Greenfield Primary School in Oldham, Greater Manchester (published here before I believe, though I cannot recall when or by whom) seems to indicate that at one time the only mandated SCP implement for the West Riding County Council LEA, under which that school fell, was ‘a thin flexible cane’ supplied by the county education authority and wielded by the School Head or by the teacher then in charge of the school, or by a properly authorised assistant teacher with at least three years experience since qualification. Girls had to be punished by a female teacher, and an exception to caning was made for children in Infants’ Departments, where corporal punishment was meant to be exceptional and only administered with the open hand.
Extracts of punishments from 1974 to 1982 are shown, with the ages of the pupils ranging from 6 to 11, as might be expected for a primary school. However all the punishments shown are administered ‘with the flat of the hand’ on the child’s bottom apart from one described as a slap on the back of the leg. If the summary of LEA regs shown as pasted into the punishment book had been operative the older children should only have been punished with the ‘thin flexible cane’ unless ‘Infants’ was interpreted as all primary age children, which would be unusual in a national context.
I suspect that this is either indicative of the fact that LEA regs were honoured more in the breach than in the observance, which was by no means unknown, or that the book went back somewhat earlier than 1974 and that the regulations shown had been superseded by the time of the punishments shown. I have never understood why newspaper reporters and other media persons do not seize on points like this, but some people like minute detail and some don’t!
I know very little of the ways of Greater Manchester school of the the past. Indeed I know very little of the area in general although my work in more recent years saw me me travelling extensively the length and breadth of the UK. The suggestion that the area followed the usual system of across hands for girls and across the bottom for boys. With the punishments usually administered by a teacher of the same sex as youngster being punished. There were, of course, exception and variation to this everywhere. Some senior schools, whether mixed or single sex, only caned or strapped across the hands boys and girls. The tawse in Scotland illustrates this.
Little here over the years has been mentioned of similarities between family discipline and that given in schools. Certainly in the 1950s into 1960s saw many families used some forms of corporal punishment on both boys and girls. I know nothing of it in earlier except the suggestion that it was certainly used and perhaps more so. That said some families never used it. Family discipline was seen as the right and proper way to discipline youngsters back then. Therefore school corporal punishment was seen merely as an extension of this. There were no rules or controls on how parents spanked unless it became physical abuse. Where the line was drawn is incredibly difficult to define. Fortunately the great majority used it sensibly but not all did. I remember some boys mentioning being in trouble at home and having been spanked for it. I personally never told of being disciplined at home. It was sometimes noticeable that some lads coped much better with a firm school caning or slippering. This lead me to believe that it was something they were accustomed to at home. Of course families differed, some disapproved of SCP whereas some gave further punishments at home if they learnt that their youngster had received it in school that day.
All very much of a thing of distant past nowadays, from ‘approved’ to ‘against the law’!
As with school corporal punishment, domestic corporal punishment comes with accounts from the mundane to the outrageous. And as with school corporal punishment some of the outrageous accounts are actually true and some of the mundane ones are not. You pays your money and you takes your choice!
My own personal experience in receipt of domestic CP is non-existent. I was the well behaved and biddable elder child whose tentative experiences paved the way for the hell raising younger sibling. As I have mentioned elsewhere in the Forum my mother did purchase a cane (from the local juvenile accessories such as pushchairs shop) in an effort to intimidate the younger sibling. It was never used and he errm, ‘disposed’ of it at the first opportunity.
It is possible, though by no means certain, that the purchase of the cane might have been influenced by the lady who cleaned for my mother and who was also by way of a family friend. This lady was very much of the old school. I don’t know if her two older sons and younger twin daughters were subject to corporal punishment at home, but I’d risk a month’s pension on it. As again recorded elsewhere here she was quite happy to have it known that one of the twin daughters had been caned at school and to warn me of a similar fate if some behaviour on my part which had displeased her didn’t improve. I can’t recall her interactions with the hell raising younger sibling, but if she was prepared to advocate the cane for ultra-good little me I’m sure she would have strongly recommended it for him!
