I was belted on a daily basis by my nasty little form teacher every morning I came into class for an entire year. Such variation is too great to be explained by differences in the sizes of the schools and, anyway, analysis by size shows that five of the 12 schools where corporal punishment was used on more than 100 occasions have less than 400 boys. While I do believe in the power of corporal punishment to enforce discipline, today, I must admit, there was an unfamiliar twinge of anticipation as I contemplated administering the caning. After examining the photographs under magnification he concluded that this boy had received 12 strokes with a short thick stick. He took the pictures because he was increasingly concerned at the severity with which "maladjusted and emotionally disturbed boys" were beaten.

Getting caned” can also mean getting high on drugs, apparently, and the comedian Ali G (real name Sacha Baron Cohen) made use of this when interviewing the former education Secretary Sir Rhodes Boyson, who was clearly blissfully unaware of the second meaning of the expression. The following week letters appeared in the local press in favour of the verdict delivered, with a number of prominent citizens expressing their support for the Rev. This is a companion piece to the story Twice In One Day ( read it here ) which is a diary entry made by a sixth-form grammar school boy in 1964 recounting how he and two pals were caned for the first time by their headmaster. The punishment was not just for misbehaving, but the target for Latin comprehension was 18/20 - any less and it was one harsh whack with a handbrush. His mitigating circumstances speel was that he was drunk, emotionally distraught cos he had had an arguement with his girlfiend - la la la.With every line, “humble yourself before the Lord,” we would thrust our bodies to the ground, and momentarily lay down, to demonstrate how humble we were! Chapter 1Grace Baptist SchoolChapter 2Pranking the HeadmasterChapter 3The ChoiceChapter 4My New JobChapter 5I Saw Jennifer Get Caned! I could barely believe what i'd just seen, even as a kid I realised you shouldn't be shouting at people, nay fellow colleagues, in that manner. He explained that he had examined the lad and found four clear marks on his buttocks and concluded that the strokes must have been severe to cause such injuries through clothing. The whole notion of asking a young boy to bend over whilst you the adult wallop them on the arse - it's very very warped isn't it?

Just wooden metre rules that frequently came down onto a desk of any pupil not concentrating enough on their work.But, when I’m there, straining and heaving to touch my damned toes, urged on by our trainer, those memories of the little me bending over to receive my canings do come flooding back, along with the butterflies which fluttered in my stomach during the final moments before the cane came swishing down.