The Spanking Writers

A school helpfully publishes a historical perspective on education on its website:

Teachers handed out regular canings. Look inside the “punishment book” that every school kept, and you will see many reasons for these beatings: rude conduct, leaving the playground without permission, sulkiness, answering back, missing Sunday prayers, throwing ink pellets and being late.

Boys were caned across their bottoms, and girls across their hands or bare legs. Some teachers broke canes with their fury, and kept birch rods in jars of water to make them more supple. Victims had to chose which cane they wished to be beaten with!

Now, and this is where I could be accused of having a mean streak, I’m imagining a good girl facing her first-ever punishment. Other, less-well-behaved young ladies would have been thrashed regularly before; they’d offer some ‘friendly’ advice during the break before her caning was due.

“Choose the thick, dark brown one,” they’d say. “It may look bad, but it doesn’t hurt half as much as the lighter canes.”

Only this particular rod would flex and whip just like the thinnest of the rattans – but would be much denser and heavier. The worst of all to choose, in fact. But girls can be cruel sometimes.