I have never forgotten the two canings a particular teacher gave me at the Secondary Modern school I attended in the 1950’s. I never forgot them for two different reasons. One was the hardest two strokes of the cane I ever suffered whereas the other was four, slightly less hard, unconventional whacks. The first* is remembered for the searing pain, shared with one similar unfortunate boy, the other remembered for the humiliation suffered by myself and three others. But the memory plays tricks, and whilst I have always held in my mind the name of the boy who also got two burning cuts of a vicious cane I have completely lost the names of the three who, with me, got it on their bare backsides. And it is only now that I can state definitely the order in which these two canings took place. I was fourteen and a half when I bent down for two hard strokes to my covered bottom in front of forty pairs of eager and fascinated eyes. I was twelve when I got my first, and only, bare bottom caning at my last place of full time education. It is the latter I wish to tell you about. It happened, like the other referred to, in the past of yesterday. But like that other experience it shaped all my tomorrows.
I was in my first year of senior education. I passed the eleven plus but my parents could not afford the requirements and financial demands of grammar school. They wanted me out working at fifteen and grammar school kids stayed on till eighteen. Even in those days. But I was bright so, along with thirty nine other boys, I was placed in the top stream. 1A. They had large classes in those days but corporal punishment, if not rampant, was still in vogue and that silent and unseen threat helped to keep order. Only the most foolhardy or stupid risked getting the cane and stream 1A contained few, if any, of those. Besides we had only just come up from junior school where a strap or slipper kept us in order. The cane, rarely applied, was only to our hands. But here, at the big school, they not only used the cane but they applied to the bottom. I know because our last junior school teacher took great delight in telling the boys of his mixed class that uncomfortable fact. The thought of being caned on the bottom struck fear into most eleven, going on twelve, year old boys and I was no exception. All other punishments, even the bare bottom beltings I had from my dad when I was seven or eight paled into insignificance. The cane was the most hated and feared implement and all, even the bright class of 1A, remembered the warnings.
I would be lying if I said I could remember all the details of that first year at my senior school. I can remember some events, but they could have happened in a later year, and there are others that probably happened during that first year that the mind has shifted elsewhere. As the years flow everything, or most things, get jumbled up and re-arranged. And some get forgotten completely. But I remember my first form teacher telling me he expected me, thwarted grammar school boy that I was, to come top of the class. And I remember meeting a new best friend who, although not seen or heard of for many years, has figured in many of my stories and reminiscences. And, although I can’t place them exactly, I must have got whacked a couple of times. Not serious whackings, not punishment book ritual canings or standing in front of the class canings, but whackings all the same. We had a chemistry teacher who delighted in wielding a long rubber tube which imparted an incredible sting to our rears, and we had a variety of physical education teachers who casually, and informally, walloped behinds covered only in thin cotton shorts. I certainly experienced them all during my three and a half years at the school. So it is likely that at some time in that first year, sometime during the period I changed from eleven to twelve, I was made to touch my toes for old fashioned 1950’s discipline. I can only think I must have because whilst I clearly remember that special teacher who gave me, and three others, a very special and personal caning I do not remember it being the first time I was made to bend over. I am sure that if it had been the first time, particularly as he had made it clear we were going to be caned, I would never have forgotten. No, it was memorable, and remains memorable because when I bent over I was as stark naked as the day I was born.
I know I was about twelve because in that first year of senior school we were made to go to swimming lessons at the local baths once a week. I hated it because I couldn’t swim and had no great desire to learn. But the teacher who took us swimming, the same teacher who two years on was to give me my other defining school caning, was a hard task master who cared little for nervous dispositions. So once a week we all had to go and, once a week for an hour, he did his best to turn us into natural swimmers. Week by week the number who learnt to swim grew and grew and the floundering few in the shallow end, clinging to polystyrene boards, got less and less. After a time there were only a hard half a dozen or so hopeless young souls who nature and nurture had decided would never, in a million years, swim. If this was a story of fiction you would expect, and probably would get, a narrative which went along the lines of a frustrated teacher eventually coming to the end of his tether and whacking the behinds of the non swimmers. Taken from the pool, the three foot end, trunks would be whipped down and non swimmer bottoms would be quickly reddened. And then the tearful, humiliated, twelve year olds would be thrown back into the water and told it would happen every week until they could swim. And it would go on like that until only one boy was left, tearful and fearful, in the shallow end. But life is more complicated than art. And whilst four young boys did get their bottoms caned I have no idea if the other three, like me, were non swimmers. Justice says they should have been, but I suspect that it is more than possible that at least one flashy, confident swimmer, was unlucky. I like to think so.
On the fateful day in question our swimming teacher was clearly in a bad mood. We didn’t know that at the time, and we didn’t know what caused it. When we queued for swimming, a hated swimming lesson I was confident I would not have to do, none of us had any idea that this teacher had drastic plans for anyone who had arrived at the baths unprepared. There was always the occasional lad who had a note from his mother, or his doctor, giving reasons why swimming would not be advisable that week. And there was always one or more who, for a variety of spurious reasons, had forgotten to bring their swimming trunks to school. I regularly fell into the latter category. Not too often, I wasn’t stupid, but on as many occasions as I thought I might get away with it. Pressed on oath I would swear that my forgetfulness was genuine but, on reflection, it was clearly a subconscious desire to avoid the weekly dip into water at all costs. On that particular day there were six or seven, I cannot remember exactly how many, out of that class of forty who lined up in the reception area awaiting dismissal. The usual routine was that we were made to sit in the viewing area until the walk back to school. But on this particular day we were soon to find out that an ill tempered teacher had alternative plans.
It would be nice if I could now, step by step, relate the various emotions I went through when the teacher made his announcement. It would be nice but it would not be true. I remember the fateful words, I remember going to the changing room with the other boys and I can recall, in some detail, the unexpected option we were given. And, of course, what happened in that changing room. But how I felt about it all, up until the last scene, still escapes me. I suppose I must have been a little puzzled when he dismissed some of the boys, a little shocked when he told the rest of us that we must do the lesson without trunks, and a little nervous when we made our way to the changing room. I suppose all these things but I do not know. I do not know whether we went in silence or chatted, I do not know whether we were brave or fearful, but I do know that when we got there we just stood around for a few moments. One of us, I have no idea whether it was me or another boy, must have started to undress and before long four small twelve year old boys stood naked and apprehensive. We edged along the thin narrow gap that separated two sets of cubicles towards the opening to the pool and there we stopped. News travels fast and bad news travels even faster and as the head of our little group, it wasn’t me as I was definitely at the back, reached the opening he stopped. The amplified noise from the swimming pool was frightening and the collective howls and jeers from thirty odd unseen, unbroken, voices seemed menacing and threatening. They may not have known about our dilemma, they may not have known that four of their school chums nakedly shivered out of sight, but we convinced ourselves that they did. The thought of going skinny dipping with such potential savages struck fear into all of us. Any alternative would be preferable. It was as we were standing close to the opening, a disconsolate line of four naked twelve year olds, that the alternative was offered. The teacher had stepped, unnoticed, into the top end of the changing room. I do not know how long he had been watching us but he called out something that caught our attention and, as we turned in unison, he offered us that alternative. Four strokes of the cane. Each. As we were. I nodded or mumbled acceptance, grateful to avoid both hated water and the unwanted attentions of scornful chums, and the others must have done the same. They must have done because nobody went into the swimming pool and, seconds later, the teacher went off to fetch the cane.
There are a couple of important things I need to say here. One is because I wish to set the following scene very clearly for you, and the other is because it says a little about my strange personality which, even at twelve, was beginning to develop. The changing room was a very sombre and dark area in an old fashioned, council owned, swimming baths. Where we schoolboys changed, open cubicles, each with a small wooden seat, lined either side of what formed a long narrow passage to the swimming pool. We left our clothes on the individual seats when we went swimming. At the top end of the changing room, where we came in, the area opened up to a slightly bigger square, lined on all sides with rectangular steel lockers. These were presumably for the public to store their valuables. But we weren’t public, we were schoolboys, so we never used this area. But today it would come in very useful for a teacher wishing to swing a cane. There was no way he could do it in the narrow cubicle area; he would have to summon us to the top end of the changing room. Naturally we decided to stay where we were until he returned. The distance between four, huddled, naked boys and the teacher with the cane would be at least forty, possibly fifty, feet. I didn’t think like this at the time and I know I wasn’t looking forward to being caned but I do know, and I do remember, that the idea of walking that fifty feet in my birthday suit excited me. I do not mean I got an erection, that was still some time in the future, but I do know that the prospect of walking naked to my doom induced a not unpleasant reaction in my stomach. I may not have got hooked on the delights of caning that day but I certainly experienced the small thrill of being in the naked state. For all my fear of a vengeful teacher with a cane he could not, unlike the predatory swimming schoolmates, totally extinguish that pleasure.
We seemed to be waiting for ages but I am sure it could not have been more than a couple of minutes before he returned with the dreaded cane in his hand. It never occurred to me then, as it does now, where he got it from. It could have been his own cane, kept in his car, or it could have been one kept on the premises precisely for such situations. But it was clearly a cane and it looked fierce. I have no idea what sort it was but given that later in my school life I saw a variety of canes I suspect it was pale yellow and about thirty inches long. I remember him asking again if we wished to take the option of swimming and when we said no, he called the first boy to come forward. Who that boy was is lost to history but I know it wasn’t me. I always remember, and it is as it should be, that I was caned last. The first boy walked forward and was told to touch his toes, or at least bend down as far as he could. A right handed teacher and the shape of the locker area dictated that the boy faced the far wall and the small bare bum was pointed towards us. I think that must have been the reason but, on reflection, it could be that the teacher wanted us to see where the pain was being inflicted. Whatever the reason, the three watching boys were gripped with their eyes never leaving the distant bent, and naked, bottom. We held our breath, we must have done, and the teacher whacked the first boy’s cheeks four times with the cane. I remember thinking that it did not seem too hard and the bum didn’t look very marked. But when he returned to us, and the second boy took his place, he was definitely crying and there were reddish lines where the cane had struck.
If we were summoned by name then mine was the last to be called out, but it is more likely that I held back with a greater will than the others. But I do remember being called and walking the narrow passage to where the teacher was standing. And I can recall to this day standing naked before him, and I have never forgotten his name, waiting the instruction to bend over. And I can remember trying to touch my toes and feeling the cane tap my bottom. And I can remember him saying ‘hold tight’ which is probably why I often use that evocative phrase in so many of my stories. And he hit me four times with that anonymous cane on my bare bottom. I do not know if he hit me harder than the other three, why should he, but I do know that each individual burning pain to my bottom seemed much worse than the ones I had just watched the others get. And I know that when I rose, rubbing my bottom to ease that pain, I had tears in my eyes. They did not flow, I did not let them, but the throbbing in my bum did its best to induce them.
The aftermath of this small unseen drama, unseen by any other than the five involved, is completely lost in the mists of times. We must have discussed it with our classmates as there was an endless fascination with such matters in the 1950’s. But we didn’t tell our parents or any one else. Why should we? Corporal punishment was commonplace in those days and even if this one was a little unusual, if it did sail a little close to the wind, I doubt if the authorities would have been interested. I have since had many suspicions about that particular teacher and his motives but I bear him no grudge. I don’t even bear him a grudge for the more vicious caning he gave me two years later, a caning which left two thick purpled flamed weals on my behind for weeks, so I certainly do not begrudge him the sowing of an abiding and joyous memory. Conducting such an act today would probably land him in prison. But he would not do it today. We are all a product of our times. And in the 1950’s it was just about acceptable, if not officially endorsed, in certain circumstances to cane naked young boys on their bare bottoms. That teacher found the circumstances, realised the opportunity, and took advantage of it. And at least one of those boys has always remembered it and is glad that it happened.
Alfred Roy © (2009)
*Yesterday's Boy - to be posted later this month.