Sheena at Dean Row Secondary. Sheena claims she was caned on her bottom by a male teacher in 1983 and posts a fairly descriptive account. This of course triggered a response (albeit 6 years later) by an earnest seeker of the truth.
Sheena:
‘I’ was defo caned by haslam, got 10 of the best coz he discovered I put a book in me gym knickers. I even got to pick which cane. That was 1983 remember it well. Cudnt sit for days. He took a run, hop then whoosh. While yr spread eagled on hobby horse x x’
Christine Lewis:
‘I have to ask how he discovered you had a book hidden
Surely it was well covered?’
Sheena:
‘think it was the sound it made’
‘Silly me picked the thinnest cane. Learnt after to pick thickest for future. But that was the last time I was caned. Me mum did complain bout the welts I was left with. Embarrassing being taken to docs for a cream, which stung like hell x x’
In reference to the School, I’ve not as yet found any other accounts of it is utilising CP (apart from another account by Sheena claiming she received the slipper from a female teacher).
Consequently, the punishment will have taken place in the gymnasium. Factor in the ritual of the cane selection, along with the fact (one I’ve always had issues with) that Sheena had time to put a book down her knickers means that this punishment was not spontaneous and pre-planned.
So in this case, why didn’t Mr Haslam defer the punishment to a female member of staff? I’ve no idea what the LEA policy for that time period of region was, and regardless this was 1983! Seven years since the very publicised Dines/Symmonds Case that occurred a mere 15 miles away. Surely Mr Haslam would have been aware of that? Consequently, I can only conclude that he’d done this before and there are other former pupils who have not come forward. Or it was an isolated event. Perhaps he was coming to the end of his career and was chancing his luck?
Then you have to consider the number of strokes. Ten? Had this taken place in the 1950s at St Bertie’s RC Boarding School I might well have believed it. At this point Dean Row was comprehensive, I would have thought four at best or six at the very most. However, for the sake of story-telling people do exaggerate. During my Rugby career I’ve scored many a length of the field try when in reality they were fewer and far between and mostly from 40 yards out.
Finally, the aftermath. Sheena’s mum was obviously not too pleased, however why didn’t she go to the Police? Perhaps Sheena was too embarrassed? We also don’t know the reason for her punishment. Perhaps she thought it was justified?
the notorious 1975 caning of the unfortunate but very naughty Lynne Simmonds, bent over hands on a bookcase, skirt raised and cane delivered across the seat of her knickers. It would appear from your researches that alas Lynne, perhaps understandably, has not contributed to that Facebook group. Nor I presume has English actress, comedian, singer and screenwriter Jennifer Saunders, who attended the school and has allegedly described the said Headmistress as ‘an absolutely ghastly woman
Kathleen, born in 1938 and who received the cane across unspecified anatomy from an unnamed teacher as a participant in a class caning at Rudheath secondary school, Northwich between 1949 and 1953.
The case of Sheena, allegedly given 10 strokes of the cane in 1983 by a male teacher while (probably) bent over a vaulting horse at Dean Row Secondary School, Wilmslow, extra strokes given for being found with book in her gym knickers.
suspicious of:
- Canings at an English school which comprise 8 or more strokes of the cane on the bottom, especially of a girl.
- Canings which involve a book stuffed in trousers or knickers, especially if, as appears to be claimed here, the caning was in the gym and the knickers were gym knickers and presumably worn for athletic purposes without an outer garment. When bent over, a book, however thin, would have been clearly visible even under the rather voluminous gym knickers worn by my schoolgirl contemporaries in the early 1950s. By the 1980s gym knickers were I think tighter and less generously proportioned and any book like padding therein would certainly have been readily visible to the caner. Impact sound would indeed probably have given the game away but I don’t believe it would have got that far. 15 year old girls are usually very aware of how their stance and apparel will appear to the world, and I can’t imagine that they’d abandon that awareness just because they were going to be caned. Indeed I would think if anything it would be heightened. I simply don’t believe Sheena would have tried it.
less suspicious, but still rather wary of:
- Canings which involve bending over a vaulting horse. I have no doubt this sometimes happened, but I think it happened a great deal more in fiction and role-play than in actual school canings. I recall some really obvious fictions posted here which involved being bent over a vaulting horse, and few if any realistic sounding accounts including that mode of punitive positioning.
The doctor and the ointment? Well I suppose in 1983 it might still have been possible to see a doctor without a 6 week wait, by which time the marks of even the most severe school caning would almost certainly have disappeared. But would her mother really have taken Sheena to see a doctor? And unless the skin had been broken it seems to me unlikely that if a doctor had indeed prescribed anything it would have stung. Most soothing ointments are, um, err, well soothing! If the skin had been broken I don’t think that by 1983, given the state of play and the increasingly bad reputation of SCP, Sheena’s mum would have stopped at consulting a doctor.
The fact that Sheena appeared to be the only Facebook contributor reporting receipt of SCP at the school also worries me. It could have been a very small school, you say it wasn’t in existence for very long, and Sheena might indeed have been a very naughty girl, but that’s three ‘ifs’ in an area where I’d rather there weren’t any. Would a male teacher cane a 15 year old schoolgirl very severely in 1983, 10 strokes on the bottom, and in an area where a few years earlier a female teacher had been hauled into court for giving a schoolgirl a much less severe punishment? In my opinion he’d be a pretty silly male teacher!
The pupil choosing the punitive implement from a selection of different sized canes? In the unlikely eventuality of Mr Haslam possessing a selection of canes I can just about conceive of this happening in what I’ll term a ‘fun’ caning, all ritual and little if any pain, intended to make a point to pupil or watching class but not intended to be a serious punishment. But in a caning so painful and damaging that it required a visit to a doctor? I think not.
All in all, I fear that Sheena may have got a little over-enthusiastic. Perhaps she was caned at some stage. But I’d be truly amazed if it was as per her description.
One thing that could be right in the article is that she got to choose her cane. At my school, the headmaster did have a selection, and sometimes invited the victim to select one. I don’t know how common that was, as I have heard some local authorities had a standard model, but I can’t believe it was unique.
