Question for our American members.

Our headmaster was profiled in the local paper, and he was quite open about his use of the cane, and claimed it was particularly effective for dealing with bullies - a view which I suspect would not get much support from present day child psychologists! I also remember boys being caned for smoking, shoplifting and vandalism. He hated anything which damaged the school's reputation in the town, largely I suppose, because it damaged his reputation in the town.


Kids will be kids, I suppose, and it's as true today as it ever was. Some of the rowdier elements in my class used to play cricket indoors using a lighted firework as the ball - absolutely insane!

transmanspankee
Someone at my school did that too. She turned on the gas taps then stole the actual taps so they couldn't be turned back off and then ran off down the fire escape.

When I was in high school corporal punishment at school had been all but outlawed. I remember we had an old school science teacher. He was talking about physical closeness of students and said sadly, 'Once if you got caught kissing, you get suspended. Now you have sex, no one cares.' Very different eras.

Seegee

A South African friend of mine many years ago told me his school Principal "Caned for the Police". It made me chuckle because he said it as though the Principal had been selected for the National Olympic or Rugby Team.

He told me that caning of male offenders under 30 was a common punishment for burglary, public violence and even owning pornography.

From your (self-appointed) South African correspondent:

Hello Seegee, I found this on the Internet. We can only assume that it was necessary to outsource the caning responsibilities in order to keep up with the number of strokes to be administered.

The incidence of corporal punishment in South Africa dropped consistently for a number of decades and then rose sharply again before declining once more. In the first four decades after Union (31 May 1910) a total of approximately 115,000 offenders received approximately 910,000 strokes, while in the following two decades approximately 220,000 offenders received approximately 1,220,000 strokes.

The book Spud by John van de Ruit is set in an elite boarding school in South Africa in 1990 and has a judicial caning along with a few school canings. I highly recommend it!

I love U.K. spanking stories. Heck I'd like to see stories from around the world. Ian Fleming was right, fiction loves exotic locations.

The weapon of choice in elementary schools (grades 1-6, ages 6-12) in my part of the US in the 1960s and 1970s was a Fli Back paddle with the ball and rubber band removed. Made quite an impression on a 1st grader.

By 7th grade, not so much. And by then, most teachers either had something that resembled a frat paddle, or could fetch another teacher who did.

The protocol was the same for either...out in the hall, bend over and grab your ankles, three whacks. Somehow I managed to get through high school without cutting class, and didn't know until recently that the long list of students called on the loudspeaker each morning to report to the dean of girls or the dean of boys all got three whacks if they couldn't account for not being in class.

At home, spankings were delivered by hand, or when warranted, with a doubled belt. Adults of my parent's generation spoke of getting it with the razor strap (strap was the dialect in much of the US Midwest), but straight razors and razor strops had long become relics by the time I came along.

If a belt wasn't available or an adult felt that something even stronger was needed, they could go cut a switch. These were rarely hickory, as they would generally cut the first straight branch they found of the right size.

I don't know of anyone who got it with a hairbrush, although I'm sure that happened. The informal "Mom implement" was a wooden kitchen spoon.

When I first read about someone being hit with a switch I was about six and I was so confused. I thought it meant a light switch and couldn't understand how you could hit anyone with it so concluded it must mean an electric cable.

KatiePie

You must have grown up in a city - not in a rural area!