While in my third year at secondary school, I witnessed a very severe
caning of a boy, from the headmaster.
Our class had just had a swimming lesson. The pool was open-aired with
wooden panels surrounding it. We had no changing rooms, so we had to dry
and change us where we could. So this particular day I and another boy
was drying ourselves in a corridor, at the top end of the school where
three classrooms were situated.
We were busy drying ourselves when we saw the headmaster walking down
the corridor, with a cane in his hand. My first thoughts were, is he coming
for us for making the floor wet? Well he passed us and entered the first
classroom, came out and went into the next one, came out and entered the
first one again, he came out followed by a boy.
They walked up the corridor then the Head stopped, just before the corridor
went into the entrance hall.
I could see the Head was really angry and started talking to the boy, then
the boy held his hand out, for three strokes,then three on his other hand,
then the Head spoke to him, he bent over and was given six real stingers
that made me cringe and he was sent back to his classroom.
We couldn't believe that the boy showed no emotion, it was as if he had been
to the toilet. He made no noise or movement as the Head hit him with real
venom.
The boy was a year older than me, he had a twin brother who was in the second
class, the Head entered. They were big lads, who were hard as nails.
I found out he had blinded another boy in one eye, with a cardboard pellet
shot from an elastic band held between the fingers. The lad who was blinded
never came back to school, so I never knew if his eye was really blinded or
badly damaged.
I always wondered what would have gone through a Headmaster's mind prior
and during a caning. It would be interesting to know, also I wondered if
it was legal to give twelve strokes of the cane.

I believe that most, if not all, Local Education Authority regulations concerning corporal punishment in schools stated that the maximum number of strokes was six.

My only personal experience of the cane was across the clothed buttocks at high school. I never got to examine the cane close up but guess it measured about 36 x 3/8th inches. It was laid on hard, left tram tracks and it really hurt. All boys accepted this punishment as appropriate - we knew nothing else. We were expected to take our punishment stoically and most did.

One misguided boy made the mistake of trying to protect his buttocks with his hands after the first stroke. The second stroke landed on his hands producing large blood blisters. This injury terminated the punishment although he was owed two more strokes. It is unclear how it was the boy was able to move is hands into danger without the master noticing and stopping. The point is that canes suitable for use on the buttocks are much to big for use on the hands. A hand cane used on the buttocks would be a relatively minor punishment.

Topping and tailing (punishing the hands and buttocks) occurred occasionally. I once witnessed a boy being strapped on the hands and then, when he refused to apologise, on the buttocks. I would guess the strap measured 20 x 2 inches. It was designed for punishing hands.

I don't think that giving a boy 12 (or even 100!) strokes was ever actually against the LAW; I don't think that the law ever said anything except that teachers had the same right to punish children as parents did. If a teacher was accused of hitting someone too hard or too many times it would be up to a magistrate or a jury to decide if the punishment was "reasonable". Giving someone 12 of the best might have been against the RULES -- local councils and local education authorities did have rules and regulations about corporal punishment. I recall that my school areas CP rules were reprinted in the local paper; they said (if I remember right) that only the head or deputy could use this kind of punishment; that he could only use his open hand or a cane; and that he could only hit people on the hands or the "buttocks". (It didn't say anything about whether or not the victim could be made to pull down his trousers.) It specified two sizes of cane; it said that only the smaller one could be used at primary school, but the bigger one "may" be used at secondary school; and only the smaller one could be used on the girls, regardless of their age. There was nothing about using the smaller cane on hands and the bigger one on bottoms, and it certainly did use the term "junior cane" and "senior cane". I think that a lot of teachers must have decided for themselves that the small cane didn't cause much of a sting through clothes on the bottom, and decided for themselves to cane girls hands and thus stay within the letter of the rules. The interesting thing is that these rules were more honoured in the breach than the observance: strictly speaking, my primary school headmaster broke the rules several times a day by smacking boys and girls on the legs (not the bum); and my head of year at secondary school broke the rules every time he used a gym shoe or length of bunsen burner tubing across boys backsides. The gym teacher had absolutely no right to use the slipper at all, but that didn't stop him! I wonder what would have happened if someone had complained: would the teacher have been fired for breaking local rules, or could they have been taken to court for assault? One of the things that STOPP used to complain about was that, although local authority rules often specified who could hit children, where on the body they could be hit, and what they could be hit with, very few of the guidelines put an official limit on how many strokes a boy could have and how hard they could be laid on.