A few months ago I set about collecting data from facebook regarding the SCP of females within the UK. So far I’ve collected data from just under 700 schools in England, Northern Ireland & Wales (I’ve yet to investigate Scotland). I also totally understand that this data is what it is. It is from facebook! I have no way of validating it. My simple rule for data collection was if I thought it looked genuine I collected it, if it didn’t then I didn’t. I could/will argue that facebook data is at least and probably more accurate than data from friendsreunited. If one was inclined to post a fib or fantasy In my opinion it is more difficult and time consuming to register do so on facebook then it was on friendsreunited. I also want to clarify that I don’t really like facebook, however it is the best source out there I can find at the moment.
Anyway, here are some of the figures so far:
Schools investigated 695
SCP administered 508
SCP not-administered 187
Northern Ireland:
13 Schools investigated
10 Schools used SCP
3 Schools didn’t use SCP
50 individual cases found. The earliest being between 1964 and 1968 and the latest between 1984 and the time of the ban.
Cane On Hand = 50%
Cane On Unknown Anatomy = 28%
Slipper On Bottom 8%
Cane On Bottom = 6%
Bat On Bottom = 2%
Hockey stick On Bottom = 2%
Ruler On Bottom = 2%
Wooden Thing On Bottom = 2%
Wales:
27 Schools investigated
17 Schools used SCP
9 Schools didn’t use SCP
128 Individual Cases Found. The earliest being in 1954 and the latest between 1985 and the time of the ban.
Cane On Unknown Anatomy = 56%
Cane On Hand = 19%
Slipper On Unknown Anatomy = 13%
Ruler On Hand = 3%
Slipper On Bottom 3%
Cane On Bottom = 2%
Hand On Bottom = 2%
Ruler On Bottom = 2%
Ruler On Unknown Anatomy = 2%
Slipper On Legs = 2%
(I know the percentages don’t add up, this is because I’ve rounded them off to the nearest full number)
With hinsight, I could/should have identified (if possible) the gender of the teacher. I will factor this in and repost at some point.
Obviously, have a load of data from England to analyse. I’ll probably break it down by county.
A couple of things I’ve learned during these investigations:
The slipper/dap//trainer was also administered on the hand. Due to personal experiences and spending too much time of my childhood reading comics had clearly given me a preconceived notion that it was always given across the bottom. However, this was not always the case.
Identifying a year is difficult, unless stated. Furthermore, schools changed their names a lot and often switched from being Senior to Primary schools. Hence, why these figures are a little generic. I probably will do separate statistics at some point. However, you then get the issue of Middle/Junior Schools, consequently I’ll have to give this some more thought.
It is also worth noting not to take things too literally, such as the term caned. An example would be when someone stated they were caned with a ruler.
I actually think the likelihood of females being honest about SCP is greater than males. In one group a former teacher pointed out that a lot of men we’re lying about being caned by him in an attempt to make them themselves sound more macho lol. Of course, the teacher could have been lying, though I did think he had a valid point.
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A brilliant contribution, thank you. Few will understand or appreciate the immense amount of work involved, but I certainly do!
You make some most interesting comments:
My simple rule for data collection was if I thought it looked genuine I collected it, if it didn’t then I didn’t.
Just about the most reliable standard that can be applied to the analysis of self-reported SCP incidents I think. Provided that, as I know to be the case with your analysis, the researcher is not convinced that every school everywhere was exactly like the one he or she attended.
I could/will argue that facebook data is at least and probably more accurate than data from friendsreunited. If one was inclined to post a fib or fantasy In my opinion it is more difficult and time consuming to register do so on facebook then it was on friendsreunited.
Hmm, I’m not absolutely certain about that one. However I know little of Facebook, so I shall defer to your greater knowledge. It is certainly the case that there are rather more confessions, nay even boasts, of naughtiness on Friends Reunited to be found in this Forum than there are of similar behaviour on Facebook. Even I have admitted to having accidentally got myself listed as a former pupil at an elite grammar school for girls in northern England on Friends Reunited, whereas I don’t recall any similar revelations regarding Facebook. Some which could be inferred perhaps, but nothing concrete.
However, in the absence of your opinion I would have taken the view that there was likely to be just as much deception and invention on Facebook as on Friends Reunited. Anyone can be anything they like, from single to multiple identities, on Facebook, just as they could on Friends Reunited. I can’t recall the procedures on Friends Reunited, but on Facebook as far as I can see the only check is email address and, I assume, IP address. If I want 20 different email addresses, each associated with a different IP address tonight it wouldn’t be a problem, and knowing how to do that certainly isn’t exclusive to me.
The only real validation test of SCP data on Facebook or anywhere else on the web that I can see without access to individual school official records etc. is the aforementioned personal opinion and the presence of so many contributors confirming a report that they are unlikely to all be sock puppets of the reporter. I would though make something of an exception for school groups on Facebook where the group is in effect private as regards contributions and the group owner validates authenticity before allowing contributory access. Not foolproof, but better than nothing.
I actually think the likelihood of females being honest about SCP is greater than males.
A most interesting comment! My own observations on this phenomenon divide sharply between Scotland and England. In Scotland there was a period when in state schools the belt was extensively used on both girls and boys. Lots of people got belted and no great disgrace was implied thereby. Being a couple of minutes late for school or very minor classroom misbehavior could incur a belting.
Further, punishment was almost invariably on the hands. No risk of prurient speculations or assumptions about punishment on the bottom being triggered by a confession of having been belted. And I assume that it is as a consequence of those factors that I’ve noted that women in Scotland are often quite happy to discuss and even to initiate discussion of SCP.
In England though girls were certainly subjected to SCP substantially less than boys. By implication for a girl to have been dealt with by SCP a fairly serious misdemeanor might well be assumed. In the SCP era there was still a social expectation that girls should be better behaved than boys so this would infer that a girl incurring SCP really was a bad girl.
Further, although probably the majority of SCP of girls in England did not involve bending over, some of it certainly did, and a confession of being in receipt of SCP might trigger speculation or questioning in that area. And as might perhaps be expected I’ve always found women in England tend not to initiate discussion of SCP. As to whether they are completely honest about it when they do discuss it. Well I think the jury’s out on that one! ?
As regards your actual statistics, very well presented indeed, thank you. When I can find it I shall be interested to compare your totals with the analysis I did of Friends Reunited data. At present I can’t get into the Forum search engine to locate it. It really is a nuisance. However mine was not nearly as large a database as yours. Your persistence and hard work does you great credit. I do though recall that, like you, I afterwards wished that I had included additional analysis, including the gender of the teacher administering SCP, which you mention.
BTW, congratulations on your splendid new avatar. Very smart indeed, even if not in the slightest naughty!
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When deciding if I think a SCP case is genuine my criteria tends to include peer validation. And checking to see if the profile looks genuine? I also think that in a lot of cases that less information is likely to be more factual. If for example Julie goes into great detail describing how she was caned in the 6th form and remembers her skirt being raised, keeping her legs straight and touching her toes whilst Mr Fiddle caned her bare backside 12 times in front of her boyfriend, the chances are it would be fake. However, if Julie states I was caned 3 times on my hand for smoking in the 4th, I would believe it and include it.
On reflection it is probably unfair of me to make comparisons between friends reunited and facebook. Different eras and different times. Although, from what I recall, you just needed an e-mail address for Friends reunited. I do confess I didn’t use it much. For facebook you can sign up with an e-mail address. However, for an account to be taken as genuine you ideally need a photo. A photo of course could be stolen and used, but that is of course immoral and apparently facebook has excellent facial recognition technology, of course this could be lie. Facebook investigators Peter John, Paul Crook & Christine Lewis use cartoon, generic stock or no images. Hence, very easy to spot their fake accounts.
This project is time consuming, though at least it is something I can do from home and at my own pace. If ever the necessary documentation from official government archives goes online or I would do this again. However, I am utterly convinced that not all SCP was documented even when it was a legal requirement. Once I complete this project (my initial aim was to investigate 1000 UK Schools), I will compare these statistics to the data I have from friendsreunited. I don’t know if I’m allowed to post it on here but here is my e-mail address I-The-Researcher@protonmail.com If you want me to send you the data charts as I build them I will gladly do so. I also have a fair bit of information regarding the Old Rodney School that I’ve not yet posted on here yet as I’m still writing my thoughts on it.
Regarding, my opinion of males being more likely to perhaps exaggerate their SCP experience do demonstrate their masculinity, I’ll give it some more thought. There is no doubt that at least in England, Northern Ireland & Wales that males were far more likely to be recipients. I am though looking forward to investigating some Scottish Schools and I may do some comparisons albeit on a lesser scale to see if the ratio is closer.
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The North East of England!
Featuring the counties of:
Durham, Northumberland & Tyne and Wear
34 Schools investigated
28 Schools used SCP
8 Schools didn’t use SCP
193 individual cases found. The earliest being between being between 1954 and 1957 and the latest between 1984 and the time of the ban.
Cane on Unknown Anatomy = 40%
Cane on hand = 14%
Slipper on Unknown Anatomy = 10%
Strap on Unknown Anatomy= 8%
Slipper on Bottom = 5%
Other Implement on Unknown Anatomy = 4%
Hand On Bottom = 3%
Slipper On Legs + 3%
Strap on Hand = 3%
Hand On Legs = 2%
Other on Bottom = 2%
Cane on bottom = 1%
(I know the percentages don’t add up, this is because I’ve rounded them off to the nearest full number)
Other implements include:
Bats (Cricket, Rounders and Bella the Bat which was described as an oversized table tennis bat a big paddle thing)
Brush
Cosh?
Spoon
Whip (I presume a thin cane)
As this project is still ongoing and also to save myself some time I’m going to stick with just including the data of which implements were used and to which part of the anatomy they were applied to. When I reach the required numbers (probably end of the year) I shall repost with the new data and also include the gender of the teacher, and possibly which decade (though this might be too tricky). Moreover, I’ll see if I can includepie charts or at least some tables.
Not surprisingly most of this data comes from County Durham and Tyne & Wear. A couple of points of interest may include an article that is mentioned here on the corpun website. This school has a public facebook group and there is some interesting discussion including a thread specifically about the aforementioned incident. Also at whilst investigating Castleview School in Sunderland I encoutered this article that triggers some interesting discussion regarding his past exploits.
Not really a lot in Northumberland but that is no surprise due to a lesser amount of schools. Somebody had uploaded a couple of scans of a punishment book from 1976 at Hirst High School in Ashington which I have stolen and will upload.
Other than that there are just a couple of cases of high school slipperings and one particularly cruel case of a 7 year old girl receiving a bare bottom spanking from a female teacher in 1982/83 which I think must have been very rare the 1980s.
Anyway, I’ll be posting more regional FB statistics over the coming weeks as I analyse the data. If anyone wants me to prioritise a certain region first I’m happy to do so. Though, it is likely I’ll concentrate on the North West next. Obviously, most of the data comes from London, Manchester, West Midlands, South & West Yorkshire so those areas will take me a while longer to process.
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Two more excellent and instructive contributions from you, thank you. I haven’t taken advantage of your very kind offer of advance sight of your analysis data via email. This is certainly not because I find the data of no interest. It is simply that I hate letting people down and sadly there are already far too many past and current contributors here who can confirm that I can sometimes be the world’s worst and slowest email correspondent. I have never liked email as a communication medium, I use it very little, and if pressure on time mounts email is what goes to the wall on every occasion.
I was amused by your contribution #3 imaginary SCP reminiscence contributor describing being caned on the bare in front of her boyfriend. Amazingly I recall some such submissions here. Usually it was a male claiming to have been so punished in front of his girl friend, though sometimes the claim was that they had been so punished together. For some reason such punishments were almost always claimed to have taken place in the gym with the recipients bent over a gym horse.
Then of course there was the contributor who claimed to have twice been caned naked on stage in front of an assembly of his public school, the second time after it had gone co-ed! Naturally they were all completely believed and duly commiserated with! ?
For the record although there are such claims in published biographies and autobiographies which have been mentioned here, I can readily recall only two believable items in first hand contributions dealing with a schoolgirl caned on the bare at school. One involved two 11/12 year olds, boy and girl, so caned together at a small 1950s prep school for a joint offence. The other, involving a caning for serious dishonesty and possible theft at a secondary school in the English midlands, was certainly believable but alas was almost certainly the work of a very clever former contributor who was not averse to a little deception to drum up interest.
In contribution #5 you mention the ‘Heaton Riots’ so called, when schoolgirls ran amok, terrorising members of the public, teachers and, according to the more sensational reports, police sent to control them, after being told by their headmaster that due to deteriorating standards of behaviour they would in future be subject to SCP like the boys.
The Heaton riots have featured here several times. In the Corpun report that you link one of the interesting features of the media reports quoted is how many papers, even local ones, give the impression that what naughty girls were facing in future was the cane. In fact I think ‘the cane’ was simply seen by many as embodying SCP, a sort of generic term for it, like ‘Hoover’ for vacuum cleaners. However at least one paper also claims a quote from one of the girls to the effect that compared to boys the girls would be be at a disadvantage when being punished because they wore skirts.
In fact the punitive implement being (re)introduced for the girls at the Heaton Comprehensive was the Newcastle LEA recommended punishment strap, a rather puny implement compared to the average Scottish tawse and, like the tawse, normally deployed against palms of hands not bottoms.
The ‘riot’ worried the worthy representatives on the LEA, and shortly afterwards a new recommended punitive implement, the Newcastle ‘Super Strap’ was introduced to deal with the new breed of recalcitrant school children. In the less frenetic atmosphere then prevailing the media managed to get the new implement and its direct link to the ‘riot’ right this time. Though a little larger and heavier than its predecessor the ‘Super Strap’ would still have made the average Scottish state primary pupil fall about laughing.
It will be interesting to read the Facebook thread on the ‘riot’ on the Heaton page you linked, if I can find it. Sadly I probably shan’t be able to. Facebook makes even Friends Reunited (which was bloody awful) look good when it comes to sensible navigation.
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Thank you as always for your response and I’m pleased you appreciate the posts. No problem at all regarding e-mail correspondence I am also far from fast when it comes to communication. I’m not sure how to private message on here or attach/upload the data files. The offer stands anyway. I also hope I haven’t misled you with the links to the corpun website and linkskill School’s facebook page. The article I was intended to link is actually tucked away in between the articles regarding the Heaton riots. Here it is in its entirety:
Evening Chronicle, Newcastle/Tyne, 12 January 1976
Parents back girl caning, says head
A TYNESIDE headmaster who caned two girl pupils today said he had never received any complaints from parents over the school’s corporal punishment policy.
Mr. Donald Simpson, headmaster of Linskill High School, North Shields, caned two girls after they had assaulted 15-year-old girl pupil who did not invite them to her Christmas party.
The assaulted girl’s father said today that he had contacted a solicitor about the incident. But Mr. Simpson said: “The incident was reported to me by my deputy, and the girls were dealt with immediately.
“The matter was finished last week, and there is no animosity between the girls.”
He added: “It is wrong that a squabble between three girls should endanger the reputation of the school.”
The 970 pupils at Linskill School have a good reputation. Mr. Simpson said that, in his six years at the school, he had never yet had complaints from parents, disagreeing with school policy on corporal punishment for certain offences – especially violence.
“Not one per cent. of the pupils will ever have had the cane at the school,” said Mr. Simpson. “We have got a comprehensive cross section of pupils, and a lot of thoroughly sensible parents interested in their children’s education and welfare, and they support us up to the hilt.”
[…]
Today Mr. John Partington, Director of Education for North Tyneside, said he had received no report on the incident and he stressed that the Authority’s policy on discipline is that the headmaster is entirely responsible.
“It is left entirely to the headmaster and there is no formal scheme for corporal punishment in North Tyneside schools, other than that details of the punishment must be entered in a punishment book – that applies to all schools in Britain,” said Mr. Partington.
Regarding the Heaton riots, those involved claim that it was triggered by the inequality of girls not being allowed to wear trousers and that the corporal punishment factor was jumped upon by the media. Susan (who was one of the ring leaders and who’s photo was in the media at that time) claims that old askew took all the girls into asembly and told us we were to be caned the same as boys i stood up and asked if we could wear trousers to be told i was a stupid girl, so i walked out of asembly and phoned the chronicle next day strike. This is further supported by Pam who states that The caning link was that Harry Askew announced that girls were to be punished in the same way as the boys if they had committed the same offence – Harry was featured in the local paper as saying that this was only fair ‘in these days of equality’….several of us then jumped on the fact that girls were not, in fact, equal to the boys as they were not allowed to wear trousers….12 of us walked into school the following day wearing trousers and were promptly sent out of school assembly and asked to congregate in the headmaster’s office….I argued with him and it would have ended there but other folk decided to make a general protest which got out of hand. We won the trouser debate tho. There are plenty more references within the group that all tell a similar story. I could also find no evidence within the group of any girls ever receiving SCP whilst at Heaton. Of course, this does not mean to say it didn’t happen.
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An excellent contribution thank you. Oh dear, I really have managed to muddy the water in #6! I almost wrote that I got the wrong end of the stick, but in the context of caning it seemed best to avoid that particular idiom! ?
Anyway, my apologies. I went to the Corpun link you gave, saw the reference to the Heaton riots at the top of the page and set off down the wrong track, missing the Linskill High School item. For reference, on the excellent Corpun.Com site, as it is an extremely well written technically, it is possible to link directly to many items, including most individual articles on composite pages, but to do so sometimes requires viewing browser page source and knowledge of HTML page anchors.
Here is a direct link to the Linskill High School article you wished to highlight. Scrolling on down the page to the next article, from the Daily telegraph, 13 January 1976, reveals that in the Linskill High School incident two fifth form (15 year old) girls were give 6 strokes of a small ‘bamboo’ cane on the hand by the headmaster for assaulting a classmate who failed to invite them to a party. The punishments are referred to as ‘six of the best’.
As regards the ‘Heaton Riots’ so-called, I really am surprised that the Facebook page indicates that the disturbance was effectively over the right of girls at the school to wear trousers as an alternative to skirts as part of school uniform. A demand which had apparently simmered for some time and was brought to a head by schoolgirl dismay at the prospect of being caned, presumably bent over, in a skirt rather than in trousers, when the Headmaster indicated that SCP was to be introduced for girls.
Perusal of the several press articles referencing the ‘riots’ and their aftermath on this CorPun page reveals consistent reference to the strap (in one case the tawse) as the punitive implement concerned, after the initial mentions of the cane in the Newcastle Evening Chronicle article of 7 January 1976.
I have always understood that the strap on the hand was the SCP MO at the Heaton Comprehensive, and indeed the difficulties at the school were cited as one of the reasons for the subsequent introduction of the so-called ‘Newcastle Super Strap’. One Press article quoted (Newcastle Evening Chronicle, 14 January 1976) has a letter to the paper, allegedly from 5th form girls at the Heaton Comprehensive, which disparages the behaviour of the ‘rioters’ and draws attention to the incorrect identification of the punitive implement as a cane rather than a strap.
An interesting one. I was tempted to wonder if ‘Susan’ and ‘Pam’ on Facebook who you identify as the main protagonists of the trousers v skirts and threat of the cane as being the cause of the riots had some sort of angle to promote, but you say they were supported by other people. All very strange. It is always worth remembering that on the web a few people working in concert can readily take advantage of a silent or uninterested majority to promote a particular line which may not necessarily reflect the truth.
And on a closing note on that (for the moment anyway). While searching for something else and having no success I idly typed heaton riots schoolgirl protest into duckduckgo and up came a January 11, 2021 ‘nostalgia’ item on the (Newcastle) Chronicle Live website celebrating the 45th anniversary of the Heaton Riots. Here it is. Note reference to the strap throughout. Nary a mention of the cane.
You asked about private messaging. It is disabled in this group. Documents are easy to upload but are of course available for anyone with access to the group to download. You simply upload the document as you would for an in-line graphic, but leave the ‘Place inline’ flag unchecked. I’ve attached a PDF by way of illustration.
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Thanks adding the correct links. Unfortunately, as you can probably tell, I have somewhat limited IT skills. Regarding the Heaton riots I can only post what I find in the group. There are several discussions regarding the riots with links to the corpun website. I’ve had a bit more of a perusal tonight, and so far I’ve only found one gentleman claiming the riots were triggered by protesting about the strap/cane. Whilst many others state that this was untrue. I know you don’t go on facebook and you’d need to register to see these so I’ll post them for you:
This is from John:
My recollection is that Government gender equality legislation had just been introduced and that girls had said that this should mean that they should be allowed to wear trousers like the boys. The headmasters response was that if they wanted to be treated equally, this would mean that they should also receive corporal punishment like the boys. A number of girls and parents mounted a demonstration which resulted in groups running around the playing fields and the police turning up. I seem to recall that prefects and sixth formers were drafted in to help regain control and I have a recollection of the 6th form block coming under some kind of attack/siege.
Subsequent to the ‘riot’ the school garnered the attention of the SWP (Socialist Workers Party) who clearly saw the pupils as fertile revolutionary material and handed out leaflets at the school gates. Bizarrely, the national press in the form of The Sun newspaper picked up on this and led with a headline of TROTS STIR UP RIOT SCHOOL or words to that effect.
Julie:
What a load of rubbish!!
The riot was about girls not being allowed to wear trousers in the winter.
The school was old and in a state of disrepair.
We wanted to wear trousers as the boys could.
About 10 of us turned up to school wearing trousers and were immediately sent to the deputy heads office.
He told us that he despised us!!
We were then told that we were to be given the cane.
That was the point that we walked out onto the field.
Askew lied to the journalists and said that it was all about girls getting the cane.
All we wanted was to keep warm !!
The journalists should have asked us for the real reason for the walk out.
Kim:
Well said Julie – that’s exactly what happened
Kay:
it was a combination.of the girls wanting equality by wearing trousers so tge school decided on equality across the board and some didn’t like equal equality! I got to do woodwork which I eventually took to A level and still do today. I was in a math lesson with Hal Gibson. he asked if anyone wanted to join, 2 girls left, the rest of us carried on with our lesson and locked tge door.
Rita:
your right it was, it started about trousers then Mr Askew said if you want equality, we will give it, we will give equal punishment same as the boys too but I think it was said “tongue in cheek” but it all kicked off. Think he thought we’d back off wanting to wear trousers. The message of trouser wearing got lost in the “strap message”
Norma:
I remember things got out of hand… don’t know who? But as far as I was concerned it was purely about wearing trousers & trying to keep warm x
Jan:
Norma that’s the real cause! This journalism is so untrue!
Tracey:
If I remember right it was about more than just getting the strap
Bruce:
I’m sure it was also about girls not being allowed to ware trousers, particularly in the winter months
Owain:
It was definitely about girls wanting to wear trousers and one of the best days at school I can remember.
Barbara:
I thought that as well at the time but the papers seem to think it was about getting caned as well xxx
There is lots more information within, but right now I have not the time to extract it all.
Regarding the threat of the cane/strap, I don’t know if the girls would have thought it would be administered to their hands or bottoms. For boys it was certainly both, and with other implements too.
From personal experience I can barely remember the 70s. I was two years old when the Heaton riots took place. Perhaps, I’m applying a later mind-set to an era I don’t fully understand. However, in this case my gut feeling tends to side with the majority of the group in that the real reasoning for the riots was due to not being allowed to wear trousers and that the media put a SCP spin on the story. I’ve no doubt that Harry Askew threatened the girls with SCP and perhaps this is what he informed the press, perhaps he even thought that this was the case and it was all down to miscommunication. Unfortunately, he is no longer here to give his side of the story. Either way, it is a good one to debate.
Now slightly off topic, but apparently Harry Askew was a former Olympic athlete and represented GB at the 1948 Olympics in the Long-Jump were he was ranked 9th.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Askew
And slightly back on topic, I have now analysed the data extracted from the north west and I’ll either post it later this evening or tomorrow evening.
Hello Neil,
Thanks for taking the time to respond
According to the group some boys did join the riots but were quickly dispersed. Not by the arrival of the police, but by the bell sounding the end of the schoolday.
I also found no evidence of any of the girls getting receiving SCP over that particular incident. One girl was punished at home by having her pocket money suspended. The only mentions of any SCP being used on a females was by a lady named Wendy who attended between 1975 and 1981 who remembers:
we had a laugh but i didn’t like the strap had that many times haha x
The other confirmation is from when the school was known as North Heaton Secondary Modern School for Girls. A lady by the name of Anne who states she received the strap from Miss Davies the headmistress in 1956 when she was 14. The final account is from a lady called Barbara recalls:
Walshsaw was good at using the strap as was Askew the head teacher’, however, she doesn’t state that she actually received it so it could be that she merely witnessed it.
The link to the group is here. However, you will have to join it to view it.
