The cricketing exploits of Ms Janet Dines and the formidable discipline imposed by female teachers on unruly schoolboys are subjects that continue to provoke fascination and debate. Unfortunately, my own memory is far from reliable. I have always considered myself more interested in the future than in dwelling on the past, so recollections of long-ago events are not something I regularly exercise.
Any apparent expertise I may have shown in recalling old discussions has depended heavily on archive and search tools that are no longer readily accessible to me. I have always been intrigued by the mechanics of websites and online communities, and so I made full use of such facilities whenever possible. Recently, however, access restrictions and technical issues have left me relying largely on memory alone. When I recently attempted to revisit the topics above, my memory failed me rather badly. My apologies once again.
Your excellent contribution made a particularly interesting point about the greater prominence of girls in school memories from our era and earlier. I suspect your theory is absolutely right: older contributors are often drawn more toward nostalgic, locality-based discussions than strictly school-centred groups. I would encourage anyone arriving here because of renewed activity in this discussion to go back and read your earlier comments carefully — they are well worth the effort.
Your additional information regarding boys caned by Ms Dines was especially intriguing. Over the years it has frequently been argued — and defended vigorously by at least two former contributors — that women could cane every bit as effectively as men. According to them, the severity of punishment depended less on physical strength and more on technique, precision, and confidence.
The discovery of Ms Dilys Martin of Highfield Secondary Modern School in Liverpool is remarkable. In a Liverpool Echo article from 22 October 2016, the then 81-year-old Ms Martin, living in Burscough near Ormskirk, recalled beginning her teaching career in 1956 as a newly qualified 21-year-old teacher — then still known as “Miss Jones.” That detail alone raises all sorts of tantalising possibilities about whether further accounts of boys or girls disciplined by her may still exist. Perhaps not; newly qualified teachers may not immediately have been entrusted with corporal punishment duties. Still, the thought lingers.
You remarked:
“As a connoisseur of collecting accounts of schoolboys receiving SCP from female teachers only, you will know if you were lucky — or not — that you didn’t live in Liverpool and fail your 11+.”
An intriguing thought indeed. Had I failed the 11+ and found myself at Highfield Secondary Modern, I would have entered in September 1954 at the age of twelve. Miss Jones arrived two years later. Given that the school leaving age was then fifteen, I would likely have left only a year after she began teaching. Since she probably would not have been authorised to cane pupils during her first year, I may well have escaped that particular experience.
Still, the imagination cannot resist wandering. The prospect of a fourteen- or fifteen-year-old schoolboy bending over to be caned by a glamorous young twenty-one-year-old teacher — described almost as a Christine Keeler lookalike, complete with academic gown and high heels — certainly carries a strange psychological charge. It may even have eclipsed the effect of Miss B’s memorable leg-smacking punishments, or my near involvement in the severe slippering of a female classmate at junior school.
The subject of “run-up” caning techniques — allegedly favoured by Ms Martin — has surfaced before, most famously in discussions of the prefects’ gymnasium caning scene in the film If…. Contributors with extensive film and television experience analysed the sequence frame by frame and convincingly demonstrated that the dramatic run-up added little to the actual force of the strokes. They also demolished the persistent myth that the scene depicted a genuine caning filmed in a single uninterrupted take.
I tend to agree with Sir John 2 on this matter. While I never personally witnessed such a technique, practical considerations make me sceptical. A couple of advancing steps during the swing perhaps — but sprinting the length of a corridor or gymnasium? Even for a highly skilled disciplinarian, it seems unlikely to increase the speed or force of the cane significantly. Discussions by contributors with expertise in physics and biomechanics suggested that the tip of a well-swung cane could already exceed 100 mph from a stationary position. By contrast, a running teacher in ordinary clothing would struggle to exceed ten miles per hour.
Psychologically, however, the effect on the recipient may have been immense. Watching a teacher charge toward you with cane raised must have heightened dread considerably, regardless of any actual increase in pain. One lingering mystery remains: how exactly did Ms Martin manage such theatrics while wearing heels?
Your mention of Calversyke Middle School in Keighley also caught my attention — specifically the case where a male teacher permitted a female pupil to strike a boy with a trainer. It is not quite the sort of account I spent years hoping to uncover, but fascinating nonetheless. The nearest parallel I ever encountered involved a British secondary school teacher who reportedly selected girls from the class to administer mild whacks to misbehaving boys using what was described as a “miniature cricket bat,” though I suspect it may actually have been a paddle.
Frustratingly, I never preserved the original source. As was often my habit, I trusted myself to remember the search terms rather than recording the URL. By the time I returned to look for it, the page had vanished entirely. The same thing happened with another small online discussion where several parents openly praised the caning of girls at an East London school, claiming that strict discipline was precisely why they sent their daughters there. Such corners of the internet disappear all too easily.
Still, the “miniature cricket bat” anecdote remains fascinating from a classroom management perspective. It perfectly exemplifies the old “bread and circuses” approach to discipline: maintain control, command attention, and ensure pupils remain psychologically invested. Any boy refusing to bend over in front of his peers would likely have faced ridicule from classmates long afterwards.
You wondered why so many of us continue to participate in discussions like these. The reasons are probably countless. In my own case, there were a few genuine though relatively mild punishments: a slippering, a near encounter with a form master’s size-12 leather-soled sandal, and the ominous sight of the cane lying on the table during my single appearance before the prefects’ court. Perhaps it goes back even further — to childhood games involving officious girls pretending to be schoolmistresses, or to overheard stories about boys “sent away” after juvenile misdeeds and rumours of dreadful bare canings.
Or perhaps it stems from the disappointment that a bossy girl who occasionally babysat me never fulfilled my secret hope of describing — or even demonstrating — the severe school caning her mother frequently threatened her with. Then again, it may relate to discovering later in life that a distant relative, a policeman, had supposedly assisted at the birching of the notorious Percy Toplis, the so-called “Monocled Mutineer.” Who can say? Best not to overanalyse these things and simply continue participating.
In earlier years, discussions of this sort could become remarkably lively. There were spirited debates, colourful sceptics, a few contributors later revealed to be fictional, and an impressively educated membership that included academics, media professionals, and historians. At times there could be dozens of posts a day and a surprisingly international readership.
The scorecards will follow once my broadband problems relent. As usual, I neglected to save the URLs.
One contributor’s recollection of severe junior school caning particularly struck me. He recalled often thinking about the punishment while driving past the town war memorial near the site of his old primary school, long since demolished and replaced. In 1948, behaviours that today might be recognised as ADHD were simply labelled “headstrong” and met with demands for a “firm hand.” After being caught playing around the memorial despite repeated warnings, he received a harsh bare-skin caning from the headmaster.
He vividly remembered the sharp sting of the cane on bare skin, though he maintained that the later punishment he received at Secondary Modern School — six strokes over trousers for truancy — was actually far more painful. The blows left him struggling even to stand upright afterwards. Remarkably, he was never caned again.
His final punishment, however, bordered on comedy: a classroom spanking with a size-12 plimsoll that had to be abandoned midway because the teacher was overcome by coughing from the enormous clouds of playground dust rising from the boy’s trousers.
I also attempted to locate your own account of receiving “six of the best” at secondary school but ran into various archival inconsistencies. Somewhere in the records I found reference to a contribution of yours apparently made before your listed joining date, while the visible totals for posts and likes also failed to align correctly.
This sort of inconsistency fascinates me, though most sensible people would ignore it entirely — and perhaps you should too.
As for ADHD, I sympathise greatly. I almost certainly displayed traits of some form of neurodivergence myself when starting infant school. I largely ignored other children while feeling perfectly comfortable with adults. I could already read and write and entertained myself by producing elaborate, excessively violent pirate stories — though often written backwards from right to left, with spelling that left much to be desired. I was left-handed too, which in those days only added to teachers’ suspicions that something was not quite right.
