Canings at my all-girls grammar school in Shropshire in the 1970s were rare. The most common punishments were writing lines and detention. However, when three of us decided to surreptitiously take the afternoon off by sneaking out of school and were caught trying to sneak back in for the end-of-school register, we were sent by our form teacher to the headmistress’s study. Clearly, our form teacher believed lines, detention or the slipper (which all teachers were permitted to use, although not all did, including our form teacher) were insufficient for our offence.

As we walked towards the headmistress’s study with a note from our form teacher, we naturally discussed what we thought was going to happen and, of course, we did wonder if we might be caned. Now, it seems ironic that a form teacher who refused to slipper us was content to send us, possibly for the cane.

In front of the headmistress, she read the note and looked up from her desk with a piercing gaze that seemed to be searching our very souls. It took her just a few seconds to conclude that we would all receive two strokes of the cane. Perhaps it was the standard punishment for truancy.

I mainly remember my mouth becoming very dry at that point. My immediate belief was that these would be given across the palms of our hands, but it did also cross my mind that we might be told to bend over. Our school uniform consisted of grey skirts and red blazers and when we were told to remove our blazers it strengthened my belief we would be getting it across our bottoms.

The headmistress got up and fetched a cane from a corner cupboard. It was only a couple of feet long, but thin and clearly very flexible. She selected one of the other girls and made her stand in a clear area of the room, then told her to hold her non-writing hand out. Not our bottoms then! At the time, and since, I didn’t have a preference. Anyway, we’d have done what we were told, whichever.

The two strokes were given very quickly across the first girl’s palm and she clearly was in a lot of pain. Now crying, she returned to her place in our little line and the second girl was called over. Two quick strokes and she also was in tears and wringing her hand.

My turn! My legs immediately turned to jelly. I tried to look brave as I went across to receive my dose of the cane, but I was as nervous as anything. I held my hand out and I could see it was wavering despite my best efforts to keep it still. My two strokes were applied within about one second or less, and the pain was so intense I couldn’t stop tears running from my eyes. I went back to my place in the line with my left hand tucked under my right armpit.

We were then sent on our way with a stern warning never to do such a thing again.

VN