Whacko

While I was out and about this week I was listening to a radio programme in the car which was focusing upon girl bullying at school. Over the past few weeks there have been a couple of high profile cases in the news where young girls have been attacked and injured by girls at their schools.

Of course a lot of the discussion is taken up by a lot of soul searching along the lines of ‘why o, why o, why?’ and ‘what can be done’. Often these answers come from the listeners who phone in. Some will blame the parents; some blame the teachers and some blame society as a whole. Others demand the reinstatement of corporal punishment into schools to instil a bit of discipline into the chav and chavettes who seem to want to disrupt the normal course of things.

This demand for the re-instatement of corporal punishment of course got me thinking about my own school days back in the swinging sixties. I call it the ‘swinging’ sixties because for me the only thing swinging about it were the various implements of punishment swinging towards my backside.

If my memory serves me correctly the first thing I was hit with at school was the 12 inch rule (not a ruler as kings and queens are rulers these things you measure with are ‘rules’) I am not sure that is why I was hit across either the knuckles or the palm of my hand but hit I was, and this is just a primary school, I am sure slaps across the back of the legs were handed out as well.

It wasn’t until I had moved to secondary school that the implements of choice varied in both their efficiency and size. I will of course name that school should any of you have been there and remember. It was Walliscote Secondary Modern School for Boys in Weston-Super-Mare.

I guess that most people my age will have been punished at school through the use of the ‘slipper’. The ‘slipper’ in my school usually meant the rubber sole of a tennis shoe; it was also called a plimsoll. Sometimes it was just the rubber sole other teachers seemed to prefer to have the rest of the shoe still attached; perhaps it gave added grip and weight. But it still stung whatever version was used.

Usually the chosen victim was paraded out to the front of the class and was then asked to bend over and touch the toes; six of the best was then applied to the arse. At the end of the session it was usually the done thing to have to say ‘Thank you Sir’ to the teacher that had done the whacking.

One time the teacher whacked the whole class, 30 boys, for making a noise while he was out of the classroom.

Of course the slipper isn’t the only weapon used by teachers, I have also been hit by cricket bats and fencing foils. Obviously these were used by the games teacher. While the cricket bat is sore the fencing foil leaves a deeper red mark. And the fact that the teacher used to lie in wait for us as we came out of the showers and whack us across our naked arses makes me wonder if I still have grounds to sue the perverted bastard.

The woodwork teacher had plenty of different shapes and sizes of wood like doweling etc to use on us but if we got him really wild he would resort to throwing the first thing at hand at us, one time he threw wood chisels at us which whizzed past our ears and embedded themselves in the walls of the room.

Other teachers preferred to throw the board rubber which if you were lucky got you with the cloth soft covered side rather than the wooden bit, but if you were hit you carried the chalky mark around with you all day on your blazer. Sometimes it was used across the knuckles as well.

The worst and most pervey punishment though has to be laid at the feet of the deputy headmaster. He had a metal arm and if you needed punishment he would lay you across his lap and wedge you down by laying his metal arm across your neck so you couldn’t escape and then he would start pinching the inside of your thighs, I think he called it ‘German Measles’ after a few minutes of this you would have to jump off, stand to attention and say ‘Thank you Sir’.

Bring back corporal punishment they say, it never harmed me. Well I suppose it never did harm me per se but I guess I still remember it and at the time it was humiliating and I do feel that some of the punishment did border on the pervey, but that was only in hindsight.

I am just glad that I am not a teacher in a comprehensive school.