The museum of corporal punishment

Many, many years ago, I read a lovely book by Hunter Davies, entitled ‘A Walk Along The Wall’. Hadrian’s, to be precise. It inspired a rather lovely walking holiday, in which school friends and I recreated his trek along the Roman route from Newcastle across to Carlisle.

In his latest book, which I read recently, Davies visits some of Britain’s most outlandish museums. There’s a baked beans museum (yes, really); a pencil museum; a fan museum (how very Regency house party); a secret nuclear bunker.

There’s one topic missing, though – the museum of corporal punishment. Just think of the hours of fun one could have designing the displays; working out a programme of special events (Caning Christmas, Tawsing Tuesday?); setting admission prices ( £5, with a £1 per stroke discount for cute young ladies?); interviewing prospective staff (“So, what relevant experience do you have?”); selecting the implements for display.

Rather scarily, it struck me that we do actually own more items relating to our chosen specialised subject than do some of his selected museum owners. However, Davies finds a common thread in the ever-so-weird and not-that-wonderful collections – namely, that the curators seem to be exceptionally eccentric. What a shame that I don’t fit the bill…