I have seen boys caned during school assembly. A whole class were called up to the stage and given four very hard, very fast, strokes of the cane on their bottoms for not handing in their homework. The boys lined up on stage and came forward to the headmaster one after another. They were asked if they had handed in their homework. Most had not. Guilty boys were told to bend forward. They were side on to us boys in the “audience.” The headmaster used his cane, which was a dark brown knobbly straight cane, to flick up the boys coat tails and then laid on the four strokes hard and fast.
But I have always wondered how he caned boys in his office. Practically I wonder if they were bent over a desk, or bent with their palms on a chair, or bent over holding their knees.
If I had been caned in those days I would have had a job staying upright unless I had a desk or chair for support.
If you were caned at school please let me know!
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Wow….a whole class caned in assembly. That’s just the kind of thing I would have liked to experience, either as a spectator or a participant! Mind you, four whacks for missed homework seems pretty harsh! How did you feel, watching the performance?
How did the victims take their punishment? Were there yells and tears or did they take it like a man?
Did you talk about execution to your friends afterwards? Did you know any of the guy who were whacked?
Yes, I wondered how office canings were done. The Beano and other school stories gave me the impression that a “classic” school caning should be bending over touching knees or toes. But I think leaning over a desk was more common in real life. I am afraid that if I had been a fly on the wall during one of the rare headmasters caning at my school, it would have just been a stroke or two on the palm of the hand.
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Like prominent contributor beanokid1 above I wasn’t caned at school, and indeed I’ve never been caned. At my junior school the cane wasn’t used, at least not while I was there. The headmaster, who was also head of the associated senior school, did cane both boys and girls in the senior school, and I understand that recipients were required to bend over a side table in his office.
At my secondary school canings were relatively common. Not by masters, none of whom caned, and not by the headmaster, who did cane, but only very occasionally where a severe caning was decided to be a suitable alternative to expulsion for a serious offender. The vast majority of canings were by the prefects, who were involved in, and largely responsible for, all but the very top levels of non-academic discipline, both on and off the school premises.
The prefects held a weekly court. The most common sentences passed down were lines or up to three strokes of the cane. If sentenced to the latter there was by long tradition a right of appeal to the headmaster, though it was seldom exercised and thus canings were never on court day.
Offenders attended the prefects’ common room atop the school’s tower by appointment on subsequent days. There they had to make the best attempt they could at touching their toes to be caned on the seat of the trousers by whatever prefect happened to be wielding the cane on that occasion. An audience of any other prefects who happened to be in their common room at the time would witness the execution.
I was only up before the prefect’s court once, very early in my time at the school. And as I stood apprehensively eying the evil looking cane displayed prominently on the court table as a symbol of what might await anyone in my position my knees were knocking with fear in my short trousers. I’d never seen a proper senior school cane before and resolved there and then that I never wanted to see one again.
Luckily I got lines. But it would have been all too easy to get caned. Merely being spotted more than once in school uniform but sans school cap by a prefect or priv (a sort of sub-prefect) who happened to be on the same public service bus or glimpsed you in the street would do the trick, and so would lots of other things.
The school was all male, nary a female on the premises except matron, the headmaster’s secretary and the dinner ladies. Being caned by a male fellow pupil, some muscular oaf from the schools’ 1st XV rugby team perhaps, well pride would have demanded that I put up a resistance of some sort, which would have boded ill for subsequent events. So I stuck to my resolution to behave.
But if we’d had female prefects, well in those days a gentleman didn’t offer violence to a lady so if I’d drawn one I’d just have had to bend over without protest and make the best of it. With that prospect I might have even taken a few chances. And if the female prefect uniform had matched that of your avatar I’d probably have been in the queue for the prefects’ court every week, and I’ll bet there would have been an overflow queue at the bottom of the tower steps!
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Hi – I was caned at school in the bending over touching toes position 3 strokes on a few occasions
I was also caned bending over a stool 6 strokes. At least with the stool you had something to grip on to,unlike the touching toes position were i found it virtually impossible not to jump up after each stroke, which earned me an extra one to my punishment
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Everyone was too shocked to mention the event afterwards. We kept our heads down so as not to attract a few whacks ourselves.
The whole caning went quickly. After boys were thrashed the moved swiftly along, went down a set of stairs and into the assembly to sit gingerly. There was no time for anyone to cry.
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I was only caned once (aged 11) in junior school or more accurately at summer camp. My position was bent over the seat of a chair. At the school itself only one teacher caned and possibly also the Head tthough I don’t think caned any body during my time. This particular teacher’s preferred form of CP was an OTK slapping of the tops of bare legs but he also was used the cane quite a bit; Mostly on the hands but sometimes on the bottom bent over the seat of his chair.
At my boys only senior school the usual position was touching toes in front of the class. My only cane session with the Head wa bent over his desk but I understand he also used toe touching and the back of a 2 seater sofa in the hospitality area of his office