The Spanking Writers

The marvellous BBC’s “People’s War” project encouraged those who had lived through World War Two to record their memories for posterity. Inevitably, a few of those who discussed their school days reflect on some of the more painful incidents. Here are a few:

We had to go to school at six am, get buckets of coal and fire-lighters into all the rooms…I laid a good fires of wood and coal. Before long it was all going merrily, everything was all spick and span and I felt so proud of it all. The other girls came in at 8:30 and stood around the fire warming their hands and saying “Oh, what a lovely fire”.

Then in came Miss Brentnall. She looked at the fire, then she looked at me, looking pleased. She immediately took up the shovel and started to shovel out the fire. This caused black smoke and ash to fly everywhere.

While doing this she was screaming at me, “Eight black marks for wasting coal.” She knew that we had a point system and the eight black marks meant that you got the cane. I was sent down for it. Miss Nobles gave the cane and she asked me why I had been sent to her so early in the day. I had to tell her that I’d given eight black marks for wasting coal.

I stood there with my hands outstretched and the swish across them was too painful to describe.

Once a bird’s nest was robbed and the headmaster asked for the culprit to come forward and confess. No one confessed so he caned every child in the school - boys and girls of all ages.

In those days the cane was used very frequently and there were certain children in the senior class, including the girls, who were always being caned. In fact, on misbehaving and being found out, these boys and girls would be at the front of the class with their hand held out almost before the headmaster had called out their name.

He had a number of thin bamboo canes, all with curved handles, and it was not uncommon for these to split and break up while being used. Many a time the junior class would hear the bits of cane that had broken off hit the partition.

One dodge the senior pupils got up to was to push pins down the end of the cane while the headmaster was absent and this encouraged the cane to split when in use.

Haron! Put that pin down at once… (Trust me. Try it. The cane will indeed break in use. Not the one with the pin. The one I’ll make you fetch as its replacement).