School days Part 1
The first time I saw a teacher actually put someone over their knee
and spank them was in my nursery school.
Mrs Pegram was in charge of the running of Ham Newman House Nursery.
From what I remember she wasn't a goddamn awful woman in fact I
always thought she was actually very kind and she seemed to be a
respected pillar of the community. However later on in life in a
discussion with a dinner lady who actually remembered her I learnt
that she use to lock children up when they misbehaved. As well as
this I also remember her threatening to tie a boy called Adam to a
chair though I don't ever
recall her doing so. On reflection this was
the very early seventies and Miss Pegram I would have believed to be
in her late fifties at this time. I seem to recall she was also a
short lady of Jamaican origin with a perm who always wore a checked
dinner ladies jacket and of course slippers. To cut along story short
one day one of the children decided to steal one of her slippers and
was put over Miss Pegrams knee and playfully spanked with it.
There is no doubt about this was all done innocently in fun.
As for Miss Pegram locking children in cupboards and tying them up
when they misbehave there are two sides to this coin. There is no
doubt this act is totally wrong and if a child care worker, teacher,
parent or anyone in professional responsibility did this today they
would almost defiantly be arrested and there would be a public
outcry. However back then this type of thing went entirely unchecked
and I suspect a few decades before my birth was seen as a perfectly
acceptable means of controlling children.
When I was at school corporal punishment was
still used
though not as often as it had been used possibly a few years
previous, thus it was being phased out. I vaguely remember quite
often it was discussed on programmes such as "John Cravens Newsround"
and "Nationwide". Nationwide I actually remember them showing an
image of a schoolboy being put over a desk and caned.
Now excuse me for suggesting such a thing but don't you
somehow think that this would rather be a nice image for someone to
watch who actually enjoyed spanking or disciplining children?. This
aspect of corporal punishment was never and still seems to never
really be looked into and back then and seemed to be swept
conveniently under the carpet on many occasions. It doesn't take the
brains of Einstein to realise it did go on and there have been many
casualties along the way. You only have to look at the abuse scandals
in those homes in
life from their childhood.
In infants school there was only ever one instant where a
teacher threatened to whack a boy with a plimsoll for leaving them
lying around. I would think that was even back then a little over
the top, bearing in mind the boy had a disease, which actually killed
him when he was sixteen. This teacher namely "Miss Parsley" was
sacked because she was such a tyrant.
It wasn't until Junior School that the whole thing for
smacking started to happen but once again more often than not in a
jokingly fashion. In my first year and third year at "
with what he termed as his nice spangy ruler. As well as this he also
use to smack children in a playful fashion. I remember once we were
playing a spelling game and if we got the words wrong we had to stand
on our chair. If we got the spellings wrong again we had to stand on
the table. If we got them wrong again we had our bottoms smacked with
a Two-foot wooden ruler.
Another teacher who springs to mind was "Miss Norris".
Miss Norris god bless her was one of these jolly teacher, fair to say
she was we"MISS NORIS IS COMING!!!".
And of course as I am the kid in the classroom with snot down my nose
who slurs his speech to an extent that of having a speech impediment
(I use to go to splllleeaaccch ferapy because I couldn't say wabbit
or wubbish) it is quite bloody obvious who the culprit actually is.
Of course we do also have the school snitch (i.e. Monica Bazinska) to
confirm that I am the guilty party.
I am called out to the front of the class stood up and I am given six
of the best with the palm of Miss Norris's hand once again to an over
excited bunch of children.
"Fuck me Miss Norris", I said to her "That was nice, can I have more
miss"
No actually believe it or not I didn't say that and I have got to
stop using these vulgar words. Infact I am now going to edit all the
swear words out of this piece because I am sticking this piece of
writing on friends united when its finished, just to embarrass a few
people.
ll liked and very popular with teachers and pupils alike. I
remember instances of her putting boys over her lap and play spanking
them; incidentally it was never done to girls.
One time I remember we were having our lesson in the
school hall and for some reason in the corner was a cane that was
twelve foot long. A boy in his infantile curiosity started to grab
hold of the cane and nearly knocked it over. Miss Norris notices
this act of lack of attention to her lesson and ordered the boy to
hand it to her and to come out to the front of the class. She then
asked for two volunteers to join the boy and a whole load of little
hands went up including yours truly. Bliss I was picked along side
another boy we were lined up and it was announced to an over excited
group of 30 children that we would all get three strokes of the cane.
(HA HA HA I even seemed to want to be centre stage back in those
days).
There was one more instant where "Miss Norris" playfully
spanked me. Our classroom was in the annex, which was a stone throw
away from the schools main building. One morning Miss Norris had to
go out into the main school thus leave a group of thirty nine year
olds to their own devices for five or so minutes. She warned us all
before she went that if she so much heard a peep out of us, or
anybody called out
"Miss Norris is coming", as she walked up the school pathway that
person would have their bottom smacked on her return.
With this warning off she went. Once she had disappeared out of site,
of course the whole classroom runs riot for a few minutes (You know
normal thing Books being thrown around, a few paper darts, pea
shooters, girls having their hair pulled, a few punch ups, Nothing
out of the ordinary). Some how or another I was on look out and
suddenly I see "Miss Norris" Strolling up the school Path and decide
to shout at the top of my voice,
"MISS NORIS IS COMING!!!".
Of course the punch ups end, the paper dart get picked up, the
peashooters go back in the desk, and everybody sits down angelic and
innocent.
However I have just committed the a punishable crime by announcing at
the top of my voice that
Our headmaster at orchard school was called Mr Mc Call. Now this guy
was defiantly old school, very respected and gentlemanly, like so
many of his generation had fought in world war two, (I recall he was
an R.A.F. Pilot) and none of the pupils ever dared cross him. I think
that out of all the teachers who used corporal punishment in my
school career he must have been the fairest. He never use to gloat in
the fact that he had the authority to cane, he never bragged about it
like other teachers, he was like I say just very old fashioned in his
ways, he commanded respect and got it. Having said this I did see him
grab a boy by the ear once and throw him on the floor, which in my
book is fairly unacceptable. Apart from that I would say he was a
decent man.
My Secondary school was Grey court School Ham. This is in 1979 and
this was a time where although corporal punishment was being phased
out it the threat of being whacked still hung over our head, thus it
was still very much a part of school life. Of course there were
teacher who were fair and the were others who were completely
sadistic arseoles (and I am saying that now because I can without
fear of retribution).
It has always seemed that the teachers with the worse reputations for
being sadistic and brutal (other than the cane wielding headmasters
of yesteryear) were the Physical Education teachers. I will be fair
to our old P.E. teacher "Mr Tewksbury", although he was not the most
sadistic teacher in our school, (that award went to "Mr Duke" Head of
science) however he did play a very good second best. From the first
P.E. lesson we ever had with him, threats of being whacked with a gym
shoe or the slipper as they called it were always being made. I mean
to say throughout my first few years at my secondary school I think I
counted one lesson where we were not all threatened. His favourite
trick was to intimidate the pupils, take boys to his office where he
would shout them down like an army drill sergeant and wave a bloody
trainer in their face occasionally whacking it on the table for
effect. There were many rumours about this kind hearted decent living
gentleman. One of these was the fact he was having it away with the
Drama teacher, the other one was the fact he had holes in his
tracksuit bottoms so he could play with himself whilst looking at the
boys in the shower. Mr Tewksbury must have intimidated a fair number
of pupils over his sixteen or so years as a P.E. teacher and he was
eventually ordered to resign or be sacked. Once again it only took
them sixteen years to realise another suspect teacher.
Now if Mr Tewksbury was a little bit of a tyrant Mr Duke was a bloody
sadist. Like our Mr Tewksbury Mr Duke also helped out in the P.E
department and slippered boys with full studded rugby boots. Mr Duke
had come fresh faced from teaching in an Detention Centre (something
along the line of "Scum" if you have ever seen the film) and had
decided to bring many of his disciplinary methods with him. This
Included, punching pupils on the head, kicking the pupils, shouting
at the top of his voice, Verbal humiliation, and of course caning
boys as hard as he possibly could. On two occasions I saw him pick on
a boy who had a severe weight problem, the boy was referred to as a
fat slob, the funniest thing was when the boys mother came up the
school though we never did get to know the outcome. He was also my
form teacher for my last two years and I was so scared that I wanted
to transfer to another school. , However my mother came up the school
after which me and Mr Duke became friends, well not the best of
friends but he kept off my back.
I suppose that could be seen as a little bit of a contradiction in
terms really.
Oh and by the way I am against corporal punishment. I think at the
end of the day too much went on that was unchecked and led to abuse
from people in authority. I think from this last chapter the argument
against is there.
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