I can remember couple of boys in my class saying that on the way to the headmasters office they would visit the toilet to add a few sheets of toilet paper under their pants so the cane wouldn’t cut in so deep.
Has anyone here used padding or heard of others doing it?
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2 folded Handkerchiefs (one on each cheek) were tried by many but not sure how effective this was. Another trick in the winter was,on the way back from fetching the cane from the office and just before getting a teacher to witness your caning was to stick your butt against a hot radiator to get it hot which was supposed to help. Problem was that by the time you had got the teacher to witness and got back to class and bent over your butt had probably cooled down.
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Certainly not. Absolutely not cricket. Take your punishment with fortitude, and remember to thank Sir afterwards.
Actually yes, I did come across it once or twice. A fairly tight extra pair of swimming trunks was unobtrusive and would not show in outline – nor alter the sound from thwack to thud. Still not cricket though, and I never tried it myself.
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Fomal punishment in my school was always the strap on the hand. Howerver we were slippered in the gym was to slip the back of your vest into you shorts to lessen the impact of the plimsole. Some boys managed to get away with it!
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Whilst on the subject of padding I don’t remember any boy ever trying it in my school.
Padding was popular in comics of the time. A book was the usual item, very visible of course.
I may have mentioned this here before but in the mid 1950s schoolboy trouser material changed. Up to then school trousers, short or long, were made grey flannel, a fairly thick woollen material compared its replacement, namely Terylene. This new wonder material was very much thinner and somewhat more durable. At around the same time boys underpants were becoming briefer and possibly a bit thinner.
I also seem to remember that shirt tails were a fair longer than modern day ones. Shirt tails nowadays have become very different in that they are now cut so as to allow them to be worn outside of trousers. The old style shirt tails could come down over the buttocks and with the older flannel trousers did offer more protection than was available to boys in the 60s and 70s. I seem to remember my first grammar school grey shorts were made of flannel but subsequent ones and long trousers were Terylene. I have no idea if any teachers were aware that boys’ backsides were a bit less protected in the new thinner trousers.
The change of material would have made no difference to most spankings at home as most were spanked or slippered across underpants, pyjamas or the bare bottom.
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My school uniform was either white cotton or grey flannel shirts. The grey ones, I think, were a cheaper option and certainly were thicker than the white ones. I’m not sure shirts back then unbuttoned completely or went over your head.
Back then trousers were worn belted around the waist unlike nowadays trouser tops today when many modern youngsters wear them more around the hips than the waist.
Ties back then were always worn with the top shirt button fastened. I’m not sure if many of today’s youngsters even know how to tie a decent tie knot. That said the same goes for many adults too. The days of full Windsor or half Windsor tie knots are long gone for many including some politicians and so called celebrities. World War 2 RAF pilots were reputed to wear their uniform shirts with the top button unfastened.
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I have heard that many schools have dispensed with normal ties, either completely or in favour of ready tied clip-on ones. The rationale isn’t that modern boys are too stupid to tie them, but that are a choking hazard, especially during fighting. When I was at school, we did have to have the top button done up when we were wearing a tie. In the summer, we sometimes were allowed not to wear one, in which case, we had to leave the top button open.
