When girls were caned or given the slipper on their knickers who lifted their skirts? Was it the girls themselves or the teacher? I often wonder about this but would like to make it clear that I am not a pervert.

I hope Barry receives the number of replies that he deserves.

He is obviously not a pervert.

A vacancy has arisen at our research team and Barry is just the man to fill it. If you are interested in joining us, Barry, please get in touch at the usual address.

I recently had contact with someone who attended a convent school in South Africa. Like most of her schoolmates, she seems to have been caned quite frequently, usually on the hand but sometimes on the bottom. Apparently it was made very clear to the girls that to bend too far forward was very unladylike and the raising of skirts was out of the question.

I have been away from the internet for some time and have only just discovered this forum. I used to post on the Inside the Web School Corporal Punishment Forum which has now closed down.

I was only caned once while I was at school. I was in the third year at secondary school and another girl and myself had been caught playing truant. We were summoned to the office of the headmistress and told that we would be caned. The other girl was told to bend over the desk first and the headmistress lifted up her skirt and laid it across her back. She was then given two strokes of the cane. When it was my turn I felt uneasy about the headmistress lifting my skirt, so as I approached the desk I pulled it up myself to about my waist and bent over. The head adjusted it so that it covered my back. I was more worried that she would pull my pants up tight than I was about the caning, but she didn’t. I have always had a thing about people touching my clothes, particularly my underwear.

Kate - would you mind giving some details about you uniform please? Was it classic navy or green, and ws it a rule that yo had to wear regulation knickers?

The school uniform consisted of a white blouse, a navy blue skirt, a v-necked jumper with a yellow ‘v’ and black shoes. The tie was also navy blue with thin yellow stripes. We had to wear white cotton knickers.

It is really important about the colour of the uniform.??I think the most important is make sure the caning is not that painful.!

I am only slightly interested in the colour of schoolgirls’ uniforms, but am obsessed with knowing the colour of the knickers that they wore underneath.

I have a friend who was at Charles Edward Brooke School in Lambeth. They wore a brown uniform and their knickers were the same colour.

Skirt lifting did happen, as in the Janet Dines case. How much of the bottom would a girl’s knickers cover? Were some or all strokes on the bare?

No strokes would have landed on the bare flesh because in the days of Janet Dikes schoolgirls wore BIG knickers as seen here modelled by Lavinia.



I have noticed that a lot of women are wearing flouncy white dresses this summer that are almost see-through. I have peered intently to see what kind of knickers they are wearing underneath, but so far have not seen any. Perhaps they are wearing those disgusting thongs.

For regulation knickers to be part of a school uniform then there must be a system of checking. The only person I know who had uniform checks was my wife. Her school would measure the hems of girls skirts each Monday to see that it sat one inch above the knee, and each morning the girls had to raise their skirts at the right hip.

"Her school would measure the hems of girls skirts each Monday to see that it sat one inch above the knee" says Nathan.

I find that somewhat difficult to believe as schools are busy places, teachers are busy people and any teacher who can see well enough to use a ruler or a tape measure can simply run her eye swiftly over dozens of girls in a couple of seconds and see at a glance whether or not any skirt is significantly higher than one inch above the knee.

". . . and each morning the girls had to raise their skirts at the right hip" says Nathan.

That might possibly have happened at St. Fantasia's Academy for Imaginary Young Ladies but, believe me, dear readers, schools and teachers in the real world have much better things to do with their time.

I don't know - I'm reading a study of English girls boarding schools at the moment (from 1971) and that describes a school at which the girls had their temperature taken every single day except Sundays and Ascension Day. The apparent ihtention was to ensure staff had close person to person contact with the girls each day.

If they wasted time like that, I can believe just about anything.

The same book does mention one school that set rules on underwear - all girls having to wear white knickers, and that was apparently checked when girls sat cross legged on the ground during assembly.

The temperature-taking is just about believable as it might be said that it cast a favourable light upon the school in terms of its caring for girls' health and welfare.

The knicker-inspecting at assembly might also be true if it were a casual and unofficial sort of inspection but I can assure readers that (a) the vast majority of girls would have ensured that their underwear could not be seen when sitting cross-legged and (b) the vast majority of girls' schools would have instructed girls always to sit in such a way that their underwear could not be seen.

Oh, I believe what has been written - it comes from a fairly prominent psycholgist with a good reputation, not likely to be lightly put at risk describing things that she personally observed while undertaking a scholarly study of girls boarding schools.

People will always believe what they want to believe but, when deciding the plausibility of any account, it's usually wise to employ common sense and intelligence before relying upon the allged expertise or reputation of the story's source.

Our more intelligent readers will immediately have spotted the flaws in the claim that the colour of girls' underwear may be efficiently deduced by teachers watching girls sitting cross-legged in assembly.

Firstly, in any such group of girls, only the front row are at risk of having their underwear seen.

Secondly, unless the skirts are micro-mini in length, a viewer would have to be some distance from that front row in order to see sufficiently far up the skirts and that distance would be multiplied very considerably if the viewer were sitting or standing upon a raised platform.

Even under optimum conditions, therefore, the vast majority of the girls' knickers would not be visible and, under anything approaching normal conditions, few if any of the girls' knickers would be visible.

The story very obviously apocryphal.

Yes, of course it is.

A scholarly expert from Cambridge University engaging in primary research in boarding schools, reporting what they've personally observed during field studies in those schools is wrong - and you, from your perspective as an anonymous nonentity on the internet knows better.

 

Message edited to include name of sender.

I eat experts from Cambridge University for breakfast.

I wish one would eat you for breakfast .... wishing ... wishing ... wishing!

LOTTA

Not if the Cambridge expert were disguised as a Cambridge ornithologist, camouflaged as a tree on the platform, with a pair of large and high-powered binoculars!

As I'm sure you'll acknowledge, the world is full of this sort of very diligent researcher, especially regarding schoolgirl underwear. Didn't they have one at your school?

Why, I bumped into one this morning when I rode into work on my favourite purple camel,whose name, for obvious reasons, is Humphrey.


Steve

Dean calls me a nonentity but we should remember it is he who has the imaginary wife and imaginary baby.

Of course the diligent boarding school researcher existed, disguised lurking in the school laundry, his role seeking out knickers of the more desirable types, immediately confiscating.

Each term on arrival, an infantry of possesions checking the authorised number of knickers permited, names attached of course. As each girls laundry returned , the regulation knickers placed neatly on top , by hypothesis of elimination any girl found knicker less or returned less than the regulation pairs would immediately be sussed, guilty of non conforming.

No doubt our Oxford laundry researcher having teamed up with our Cambridge ornithologist researcher, from his hide doing a roaring trade on the black market.

Here is one of my old primary school pics which I've scanned and the girl sitting on the floor 2nd from left is Heather. Clearly she was not instructed not to show her knickers and although I can't remember noticing at the time I expect the photographer enjoyed taking the pic. The pic is not blurred so he was probably using a tripod. The boy standing far left is David who was late joing the group and to take his place he walked in front of Heather after she was seated. It looks like he also enjoyed the display as he appears to have a massive erection. The school is St Stephens School in Worcester and the pic was taken late 50s with the class teacher being Miss Walsh if anyone wants to check authenticity. I do have the complete pic but cropped it to give a better view of Heather's knickers.
I later met Heather in a pub by chance when I was about 18 and she looked absolutely gorgeous. I was too much of a gentleman to mention the knicker display incident of course.

J

The researcher in question most certainly did exist, and for that matter, still exists. Her name is Mallory Wober, and she - not he - is quite a well known psychologist.

In 1966 she was asked by Dr Royston Lambert, who was head of the Boarding Schools Research Unit at King's College, Cambridge to carry out a detailed investigation into girls boarding schools - most research prior to this had revolved around boys schools. To carry out her research she visited and stayed at (or occasionally near) 23 different girls boarding schools from across England.

The results of her study were published in 1971 by Allen Lane The Penguin Press under the title 'English Girls' Boarding Schools'. Though, out of print, this book would not be too hard to find in British academic libraries.

Her statements about the school which had rules about the underwear its girls could wear, and the fact that this was enforced because could see violators as they sat cross legged at assembly can be found on page 123 of that study.

It's one minor point in a 300 page study - it was hardly a major focus of her research, but it is there, and it should be quite easy for anyone who wants to check it, to do so.

"Her statements about the school which had rules about the underwear its girls could wear, and the fact that this was enforced because could see violators as they sat cross legged at assembly can be found on page 123 of that study" says Dean.

I am quite willing to accept that the above is true and have never disputed that non-regulation underwear 'could' be seen in those circumstances. Indeed, it is quite obvious that non-regulation underwear 'could' be seen in those circumstances.

Readers with a moderate-to-good command of the English language will of course realise that the fact that non-regulation underwear 'could' be seen in those circumstances means simply that it was sometimes possible in those circumstances to see one or more girls wearing non-regulation underwear.

As a method of detecting such rule-breakers, however, it's absurdly inefficient and could never have been a detection 'method' at all.

Neither teachers nor psychologists can act outside the laws of physics and I rely upon those laws to support my case that in such circumstances the vast majority of the underwear - regulation and otherwise - would have been hidden from view.

The poor girl showing her knicks is, predictably, on the front row and even if a thousand of her exhibitionist ilk were seated in rows behind that front row, none of their knickers would be visible.

I rest my case.

"There was evidentally not much need to control underwear, as few girls would hazard expensive oddities here. At one school it became fashionable to sport coloured bloomers, which was not officially resisted; but at another, a rule enjoining the wearing of white knickers could be enforced as all the girls sat cross-legged on the floor during part of morning assembly, during which time offenders could be spotted by staff"

This is what is reported from observations by a competent and trained observer. They know what they could see.

But go ahead - continue to argue that you are right and that the person who was there - a named, reputable observer was wrong.

It just illustrates exactly how little attention anybody should bother to pay to your views.

Readers competent in English must make allowances for Dean who appears to have only the most basic grasp of the language.

BA(Hons) in English Literature and History, you supercilious, sanctomonious, boviforous ignoramus.

A BA(Hons) in English Literature and History is clearly no guarantee of competence in the English language as Dean misspells 'sanctimonious' and employs an entirely non-existent word 'boviforous'.

Boviforous? What on Earth can he mean?

He might have intended 'bovivorous' which, although I can't find it in my dictionary, must surely mean 'in the habit of eating cattle' but why would he want to denounce me as a beefeater?

What a very strange man Dean is!

Gosh, isn't Lotta clever!

Yes, I have a PhD in 'The Detection of Fake Headmasters, Fraudulent Floosies and Fantasy Wives'.

LOTTA

Now, dear girl, go for the big one and tell us which of them is J,then!


PS

This is getting as heavy as that old Deep Purple standard:-


Come On...

Come On....

Come On------------Let's go skirt-lifting!


Steve M

I think there is also reasonably firm evidence that a headmistress of one of the girl's private schools in Cheltenham circa 1960 insisted on a parade of the entire school pupils at which skirts were lifted in order to check that the regulation green knickers were being worn. I can't be bothered to look, can anyone else find a reference? I think this possibly gets a mention in Arthur Marshall's "Giggling In the Shrubbery" (a survey of girls' schools and a follow up to his similar boys' schools book "Whimpering In the Rhododendrons"). The shrubbery book also contains several good knicker yarns, including one about a school doctor who thought navy blue knickers were harmful to girls because of the dye and insisted on plain white ones. I don't actually have a copy to hand of either book, but they're worth looking out for..

Lotta said: "even if a thousand of her exhibitionist ilk were seated in rows behind that front row, none of their knickers would be visible."
******************************************************************

What this statement shows is that Lotta does NOT have a PhD in History of Fashion. I gave the date as late 50s so was pre-Quant and dress length was modest. Now move on 10 years into the Quant heyday and the girls sitting in the 2nd row would have been wearing very short skirts and showing a great expanse of bare thigh. Just for the photographer they would have been sitting with their knickers well and truly on display and no doubt giggling at the bulge in the front of his trousers.

J

I think there is also reasonably firm evidence that Arthur Marshall didn't attend a girls' private school either in Cheltenham circa 1960 or in any other place at any other time.

That being so, it is highly unlikely that he witnessed the alleged incident and we must therefore assume that the story is anecdotal.

It is also almost certainly apocryphal

J

I picked a school at random on FR & this is Manningtree Sec(Essex) 4th ot 5th year 68 or 69:-










Plenty of legs in that front row,but not a lot of underwear on view.

Strikes me Lotta's Mum might have been that age & that's where our little Minx got the non-knicker showing knowledge.

If that makes the slightest sense-which it probably doesn't.


Steve

Oh wow. A misspelling.

Spelling is one of the most insignificant elements of competency in English. That's why we teach it to primary aged children, and leave the more complex areas of the language until they are older.

I actually do spell reasonably well, but not perfectly.

As for boviferous, it is a real word. The fact you couldn't find it in whatever dictionary or dictionaries you looked at is a reflection of the fact that no dictionary contains every single word in the English language (the OED comes closest). It's a poetical variation of the word boviform (a poetical variation that I selected because it scanned better with the other words I was using), which means resembling a cow or an ox - I thought it lacked a little bit of style to just come straight out and call you a cow, but that is what I was doing.

Steve I accept your word that you picked that pic purely at random and I'm not going to suggest that you spent hours trawling the net to find a pic that supported Lotta's opinion on knicker inspections.
Also, I'm not going to suggest that you would want to support Lotta because you have a secret desire to get her across your knee while she is wearing a St Trinians' uniform.
However, you've missed the point here because your pic doesn't show seated girls. Lotta said this about my pic of Heather:-

"The poor girl showing her knicks is, predictably, on the front row and even if a thousand of her exhibitionist ilk were seated in rows behind that front row, none of their knickers would be visible."

Really? Not one pair of knickers would be visible? Here are a couple of pics that I also found by a random search and didn't spend hours trawling the net looking for them either.

WOW-knickers!


....and more knickers!


J

J

Yep, 2-1 to you!

Problem is, there's nothing in the 2nd row, although one of your picks being a mixed school, the possibility of that is halved(I hope!!!). Plus one second row is standing-which is no help to either side!

I admit to being an expert on 2nd row, as I was forced to play there for the 4 n' a half years I couldn't get out of doing rugby,instead of football. I did develope an evil king-hit at scrums, but that's all 2nd rows ever did for me.

I think there was generally more underwear displayed in the 60's than Lotta and a lot of older women would like to admit-they clearly didn't all have HER sharp mind when facing a box brownie or instamatic. But that gormless forgetting of what all nice gels were taught-did it spread past the FRONT rows?

The plot thickens. We could be on the net for days trying to prove that!!


Steve M


PS-Lotta wouldn't need to be in school uniform, either. Just a looker!!! But would she really want to bother with a failed 2nd row forward, or would she see it as the man who created happy cows??

We shall never know! Especially if Sarah has anything to do with it, let alone Lotta!

Looks like some one in the second/third row forgot to act like a young lady

An extract from womens studies university of wales Bangor

“For my MA in Women’s Studies I interviewed a cohort of middle class, well-educated women from three generations to compare their life experiences and their attitudes to feminism. They were over seventy-five years of age, forty five to fifty five and eighteen year olds. As part of informal discussions, the subject of underwear would sometimes crop up.
By the time my eldest women were at school they were encased in salmon pink wincyette ‘harvest festivals’ – all was safely gathered in. The next generation (mine) wore two pairs, white cotton briefs and sturdier outer drawers in regulation navy blue or bottle green to match the uniform. These were encased in thick ribbed tights under petticoat and heavy serge skirt or gymslip, more Fort Knoxers than boxers. Spot check knicker inspections were common and one girl was expelled for wearing pink nylon pants, although the official reason was given as ankle socks in October, when the tight season had started.”
http://www.bangor.ac.uk/ced/currentstudents/womstuds/writings/notfeministbut/susanbradley.htm

It really does look like knicker displays in schools were more common than Lotta thought.

KETTA

Blimey, talk about money for old rope-wish I'd bloody gone to Uni now!

I must admit I hope this student never got on University Challenge & had the gall to announce what her degree studies were in!


Steve M

Any more of this and I shall start believing that Lotta has a point. No one was ever expelled for wearing the wrong kind of underwear or socks. As for the little tell-tale triangles of white in the school photos, do the words 'Adobe' and 'Photoshop' ring any bells?

The references to Cheltenham presumably are linked to the UK's number one girls' public school, Cheltenham Ladies College, which, according to believable female witnesses speaking to a TV camera, really did have, back in the Fifties, some kind of knicker fixation. A mistress, it was alleged, was positioned at the foot of the main staircase, poised to look up the skirts of the descending pupils and to report those girls who had rolled up the legs of their knickers.

But please don't ask us to believe that Cheltenham or anywhere else would kick out a pupil whose parents were paying thousands to send her there, just on the ground that her bottom was covered in the wrong fabric. As we used to say on East 40th and Lexington "Get over yourself'.

Hmmmm.... Report to my study suitably attired, Miss Ketta. We need to have a little 'talk' about this...

Wackford Sqeers said:
"As for the little tell-tale triangles of white in the school photos, do the words 'Adobe' and 'Photoshop' ring any bells?"

My camera never lies
So I’ll put you in the picture and cut it down to size
(My camera oh oh)
My camera never lies anymore
‘Cos there’s nothing worth lying for
(My camera never lies)
There’s nothing worth lying for
(My camera never lies)
My camera never lies anymore

J

But please don't ask us to believe that Cheltenham or anywhere else would kick out a pupil whose parents were paying thousands to send her there, just on the ground that her bottom was covered in the wrong fabric. As we used to say on East 40th and Lexington "Get over yourself'.

Why not?

It should be borne in mind that when one of these schools expelled a student, they very rarely refunded the child's school fees. And if the school was a very successful and popular school, it could easily refill the expelled child's place - charging enrolment fees and another full set of school fees. Economically speaking, expelling a child made good sense - so the fact that the parents were spending a lot of money really wasn't a reason not to expel a child.

Going through school histories, and historical documents associated with schools, I've seen some really stupid reasons for expelling students. In most cases, they probably weren't the real reasons the child was expelled. They were - I suppose, they could be called excuses, but saying that they were the straw that broke the camels back is probably more accurate.

It is fairly unlikely that any school would have expelled a girl simply because she wore the wrong underwear. But if the girl was generally defiant, and disobedient, and the school was looking for an excuse to get rid of her, that could have changed things a bit.

The dumbest reason I ever saw for expelling a girl was one who was expelled for doing handstands.

"My camera never lies". True enough, but the one who guards the photos can.

In the second of two pictures depicting white triangles, the source of light and its direction is indicated by shadows that are clearly visible from the back row heads and the teachers' gown. Flash was not used on the camera. The main source of illumination is high and to the left of camera. The white (or light coloured) baseboard on the wall is seen both in the room light and the shadow of the teacher's gown. Note how dark the white board becomes when in the shadow.

The same was true of the white triangles in the original photo since they are in shadow too. (Whiter than white detergent may be magic, but it only improves reflection, it does not give clothes their own light source).

But what would be visible only to a discerning eye in a black and white photo as dark triangles was still there. It has been amplified certainly, but not falisified (when blown up to show each pixel as a square you can clearly see straight lines added by a "pencil" style of brush).

So the point being made in these and subsequent pictures, that Lotta's nonsense was indeed nonsense, is valid despite the "assistance" in interpretation afforded the viewer.

People with the funds to send their children to expensive schools moved in the same social, business, diplomatic etc. circles. A school's reputation was thus an all important consideration, not just scholastically, but in terms of being acceptable and free of problems for the parents.

I am inclined to think that a minor and temporary economic gain would be greatly overshadowed by the need for impeccable ongoing PR.

If behaviour was a problem, not only would parents have to be well informed in advance, the eventual "excuse" would need to be dignified and plausible. I sincerely doubt that underwear qualified...

PS If you think through the implications of doing handstands, they may have had a point...

I wonder if anyone got expelled for conspiracy to do handstands, or malice aforethought in the thought of wanting to do them?

I wonder, too, if Ketta & Lotta wonder why so many of us blokes have suddenly become such experts on knickers-I'm sure I'm speaking for one and all-we aren't into wearing them a la Rod Stewart, honest!

We just think we know it all!


Steve

Steve

Having moved from state school at 13 to the private, Money, social circles defiantly spoke volumes. The reputation of the school paramount, environment strict, oppressive. Definite culture shock.

I would have done handstands, cartwheels in pink lace knickers and ankle socks if I thought it would have got me expelled and found my escape . Unfortunately this forbidden activity would have got you a couple of sore hands and continued incarceration,

The fact my talents didn’t extend to handstands may have something to do with it. Still practising!!!

Steve I doubt so many of you have suddenly become experts on knickers I can only assume most acquired this expertise in earlier years, when school boys were blessed with xray vision and lusted forbidden fruit. Of course once tasted such garments were quickly abandoned the rest is history. Memories playing tricks with you all.

Why do you think us females have a facination with our kilt wearing friends across the borders

Ketta

KETTA

I ought to take issue with you re knicker-tasting,but I'm sure I shouldn't take it literally.

I do now wonder if I missed something not being in Wales when those handstand failures were taking place! X-Ray vision is fine, but it didn't ever extend over 200 miles!!!

And I still can't do one either, so don't feel life's passed you by!


Steve

I wonder, too, if Ketta & Lotta wonder why so many of us blokes have suddenly become such experts on knickers-I'm sure I'm speaking for one and all-we aren't into wearing them a la Rod Stewart, honest!

I wouldn't claim to be an expert on knickers, but I am prepared to state quite openly that I spent a lot of my time as a boy trying to see girls underwear and got to see quite a lot of it.

A friend and I used to sit on Glenferrie Station in the afternoon after school and try to see up the skirts of the Gen and MLC girls on the opposite platform. We thought we were subtle and successful until an MLC prefect made it very clear they knew what we were doing.

Didn't get to see much from the MLC girls - their dresses were too long unless they were really careless, but saw a bit from the Gen girls until we got caught out. It really wasn't that hard to see a lot of the time, if you could get the right angle.

(Yes, I know this was wrong of us and very disrespectful of the girls - though considering what they did to us, I don't think they could have said much - but at 14/15, I saw things a bit differently).

Steve / Dean

Schoolgirls mature and xray vision just gets better. No fighting lads









I see it's not only the girls who had problems!!! (airbrushed for modesty of course)

That's spiffy, Ketta. Which one is you?

KETTA

How remarkably unsexy it looks now!


Good job I've always had patience and a fertile imagination! I've had many pleasant surprises when the time comes to enter Knickerland that way!


Loved the kilted ones-did you ever clock that Chelsea FC team photo from 1971 or so in which Peter Osgood & co had a great laugh at the photographer's expense?



Steve

As I have mentioned in previous threads I have seen genuine uniform lists for Fulneck Girls School in West Yorkshire. Knickers were worn with linings at least until the 1970's(efectively uniform knickers with briefs underneath). One of these documents clealy stated that Matron was responsible for measuring the the length of girl's skirts whilst the girl knelt on a chair. This may not have happened every day or every week but skirt length inspections did exist at some schools.

This may have been mentioned before, but at Bromsgrove High School, as at Fulneck, girls wore white cotton briefs underneath their navy blue knickers and there were knicker inspections at the end of assembly once a term, but no corporal punishment.

I was caned at school. I attended a RC school and every time I was told to lift my skirt (or given the option of removing it) to receive my punishment. I always removed my skirt as my mum knew if my skirt was ceased in a certain why, I had being caned and I would have got it again at home. My knickers were always on. as for uniform, it was white top, blue tie amd black skirt.