I received plenty of rods/rulers to the palm of the hand from the psychotic nuns I have talked about elsewhere in this group, but I was only on the receiving end of the cane on the bottom once. Flipping heck! (That’s as far as I’m prepared to go on this forum, but please feel free to substitute stronger expletives of your own. You can’t over-egg this particular pudding.) The pain was incredible. My ‘sentence’ was three strokes, but, after the first, the pain was all-consuming anyway.

Why was I caned? The Headmaster had made what I felt to be an unjust decision, and I told him so. Children have a keen sense of what is fair or not, but, let us say, we were not encouraged to make our feelings known.

Did it make me mend my ways? No, actually. What it did do was a) make me determined never to suffer that pain again, and b) be much sneakier in making sure any indiscretions I committed were well concealed.

Result: I became less of a champion of justice and much more duplicitous in my dealings with others. Not a great outcome, methinks.

I later became a schoolmaster myself, and, early in my career, was called on to witness a few canings. It was a hateful ritual and I was so pleased when it was banned.