Hi everyone - great forum.

Has anyone any experience of this once popular but underestimated punishment ? From my experience the sting to the legs is "sharper" but more short lived. The optimum places to smack being the backs of the legs just above the knee and just below the bottom - would anyone agree ? It must be fascinating to a few people as this little video clip is getting 200 views a day !!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHGai2ob2ss

Cheers
SK
(__________ (=!=)

SK

Saw the just-above-the-knee many times by ratty parents in my childhood(I was born 1952) & in the class sometimes.

Both boys & girls got it in about equal doses & apart from leaving a pretty visible mark as a potential deterrent, it generally hurt, from what I remember of the miscreant's reactions!

Tell you what, too, like boxing-the short-range smack, not the flailing long wallop, was more effective. Especially if delivered in the midst of a verbal dressing-down or fierce scolding-one to each leg in turn, then repeat the dose.

"Only" 4 smacks, but the couple of times I saw that in class, the kids in question were tearful for over an hour after and the rest of us well-behaved for at least two days!


Steve

Amazing! as well as the same vintage and on the other side of the world, I can confirm that the smacked leg with visible finger marks was the normal result of bad behaviour in my N London junior school. Mr C. who is still alive and smacking was a veritable master of the art. Boys or girls got equal stinging slaps.
mimi, who is as French as Saro is Oriental

Saro is of Indian descent (that would be from India). My catholic-convert great grandparents arrived in Malaysia around 1900, and we've all been Malaysian citizens since Independence from Britain in the 50s. My parents were born in the mid 1930s and their first language is English because of British rule at the time. They're also from Penang, (Georgetown) a colonial bastion. So English is my first language. I also speak passable Malay, terrible Hokkien even worse Tamil, so-so French, decent Swedish and God-Awful Italian. I did my first degree in the US then went back to Malaysia for a few years but then returned to the US to go after a musical career which has fallen flat due to three years of worsening health. I also moved back to the US because I just wasn't as culturally at-home living in Malaysia anymore. I am culturally and liguistically diverse because my parents were missionaries, and I lived in many counries where my parents spread the word of God.

I'm sorry mimi thinks so oddly of orientals that I couldn't be one. I know a lovely lady named Mimi here -- she's from Taiwan.

Ps: the smacked leg thing is also strongly prevalent in Malaysia. Also the caned leg. The stories I could tell...

The above message is aggravated in response to Mimi's previous comment with the reference to me.

Jack/mimi/jay,

Saro is one of the most distinguished and well-respected contributors to this forum. Please refrain from making unkind remarks about her.

Mimi is suitably chastened and would have thought that the smiley would have indicated the jest intended.

Smacking the legs was the favourite form of punishment of my second year teacher in infants school and it really hurt. In the first year our teacher was a real sweetie and we all loved her. If we were ever naughty she just gave us a light slap on the back of our hands but it didn't really hurt even though we were so ashamed to let her down.

But when we moved up to the next class, the teacher Mrs White was greatly feared and with much reason. If she disapproved of your behaviour you were called out to the front of the class to stand by her desk. Then she would lift your skirt if you were a girl or pull up the legs of your shorts if you were a boy and deliver really hard slaps on the back or side of your bare thigh as high up as she could reach. Usualy it was one sharp smack on each leg, but sometimes more.

I remember the time she smacked me she had left the room for a short while to go to the next classroom and told us all to be quiet and get on with some work. I can't remember exactly what terrible crime I committed but whatever it was she saw me doing it through the classroom window as she was coming back. I was immediately called out to her desk, and received two real stingers on my bare legs that left the red marks of her fingers on my skin for several minutes. I was so shocked that I howled and burst into tears. (I was only 6).

Considering my age and how hard she smacked I think in relative terms it was the worst corporal punishment I received at school. When I was slippered or caned at ages 12-15 I'm sure the prefects and headmaster whacked me harder but I was tougher at those ages and more able to bear it. And of course we didn't get the slipper or cane on our bare skin, unlike Mrs White's leathery hands which always smacked on the bare legs.

Mrs White was friends with my Mum and we would occasionally meet her in town when I was shopping with my Mum many years after the time Mrs White smacked my legs. It was always very embarassing for me to stand there while she chatted with Mum as I remembered the time that this witch had pulled up my shorts and smacked me so hard.

Saro might have been crankier than usual due to aches and pains. Today i shook my cane (walking cane, relax everyone) and gesticulated wildly at some dame honking her SUV's horn at my back as I rather slowly crossed the road with a small cart of groceries. What, did she think I like moving like a snail and carry an aluminum (yes, yes, aluminium to some) cane for style? Really!

Big John -- thanks always for your kinds words for me.

I've gone and got you and Big John all mixed up now haven't I. So thanks, both of you.

Big John


Research Assistant

An everyday occurance in Catholic Primary school. Never a day went by where you wouldn't witness a leg smacking-the favourite sport of Nuns. There always appeared to be more smackings on cold days for some reason. The classrooms had no heating and if a child misbehaved the Lay teacher or Nun would call them out to the front of the class for a "leg warming".

It was a common sight in the playground-a girl or boy running around with red marks on their legs.

I went to a C. of E. Primary School and leg smacking was just as common there but only in the infants. In fact as my parents never spanked me, it was my first experience of corporal punishment.

In the juniors, spanking and canings were administered on the bottom - see the 'Get with it get Witham' thread. Looking back it seems unfair that the older kids had more protection that the very young ones who were smacked on their bare skin.

Infants school (in the sixties) was my one and only experience of being on the receiving end. My friend and I had been misbehaving during a play break and we were made to wait in front of the class while the other kids cleared up.

Once they had and were quietely sat back in their places the teacher dealt with us. I remember her rolling up the right leg of my short trousers and then smacking me on the side and back of the leg from the new short line to just above my knee. Then she worked her way back up again. I thought it was over but she did an encore on the other leg before sending me back to my place to sit on a pair of very red and stinging thighs. The thing that really got me about that episode was watching the others in the class watching me while I was getting it.

Jimmy