Thank you for your words of encouragement, Steff.

I am in my late forties. A few years ago, I began to go through the ‘change of life’ as it used to be called. One of the worst aspects of this was that I lost my sex drive. Up till then my sexual relationship with my husband was reasonable, but not exciting. The problem was with me. Since my schooldays I have had masochistic tendencies, but have never told my husband directly. He is a very prim and proper person (an accountant) and would be shocked if I told him that I would like to be punished. I should mention here that I am a secondary school teacher. During my first few years of teaching I was asked to witness the punishment of two girls which was carried out by the senior mistress. I told my husband about it, but he showed no interest whatsoever and therefore I have refrained from telling him about my desire.

During the last six months we have drifted further apart and he now spends a great deal of time at the golf club while I stay at home. During the summer holidays I bought a computer and got on to the Internet.

The menopause site, the address of which I posted on the links page here, has helped me cope, although I don’t contribute, just read. An advertisement (disguised as a message about how the menopause inhibits creativity!) for this site brought me here. Yesterday was the first time that I have posted to any board and it took some courage.

I have seen several ‘fladge’ (I believe that is the term you use here) sites, but so many of them are pornographic. What I like about this site is it discusses <school> corporal punishment (sometimes) which, because of my experiences, is my interest. (To complicate the issue, I do not like the reality of it, but that is another matter) Yes, there were a few fantasists here (I have now read all the posts) but as far as I can tell, they have gone. I believe there is a lot of factual information here and I hope that I may add to it in the future.

Margaret

'Margaret',

Nice try, but I'm afraid there's more 'men' than 'menopause' about you.

You're not a friend of Fran's by any chance, are you?

Dear Margaret,

I do hope that you are not discouraged from contributing to this board.

Some of our loyal members, ever mindful of the fact that this forum was once plagued by fantasists and oafs, can sometimes be a little over zealous in their efforts to ensure that these appalling people do not return.

I see no reason to doubt that what you say is true and I look forward to reading your future messages.

David

Let me join David in wishing you the best of experiences here. In spite of recent influences we are still a very ingenuous bunch for the most part, and are most delighted to see a putative teacher who actually writes at a level becoming of a teacher. So without formal ado, please do tell us about the detentions you received at school.

Apart from Margaret's obvious love of parentheses, the posting bears other striking similarities to those of dear departed Fran the Man.

The opening line - "Thank you for your words of encouragement, Steff." - is reminiscent of the politeness under fire shown by Fran the Man at all times other than those at which he was in the same condition as a newt.

We then encounter a Frannish master tactic for disguising his desire to talk about being whacked at school on his imaginary female bum. It starts with a longish spiel unconnected with bum-whacking which suddenly tosses in a 24-carat nugget of pure CP-gold guaranteed to have other readers drooling and begging for further details - 'she' was present as a witness at the punishment of two schoolgirls by the senior mistress!

Belief in the imaginary female persona is then further strengthened by the abandonment of all talk of CP and the return to sympathy-inducing feminine-type material which concludes with another master stroke - saying that 'she' needed to pluck up courage before posting here. This encourages other readers to open their arms and make 'her' welcome before 'she' disappears in a puff of nervous smoke without spilling the trouser-bending beans about those two schoolgirls.

The final paragraph ends with yet another deceptive master stroke. By saying that the fantasists have now gone, 'she' is planting the suggestion that they have in fact gone but in planting that suggestion 'she' is also planting the suggestion that 'she' (being here and thus not having gone) is not a fantasist.

The final sentence - "I believe there is a lot of factual information here and I hope that I may add to it in the future" - is the ultimate master stroke. What 'she' is saying is "I have faith in the forum's basic integrity and in the honesty of the forum's current contributors", which of course flatters us and subconciously invites us to reciprocate by having faith in 'her'.

I've only ever seen such techniques used by one other contributor to Internet CP sites and that contributor was Fran the Green-Knickered Man from Wembley.

I await Margaret's further contributions with interest.

What a welcome!

I am sorry to disappoint Steff regarding detention. It was not a sanction that was used at the school I attended as a pupil and at the school where I work at present it is seldom given.

No, I am not a friend of Fran, but from what I have seen, she was once a good friend to this forum. Her story of being slippered by a male member of staff may possibly be true, although despite having been in an educational environment for many years, I have never heard of a male teacher who chastised a female pupil on the bottom, apart from those whose activities were reported in the press. (Incidentally, I saw the Channel 5 programme about Robin Peverett and greatly enjoyed the pieces written about it here). Fran’s posts were always entertaining and I am sorry that she has stopped contributing.

The presence of a witness to corporal punishment was not uncommon. It protected the teacher administering the punishment against allegations of not conforming to L.E.A. regulations. I know of one school (at which only boys were caned) where the role of witness was always taken by the head of the R.E. department. As far as I know, his motives were never questioned.

Margaret

'Margaret',

Your calm and measured response to my last post leaves little room for doubt that you're either Fran or Mr Spock from Star Trek.

Your determination to tell us your 'two schoolgirls punished by senior mistress' story is apparently matched only by cyborg Arnie's legendary resolve to destroy Sarah Connor.

It seems that you, like he, won't be shaken off no matter what is thrown at you.

We'll have to call you "The Determinator".

Yes, you'll be back.

Out of curiosity, if you can't cane pupils, and you can't detain them, just what do teachers do to punish them these days? Are lines also considered cruel and unusual punishment? Corner time would, I suppose, be out of the question. What does this leave? Sarcasm and yelling? Drugging them into submission?

The word ‘punishment’ is no longer used, but teachers do have a few ‘behaviour modifiers’ at their disposal.

Pupils can be sent out of the classroom to work on their own. This ‘corridor time’ is, I suppose, the present day equivalent of ‘corner time’.

Pupils can be put ‘on report’. The teachers write comments on the report form regarding the pupils’ attitudes during the lessons. Pupils are not taken ‘off report’ until they have achieved ‘satisfactory’ (or better) in every lesson. Those that remain ‘on report’ for a stipulated length of time are interviewed by a member of the management team who will attempt to persuade them that it is in their own interest to change their behaviour.

Some schools have a system of ‘merit marks’ or ‘behaviour points’. Pupils with more than a certain number of ‘minus marks’ may suffer loss of privileges such as being excluded from school trips.

‘Suspension’ or ‘exclusion’ is for serious breaches of discipline and may lead to expulsion.

Margaret

The ‘merit marks’ system was in force at William Penn School where it was known as ‘house points’. Plus and minus points were awarded and a cup was presented to the winning house each Monday. This cup, however, was permanently on display in the office of a single housemaster. Faraday boys did not dare do anything that would result in them being given a ‘minus point’ for fear of what Uncle John would do to them.

I just love the terms 'corridor time' and 'management team'. I shall have to try to incorporate them into a story. A shame, though, that 'punishment' is no longer a part of the school vocabularly.

Your school does, I hope, still have a uniform?

Dear Steff,

The School does have a uniform, but pupils have choices regarding certain items of clothing. Trousers and skirts can be black or navy blue. Blazers are optional. Knickers of any colour or style may be worn.

Here is some more jargon for you. Children who were once E.S.N. (Educationally Sub-Normal) now have S.E.N. (Special Educational Needs). During the last twenty-five years ‘Cookery’ has been known variously as ‘Domestic Science’, ‘House Management’, ‘Housecraft’ and at present is called ‘Food Technology’. ‘Commerce’ is now ‘Business Studies’. ‘Needlework’ is ‘Textiles’. ‘Art’ is ‘Graphic Design’. The school leaders are usually called ‘The Senior Management Team’, but in some ‘educational establishments’ are know as ‘The Cabinet’.

I will send in more examples in the future, but at the moment I am fed up with whole system and will be getting out as soon as I can afford to. My relationship with my husband is in a constant state of deterioration and we are likely to part in the near future.

Margaret

It's quite wrong to believe the word punishment never crops up in today's schools. Discipline is remarkably strict. What's changed is the emphasis. Punishments now tend to be social - detention, parents informed etc - while the old system of dealing with everything within the school has gone. It's a change I regret very much, but the idea that perfect order ever held sway in schools, and that now all is chaos, is simply nonsense. Apart from anything else children quickly tire of disorder and more or less insist on it. Bullying by groups of yobs in a problem in the second and third year of secondary school, but then it always was, and probably always will be.

Richard

It's quite right to believe the word punishment never crops up in today's schools. Discipline is remarkably lax. What's changed is the emphasis. So-called 'sanctions' now tend to be social - detention, parents informed etc - while the old system of dealing with everything within the school has gone. It's a change I regret very much, but the idea that perfect order once held sway in schools, and that now all is chaos, is 100% correct. Apart from anything else children simply love disorder and more or less insist on it. Bullying by groups of yobs is a problem in the second and third year of secondary school, but it was no problem when we could cane the bastards.

i attended an all boys school in dulwich,south london.during my time there i was caned on four occasions.each time i was given two strokes.i have talked about this with my partner,but she did not respond. i now seek another partner,or someone with whom i could correspond with.so that i could talk about my feelings on this subject

An all boys’ school in Dulwich? Dulwich College? Alleyn’s? I doubt it. It has to the Penn or its reincarnation Dulwich High School.

I hope and pray that you will let us know.

i attended william penn school from sept 64-july 68. i recieved canings at the hands of my history teacher mr l.two strokes in front of the class.and from my music teacher mr m. two strokes in the practice room in the music dept. i also recieved two strokes from my maths teacher mr k. this took place in the stairwell outside his class room. my last caning was by my housemaster the dreaded mr h. or peg leg as he was known.this was at the back of his physics class room.

Just wondering why not Dulwich College? I attended there not too many years ago and whilst caning was never an option there... I was always under the impression that it was once.

The literary style of ‘mr davies’ shows that he could not have attended Dulwich College. He is, like me, semi-educated. (Readers may have noticed that I omitted the verb in the penultimate sentence of my message of February 8 in this thread).

To become a pupil at the College one had to be extremely brainy, like my old friend, Tubby-T.

Will, I see I misunderstood your post before! Do you have any knowledge of corporal punishment at DC in the past? Thanks.

I have no knowledge
Of c.p. at the College.

I only ever knew one person who went there and that was Tubby-T. After we left junior school I often used to see him coming home, but he never spoke. It just wasn’t done for a boy from Dulwich College be seen with one of the roughs from the Penn.