Schoolboy fiction is full of descriptions of corporal punishment. Mr Quelchs ' cane used to regularly fall upon the tightest trousers at Greyfriars school. Desmond Coke in The bending of a twig and the Teddy Lester stories feature graphic and detailed accounts of schoolboys being caned.However Aubrey Fowkes in his "diary" series published by the Fortune press takes the biscuit for slavering attention to minutia, in fact his prose style reminds me a little of dear old George . Outside the occasional brief mention in Nancy Moss and Enid Blytons' school stories i can find very little concerning the corporal punishment of schoolgirls in schoolgirl fiction although i have just finished reading Philip Larkin's Trouble at Green Gables. Does anyone know of any good fictional accounts?

By the way - just occurred to me to clarify I am not George (well, I am, but you know what I mean)....

There is a complete lack of schoolgirl CP in books, and also in films, TV etc.

I know that there is possibly mention in a book called "The Interview" by Hugh C Rae, which is unfortunately out of print. I've been trying to find it for years.

Apparently, the story concerns a guy who gets a job as a caretaker in a girl's school and is asked by the Headmistress if he will assist in the chastisement of one of the girls because she has injured her arm. Not being of our mind-set, he agrees only reluctantly, but when he is brought into the room he is "faced" (very much the wrong word) with a girl bending over knickers down. What does he do? Idiot man - he legs it out of there.

Now - I only know this from a precis of the tale I read in Janus or Roue or something like that years ago, so if anyone can get a copy (does the British Library still have a copy of every book printed??) I'd be very happy to see the relevant pages.

Otherwise - nothing much springs to mind - there is a list on the Internet somewhere of all CP references in literature - I'll try and find the URL.

I remember seeing in a girls commic "Bunty" or something like that in the 1950's I think, where a girl is given the cane on her right hand in school, and can't do right hand conjuring tricks; she worked in the evenings to earn money for a cruel step mother.
And in another one A girl was given the strap on her hands.
I kept these for years!!! then I lost them.

So search through those early editions !!! you should find them .... eventually!!

As a teenager in the early 1960`s I used to rescue my younger sisters read comics from the bin and flick through them in the hope of finding some mention of our favourite topic.
I only once struck lucky with one of the girl`s weekly comics out of the "Bunty" type stable.
2 frames of a comic strip showed 1)an unhappy looking girl standing in front of the table of a begowned Headmistress,the head is taking a crook handled cane from a desk drawer.
frame 2)shows the girl outside the office surrounded by gloating classmates she is thinking to herself "I must not cry". There is no clue as to whereabouts the cane was applied.
I also used to skim read my sister`s library books in the hope of finding something but no luck.

A few years later Janus had a nice letter from a reader who had found a piece in a teen girls magazine and had cut it out for us all to enjoy.
It was entitled "Girls should we stick it?"
and had a drawing of a very sexy 20 something schoolmarm (glasses,hair in a bun,long skirt" tapping a cane against her palm whilst in front of her bends over a nubile looking pupil with skirt up showing her slip and a hint of knickers.
The article was dissapointing just explaining what was lawful punishment and what was not.
Interestingly I seem to remember that it concluded that if caning of girls was allowed by the Local Authority then the magazine`s advice was "Keep out of trouble or accept the consequences"

There is an episode of Grange Hill in which a girl gets the cane on her hand. I haven't seen the episode but read about it in a Grange Hill diary when browsing in WH Smiths.

I also remember an incident in a Cliff House story when Clara Trevlyn unsuccesfully asks if she can have the cane as an alternative to detention.

Thankyou for your suggestions, i have seen a a girl caned on the legs in a Bunty Annual c1965 and a girl babysitter gives two tearaway seven year olds a otk spanking after they make a mess. In one of the Cliff house stories a girl is caned over the hand by a prefect, it might be Clara Trevalyn or Marjorie Hazeldene on the recieving end.. it certainly wasn't Bessie Bunter! I love a short story by Enid Blyton where a little boy forgets his handkerchief and earns an over the knee spanking by his prim, strict schoolmistress. It had such a wonderful feeling to it but i am blowed if i can think of which of her 500 odd books i read it in.

A lot of it off-topic for here, but you may want to have a look at this list if you haven't seen it before:

http://www.cfpub.com/indexstories/bibliography.html

There are some classics which seem to escape attention. Try 'The Seventh Veil' ( Mainstream film, B/W about 1947, it is on video etc) for a formal hand caning at girls school. Important part of the whole plot, and deals with effects of the experience over subsequent lifespan, especially the resurgence of fear and stress when the experience is related by the schoolfriend who was with her at the time.

I have seen this film very atmospheric.
It starts with the girls tucking their gymslips into their knickers when playing in a stream, the consequence of which is a hands out caning. The girls face is a picture.
Regards,
jay

Just after seeing this message, I noticed in my TV program that this movie will be shown in Australia on Foxtel, on Monday morning - 7.45, Encore - at least I assume it's the same movie. The Seventh Veil, 1945 starring James Mason, Ann Todd, Herbert Lom

'A neurotic pianist obsessed checks into an institution and begins to lift the veils on her past.'

Right name - close to the year indicated.

Hi Dominum,

Thank you for tidying up my memory-only detail, you are a gentleman. Yes, thats the one. I have not seen it for some time.

Dominum
I wonder if you missed my post for you dated 15 July on the "bare bottoms" thread as I have not seen any response - thought you might have gone away but obviously from your post here you are still there !!
Thanks.
Lictor

Surely one of the earliest descriptions must be the bit in "Jane Eyre" when Jane, newly arrived at Lowood Institution, witnesses the birching of the girl who becomes her great friend - cannot for the life of me recall her name ! The girl is called out by the school mistress for some terrible misdemeanour and instructed to fetch the birch from the cupboard, which she does, We are told that she then presents the birch to the mistress with a curtsy, and having been ordered to loosen her clothes, is then given 12 ( I think ) strokes " on the neck". I have always assumed that this must be a euphemism for the bottom, which the fragrant Miss Bronte could not bring herself to describe more accurately - doubtless the more erudite readers of this Forum will guide us on this topic - they usually do !

PS I do not recall any of the filmed versions of the book showing this scene at all accurately.
Lictor.

Yes you have the correct film.It tends to be shown on UK television on winter afternoons.Sometimes on BBC2 and other times on ITV.
The caning scene is within minutes of the start.

Jane Eyre was my favourite novel as a youngster.

The girl in question is Helen Burns who was beaten with 'a bunch of twigs tied together at one end' for having dirty fingernails. She had been being unable to wash that morning due to the water's being frozen. The book describes how she loosens her pinafore before being given 12 strokes to the neck.

I can't imagine that the punishment was other than as described, partly because it sounds in itself not unlikely and also because Jane is able to see Helen's face as the punishment is administered and Helen seems largely unmoved either physically or emotionally by the experience.


done edit at request of sarajane - typo only
carl

Yes, I am still here, and I did see your message. I hope to reply to it sometime this morning - second semester started here this week, the boys came back after their mid year break and so I have been rather busy. Provided the Saturday morning detention doesn't get out of control, I should have this morning free to catch up on a fair bit of neglected correspondence.

If we are on to the historical classics:

The story about Helen Burns in Jane Eyre is based on the real experiences of the Bronte Sisters in their own appalling Yorkshire school. One of them at least was birched there according to memoires etc.

There are at least references to, and surprisingly support for, CP for girls in Villette and The Professor.

In 'Little Women' by Louisa M. Alcott (based in USA) one of the characters 'Amy'gets a public caning (on the hand)in front of the class. Make sure you get a full edition, I have seen some abridged versions (they don't make it clear that it is), one of which was brought home by one of my daughters. I think the chapter is 'Amy's valley of humiliation' or similar. Although this is a full chapter which builds up and makes a very serious point about Amy's character, and the family attitude to girls education, it is nearly always altered, glossed over, or left out in commentaries and films, and latterly versions of the book itself! Although in the original the prescribed punishment is carried out without fear or favour, several film versions have the teacher proposing to cane Amy and then letting her off. In one film version the caning is held over to after school, and actually gets to the point of her holding out her hand and saying she is ready. She is then let off. As in the book an important result of getting the cane is that due to the mothers view of education Amy is taken out of the school and tutored at home, there is a definite disjoint in the later progression of the plot here! Again as the event depicted is again based on Louisa M. Alcotts own personal experience, it seems it has been felt appropriate to not only change the plot, but deny at least some of the material required for students to carry out legitimate and valid literary criticism of the historical novel!

Similar abridgement occurs with Tom Sawyer. The original book makes it quite clear that Toms girlfriend would have been caned in front of the class when she rips the teachers book. Later in the book it quite clearly states that as the master becomes increasingly irritated with the mixed-age, coeducational school pupils, canings of (from memory) 'all but the infants and some of the older young ladies' became frequent. An important part of the plot for the basis of subsequent actions(and other books). I have only seen one instance in which this was covered. A Japanese (therefore probably more literal) cartoon version I saw part of briefly in Europe actually showed the teacher at the desk in front of the class taking up the cane, and in one incident two girls (amongst others) being called to the front of the class where they clasp their hands to the back of their necks, bend over, and are caned. This was on prime-time childrens cartoon TV, with subtitles. Anyone seen it?.(As I saw only part of it, could it have been Huckleberry Finn?). Does anyone know if the hand-neck position is/was characteristic of Japanese practice, or other Asian?

"Misty" anuuals of the 80's occasionally had spankings in, or you could try

http://www.abbysspanking.co.uk/

Got so carried away in railing against the revisionists and despoilers of recognised classics that I forgot to mention one for the true historical buffs. Again from memory, have a look at 'And So Victoria' (William Vaughan? 1937 I think). Historical novel, enough merit and gravitas to have been read as a 'book at bedtime' relatively recently on UK BBC Radio 4. Part of the plot involves an incident where one of the girls is birched on the bare bottom at school while bent over a 'form'. Remember that in those (Victorian) days a 'form' was in fact a long school 'bench' desk seating several pupils side by side. The female relations (elderly aunts) take exception to this and in a meeting with the female teacher (a Mistress Severn....... yes I know, Severn, Severin, Sevrin, ho hum etc, but not this time)who carried out the birching, inform her that they are going to have her bent over a chair and birched in turn, and in the same way, as a reprisal, and proceed to order the servants to carry this out. This is not comedy or slapstick, but regarded as serious literature. There is also some discussion by another female character about this in which they mention they were also birched at the same sort of age at school.

'Jane Eyre' is on BBC2 at 1.10pm tomorrow afternoon.

I shall certainly watch, but am disappointed that dear, dear Dickie is not playing the part of Jane. I once saw him crying at the Oscar ceremony. (For regular readers, this is not to be confused with the Oscar ceremony of Arthur Taylor).

The book is "And So - Victoria" by Vaughan Wilkins.

Thank you for tidying that reference up for me. I added it in a hurry as an afterthought. Apologies. Will revert to normal (= useful) standards of accuracy and reference. (Writes note to self, and remembers to read it).

I remember the Grange Hill caning well. The girl has been playing truant and spun an obvious lie to cover it up, and the headmistress wants to expell her. The girls mother protests.

Headmistress, with obvious horror: Would you rather I caned her?
Mother: If that's the only alternative, yes.

The headmistress asks the girl and the girl nods. The headmistress calls the deputy head, a man into the office on the intercom. He comes in with the cane and punishment book. (So he must have known that a caning was on the cards.) He picks up the cane, as if he is going to use it, but the headmistress says "No, I'll do it." The girl stands up, swallows and steels herself and holds out her hand. The headmistess gives out six of the best, and they are shown to be very hard. (She raises it above her shoulder...not like that scene in Kes, where the headmaster doesn't seem to use much force at all.) When she is finished, she apologises to the mother, and says "I'm sorry it had to come to this." The mother said "I should have given her some when she was younger." The girl isn't shown to be crying, but she does have her hand clasped to her side.

Interesting points about the scene are

1: It's done with the mothers approval, and in front of the mother
2: Hand caning is absolutely assumed -- the girl knows to hold her hand out without being told
3: Its six strokes, which is more than usually severe for a hand caning, I think.

There were at least three other CP scenes in Grange Hill, but this was the only one where the whacking was on-screen. The others were

1: Tucker and his friend are caned (again, in front of and with ther permission of their parents) for mucking around on a buildign site. The caning isn't shown, but there's a long sequence of them talking about it outside the heads study. They also assume it will be on the hand, spitting on their hands to make it hurt less. (Tuckers does, however, mention that his big brother once got "six of the best across the bum.")

2: That fat kid whose name I can't remember is caned for engaging in some kind of financial scam on the younger kids. His partner in crime is expelled. The caning is not shown, but the sentencing is. The headmistress says "I'd like you to come back to my office at four o clock. Mr Baxter will be here to give you the cane." The boy says "Yes miss" sullenly. We later see one of his friends asking "where did you get" and he says "on the hand". His friend says "did it hurt much" and he says "yes, I can still feel it now."

3: The famous episode about the horrible gym teacher shows him picking on a boy who has previously complained to his parents about the teachers treatment. Among other things, this involves takign him into a side room and giving him the slipper for mucking about in the showers. This is implicitly on the bare bottom; at any rate, the boy comes out of the teachers room dressed only in a towel.

I think that there may also have been a brief scene in which the headmistress is away, and we see a group of boys coming out of the deputy heads study rubbing thier hands -- to indicate that the deputy believes in CP more than the head does.

There may have been others? Does anyone know if the abolition of CP was commented on in the series.

Cathy hargreaves in grange hill only got two strokes.
regards,
jay

I wrote yesterday that I will be leaving the scene, having been upset by Vicky’s post in the ‘Oak Grove Christmas Party’ thread. Before I go, however, I must comment on the above posts of Fran of Wembley.

They are written with great attention to detail, with loving care and deep sincerity. It is a great shame that he/she feels no longer able to write for this forum.

Goodbye from

S. Hampshire (known in the scene as ‘Dave’).

I am sorry you are leaving, Dave. I see from your posts here that you have always praised and defended Lady Pandora against her detractors.

Misty" anuuals of the 80's occasionally had spankings in, or you could try

http://www.abbysspanking.co.uk/

Does anyone know why?

Peter de Polnay, "Children, my Children", 1939

It was a different Edith whom Miss Davies [her governess] visited before lunch in her room. Miss Davies came with a cane and Edith begged her not to cane her before she explained everything. Miss Davies said she didn't mind postponing the punishment. So Edith explained. It appeared she's been walking in the garden when all of a sudden an old gypsy woman appeared from nowhere. Having caught sight of her Edith wanted to run to her kind Miss Davies, but the gypsy woman was too quick for her and caught her just outside Miss Davies' room - what bad luck - and ...

Miss Davies came nearer and the cane was more menacing than ever.

Edith sobbed and said she hadn't yet finished because, a new gypsy appeared, and ... caught her again, she finished lamely.

Whereupon Miss Davies caned her.

Edith sobbed for a time, but when the door had closed and she knew she wouldn't be bothered for some time she continued, for her own benefit, the story of her escapade.

*

Miss Davies put the cane back in the cupboard, then rang for the maid and told her that Miss Edith wouldn't eat with the others. Then she went to inspect Molly and Ivor. ...

'If I don't eat this soup, is it a strike?' Molly joined in.

'You may call it a strike,' Miss Davies said grimly, 'but after the punishment I'd give you, you'd call it something else.'

Amy Tan, "The Joy-Luck Club", 1989.

My mother once told me why I was so confused all the time. She said I was without wood. Born without wood so that I listened to too many people. She knew this, because once she had almost become this way.

'A girl is like a young tree,' she said. 'You must stand tall and listen to your mother standing next to you. That is the only way to grow strong and straight. But if you bend to listen to other people, you will grow crooked and weak. You will fall to the ground with the first strong wind. And then you will be like a weed, growing wild in any direction, running along the ground until someone pulls you out and throws you away.'

But by the time she told me this, it was too late. I had already begun to bend. I had started going to school, where a teacher called Mrs Berry lined us up and marched us in and out of rooms, up and down hallways while she called out, 'Boys and girls, follow me.' And if you didn't listen to her, she would make you bend over and whack you with a yardstick ten times.

From I think The Dandy in the early 1960’s, I remember Pansy Potter, the Strong Mans Daughter, being caned on her bottom several times by her Headmaster. Likewise, Teachers Pet often finished getting the slipper or the cane from her female teacher.

Book wise, I had a book, which had been my Mothers and had schoolgirl tales from the 1920’s. In one, the heroine played truant to try to find long lost family treasure or some such thing. The book contented itself with something along the lines of “The Headmistress had a firm policy of caning girls who played truant, but even she was moved by Jane’s plea to give her only two strokes of the cane and not the usual three.” There was no mention of which part of Jane’s anatomy entertained the cane.

Also in the ‘Dandy’ was Keyhole Kate. I believe she often suffered corporal punishment.

That Grange Hill caning in full can be seen at

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/sfr_group15/


Hello to dear, dear Penny. A little ray of sunshine has gone out of my life since you left the Brighton and Hove Fora.

Hi
I was recently reading a war time novel to my class, "Carrie's War", and the foster parent/evacuation shopkeeper tells the boy that he is going to be beaten with the strap, for stealing..
His sister, Carries is horrified, especially when he says it will be
"On your bare bottom"!

(Much to the unconcealed delight of my 10 year old class!)

However, don't bother - nothing comes of it!

I used to get the Bunty!!

Love those boarding school stories.

mary

Vaughan Wilkins, "And So - Victoria", 1937:

Later on Miss Severn was to see that the two gold heads - dark and fair - had come together again amid the throng of dancers, and her narrow lips compressed themselves tightly.

'The old beast!' said Arabella fiercely as they drove home together facing the Misses Case in their old-fashioned carriage. 'She treats me as if I were a child. I shall be eighteen in two weeks, and thank God that'll be the end of her!' ...

"I thank God at the end of a meal,' continued Arabella logically.. 'So why shouldn't I thank God for the end of old Fish-Eyes?'

'Fish-Eyes?' murmured Miss Anne.

'Well, that's what we do call her. Some of us call her the Snake because she creeps about and hisses. One of the girls called her the Virgin Viper last term. She got to hear about it.'

'What happened?' asked Christopher.

'Two of the mistresses held her over a desk, and Fish-Eyes beat her with a birch. She was as old as me.'

'But Arabella,' protested Miss Elisabeth.

'It's true,' she declared. 'They took her clothes off and put her in a sort of long blouse - and beat her. Fish-Eyes liked doing it.'

...

Miss Severn bowed.

Miss Anne continued.

'My great-niece arrived home. She ran upstairs without a word. She bolted herself in her room.'

Miss Severn looked her indifference to this idiosyncracy.

'I gather - we gather; my sister and I - we were enabled to gather from her in a brief interview that she had been birched.'

Miss Anne appeared to have some difficulty with enunciation. She spoke more quickly. 'In the midst of the school. That she was held down over a form.'

Miss Severn composedly bowed her agreement with this version.

'That her undergarments were removed. That she was beaten in a thin blouse. Am I correct in my understanding?'

Christopher saw Miss Severn's iron-gray figure bent a little forward as if to catch each word; as if to gloat over it. He saw her iron lips compress, as if with satisfaction.

'You have omitted to state that she defied her punishment.'

Miss Severn slowly raised her head amd moved it along the line of old ladies, as if to emphasise the delinquency.

'I understood,' said Miss Anne, 'that there were ten strokes extra. I gathered that they were on that account.'

'I am sorry if you take my efforts to correct a very dangerous tendency so much amiss,' said Miss Severn, barely stirring her lips.

She half rose in her seat as if about to take her departure.

'Please!' said Miss Anne, staying her. 'My sister and I would still like to understand a little more.'

...

'Such broadmindedness!' said Miss Severn with the hint of a sneer.

'Leaving that matter to one side. Are you informed of the fact that our great-niece is nearly eighteen years of age?'

'Her age is, I believe, entered in the Academy's register.'

'At what age, my I ask, do you think a girl should no longer be birched?'

'It depends, I opine, upon the young person. I do not think that any definite period can be set.'

...

'We propose to birch her [Miss Severn] - if you think right. We propose to have her held over a chair, and birched with the same number of strokes. We propose to have her undergarments removed.'

She was silent. She made no protest.

'Super! Wizard!' great...
"In the Fifth at Malory Towers", Enid Blyton

I have many happy memories from my childhood. The antics of Bungle, George, Zippy and the absurdly camp Geoffrey in Rainbow; the globetrotting exploits of Willy Fogg; and the sublime sounds of New Kids on the Block. But nothing compares to my memories of Enid Blyton.

Anyone capable of creating a character called Frederick Algernon Trottville (Fatty of the Five Find-outers, of course) must have had some sort of special talent. I don't know what sort of talent it was - probably not political correctness or gritty realism - but I appreciated it all the same. Although less a part of the nation's heritage than, say, the Famous Five, the Malory Towers series epitomises all that was best about Enid Blyton. Set in a girls' boarding school in the days when your average schoolgirl was called Betty, Winnie or Doris, the series stars Darrell Rivers (typical line: "Felicity, you goose!").

Unlike many of Blyton's female characters, Darrell is strong-willed, intelligent and charming, if unbearably pompous throughout. Darrell's many friends include Sally (nice), Alicia (sharp), Mary-Lou (sweet), Irene (mad) and Clarissa (ugly). Darrell's enemies include Moira (domineering), Catherine (sycophantic), Gwen (self-obsessed) and Maureen (wimp). Darrell's friends normally become Sports Captains, Head Girls or star in the school pantomime. Darrell's enemies either fail their exams or lose a close relative.

In the Fifth is very similar to, well, every other book in the series. The girls return to school (having said goodbye to Mummy, Daddy and Cook), meet their friends, laugh at Gwen (see above), play lacrosse, visit Matron, and enjoy numerous midnight feasts. It all culminates in the school pantomime, written - brilliantly - by Darrell (well, who else?) and directed - badly - by Moira. In the space of 150 pages, Blyton makes the case for good relations with our European friends by making "Mam'zelle", the French teacher, the target of every trick; she emphasises the importance of corporal punishment by having Alicia threaten to spank her cousin twenty times with a hairbrush; and reminds us quite firmly that "new girls should be seen and not heard" - hear hear!

All the while, the girls enjoy a life that can only be described as "super! wizard!", to quote one enthusiastic pupil. Some readers may be slightly concerned by Blyton's blunt description of one girl as "fat" and another as "rabbit teethed". And of particular concern is the implication that Clarissa had no friends until she lost the "ugly wire round her teeth". Anyone who claims that teenage magazines have an adverse effect on girls' self images should read Malory Towers first.

It's impossible, though, to deny the true glory of the entire series. It is enlivened throughout by pictures with captions such as "Darrell! The deflator's gone wrong!" (don't ask) and chapter headings including "The Dictator" (I had hoped that General Pinochet may be making a surprise visit to give the girls lessons in International Relations, but it wasn't to be). I've never met anyone remotely like any of the characters, and school was never this exciting in my experience - but this makes the book all the more entertaining. Anyone wanting to indulge in some politically incorrect escapism should read Malory Towers now. You'll have a wizard time!