my cap on my head and from then onwards I realised I was living on borrowed time. There was a set list of offences for which a Cranwick pupil could be whacked, including the obvious ones such as vandalism, smoking and bad language. However, there was also a rule that any boy who gained three detentions in the space of a term automatically received a caning and since I now had two detentions to my name I began to feel extremely nervous.

The offence which brought my third detention was an unexpected on, and I was not really to blame. A boy in my class played a practical joke by writing a rude word on the blackboard and because no-one would own up to the crime, the entire form was placed into detention that week.

As the days passed by I lived in constant fear of being summoned for the cane. However, for a whole week nothing happened and I began to think that because my third detention was in fact a 'class detention' it did not count, and I would not be whacked after all. However, my hopes were dashed when I was at last given an official letter to take home to my parents notifying them that I was to receive corporal punishment and asking them to sign an acknowledgement. Naturally I hoped that they might intercede with the school to have the punishment rescinded - after all, that third detention had not really been my fault.

My father said that in his opinion 'the school must know best' and if a caning had been ordered, I should take my medicine. To my surprise, my mother backed him up to the hilt and I felt tears welling up in my young eyes as they added their joint signatures to the tear-off acknowledgement slip

At morning registration the next day I handed to my form master an envelope containing the piece of paper which spelt my doom. I was told to report to the deputy headmaster, Mr O'Brien, directly after school. Mr O'Brien was the quietly spoken Irishman in charge of administering corporal punishment (the headmaster was too grand to soil his hands with such mundane duties) and he had the reputation of being an expert whacker. I was the sole visitor to this study that afternoon and I was feeling sick with fear as I walked slowly down the long corridor to the panelled mahogany door marked 'Deputy Headmaster.'

The entire school day had been slow torture for me, since I had been unable to get the thought of the cane out of my mind. Naturally I had heard accounts from other boys of their own particular encounters with Mr O'Brien's cane and I learnt to my horror that he always whacked the miscreant across his underpants. As to how the cane felt, there was general agreement among past recipients that only a visit to the dentist could be worse...

I nervously raised my hand to knock at Mr O'Brien's door and heard the word 'enter.' Pushing the heavy door open, I shuffled into the room and stood in front of the deputy headmaster's desk with my head bowed. Mr O'Brien spent several minutes going through the reasons for my three detentions and lecturing me on how important it was to keep to the school's rules concerning proper behaviour, homework and uniform. He then stood up and went to a tall cupboard in one corner of the room from which he extracted a long yellow cane with a curved handle. I had never seen a schoolmaster's punishment cane before, except in TV dramas set in public schools, and stood rooted to the spot almost hypnotised by the sight.

'Why are you staring like that boy?' said the deputy headmaster. 'One might think you'd never seen a cane before!'

'I haven't sir,' I confessed.

'Well, there must always be a first time for everything. Your first sight of the cane...followed now by your first feel of the cane...'

I was instructed to remove my blazer and unfasten my shorts, letting them drop about my ankles, and was then commanded to adopt a 'touching toes' position whilst Mr O'Brien took up position behind me with the pliant rattan cane. The first stroke came as a terrible shock: my underpants seemed to offer very little protection and the searing pain was even worse than I had expected. The next cut of the cane landed just below the first, stinging even more fearsomely. It was a great relief to hear the words 'one more to go, young man', and I clenched my teeth hard as I heard the whippy cane swishing through the air for the third time. There was another explosion of red hot pain in my poor backside and at last my ordeal was over. As I staggered to my feet, my buttocks still burning, I found myself wondering how any boy could be expected to take the 'six of the best' a number of the boys in my class said they had suffered in the past at the hands of Mr O'Brien. As far as I was concerned, just three strokes across my cotton underpants from that hard springy cane amounted to absolute agony...six would surely be beyond endurance.

'Let those three strokes act as a warning to you,' said Mr O'Brien. 'If you're sent to me again for amassing three detentions you may well get six - so watch your step!'

As I hobbled out of the study my backside continued to throb uncomfortably, but after several minutes the pain diminished to a warm glow. I was very conscious of my recently caned behind as I sat on the hard seat aboard the bus home. So this was what a real school caning felt like - those kids at the comprehensive school had it easy!

Defenders of the use of the cane in English schools always claimed that it acted as an excellent deterrent to laziness or bad behaviour and I can testify that it certainly did so in my case. My fear of the deputy headmaster's threatened six of the best ensured that I was a model Cranwick pupil from that day on.