Fear & ‘Teacher-Led’ Assaults in the 1960s–80s Uk cane whipping era!

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Were you ever whipped or caned by a teacher in school?

Back in the 1970s me and my friend were 8 years old when we stood in front of a domineering headmaster with his cane in hand considering whipping us, controlling us with a delivery of pain and fear. I wasn’t sure what I’d done wrong. Only knowing something really bad was about to happen.

I was so frightened there was a cold patch appearing on the top of my head, which is a physiological reaction to fear/threat. This headmaster stood over me, holding that cane but it didn’t feel like corrective discipline or putting me on a straight and narrow for my future life. It felt like power and control, domination and a way to force me to both never do that wrong doing again and to acquiesce bow in fear and respect this dominant, unpleasant human being.

That was my view as an 8-year-old. But my view now in 2026 obviously is different. But that delivery of authority was through intimidation and fear. And I reflect now on what did it or he achieve? It did NOTHING but create negativity to add to the library of other negativity that I and every human being amassed in our memory banks growing up.

I wasn’t calmly and respectfully corrected as an 8-year-old for stealing a bottle of milk. I wasn’t presented with any adult ability or skills in behavioural psychology to teach me the error of my ways.

I wasn’t presented with another alternative way of thinking or reconsidering to not do that again. I was just forced into his space to shake and tremble with fear in front of this dominant headmaster.

The whole experience in that one moment, did nothing other than provide that headmaster with a personal inner experience pertaining intimidation to control the child.

All you did Mr Headmaster was contribute to help develop my ability over the years to look deep into people to see what they’re doing and why they do it to others.

Do you remember back in the day at school, when corporal punishment was a completely normal form of corrective behaviour in the UK.

In most cases, the main form of punishment was actual caning of 6 of the best and teacher could decide to push it a little bit further and say give 12 of the best to the select bad ass kids!

Also, children in primary school, kids, little tiny children we’re also subjected to this corporal punishment and it was standard in school policy.

That form of punishment for primary school children from 5 to 11 was via the slipper but some teachers used the cane and that was considered OK by them and by the schools as acceptable.

Anyone who was subjected to it, for whatever reason considered it as assault.

Children of now, at the time of writing in 2026 are not even aware that you would be whipped six times across the behind with a very thin, fast swinging cane by any teacher as it suited them. Or a headmaster and that you would have to bend over a table and put yourself in that degrading position. Often the teacher would hold the back of your collar scuff or in my case grip the back of my neck and push my head down hard onto the table.

And while that teacher, often was the male concentrated on the delivery of the whipping, the whacking down on my backside was considered acceptable and normal form of control and punishment that an adult male could put his hands on me, a kid and do that, because the state said he could.

The bottom line is, children grew up under the authority of the cane in school and anyone who stepped out of line and actually crossed that line, whatever that was for, there would be fear, discipline, power and control and in some cases just the idea of the cane, or the presentation of the cane in hand would be enough to stop the child, repeating said demeanour.

The term physical punishment and corporal punishment were used heavily back in the 60s and 80s. It’s a description of a historical and legally neutral language used at the time which is not the same as looking through the lens of now in 2026.

If you call it physical abuse or assault or violence then according to law and language usage, you are moving into a modern, current day evaluative judgement. Many scholars who put together law and former pupils think this exactly and it becomes an interpretive position, but not a neutral description.

It was school policy to include a form of correction and control for school kids, under the title of Corporal Punishments. Caning or disciplinary practise in schools, but upon reflection in modern days, this would now be broadly seen as physical abuse or assault.

In other words, you can’t call it assault or abuse because abuse is a covert activity and this corporal punishment practising schools was openly known and presented.

This reason annoys me. I had an experience in front of a domineering angry 6-foot 3inch towering headmaster with a cane in his hand threatening to whip me with it. I was 8 years old.

Because me and my friend had stolen two bottles of milk from the school milk crate when nobody was looking. We went around to the back of the school bin’s location and sat there drinking them, and we were seen by someone who snitched on us. We were up in front of the headmaster on a charge of stealing milk and according to the school and the law at the time, it was OK acceptable to threaten physical harm (((PAIN))) on an eight-year-old child with a cane, a WHIP.

As me and my friend stood in front of the headmaster in the dining hall, which was empty at that time, he had taken us in there to discuss, what we had done wrong. Asking us questions and evaluating what the outcome would be with cane in hand being stroked and slapped up and down onto his palms and as he talked to us firmly, moving closer to the suggested action of a caning, I then started to shake and feel a fear over me moving over the top of my head. I never forget it. I also started crying as he threatened that cain on me. Afterwards I asked my friend to not tell anyone that I cried because even at eight years old, I was ashamed.

What man? What teacher can comfortably and confidently stand in front of two 8-year-old children who stole milk, the crime of the century and think they can create, fear, anxiety and trauma in that child without any behavioural, corrective psychology teaching education involved.

Teach us. Show us the wrong. Explain to the uneducated 8-year-old mind, instead of traumatising with fear, anxiety and panic of pain and punishments.

No, that wasn’t done. But the threat of assault was presented instead. Many people today view it as that, assault and violence and what does it say about the teacher, who stands there in that position.

They are either empowered by it and some enjoy it. Those teachers and headmasters believed it was for your own good, for a corrective and guidance for your future life so you don’t do it again to put you on the perceived straight and narrow path. People will always argue, it done them no harm, it made them a better person.

What does it say about a person who causes two little children to become so frightened standing there in front of his power and authority for 10 minutes and being scolded with the hint and suggestion of being whipped with pain if we don’t fess up!!!

The reason this corporal punishment was accepted into school policy was because the law permitted it. And that law was set in motion by the government, the houses of Parliament. And because it was supported by government and the law, it cannot be called assault, violence or abuse.

Law removes the emotion which taints the legal position held back then. In UK law, the term abuse applies to covert practises or covert activity. That which is hidden and as this law was not hidden then it cannot be called abuse even though human emotion says it is and as you may know law is devoid of emotion.

But because it was openly presented and supported within law then it cannot be called abuse or assault or violence like we call it now in current times.

Also, as a 13-year-old child, I told a little white lie in front of the teacher. I told the lie to his face and he knew straight away I was lying and he highlighted the fact that I was lying and that I would be required to stay behind when the class finishes so it can be dealt with in the little prep room at the side of the classroom. As that’s where you go to receive your legal non abusive caning.

The teacher, took me into that little room and closed the door. He also locked the classroom door and he stated so we won’t be disturbed. He then directed me into this little room and closed the door. He then said he’s got a bad hand or a bad wrist.

And for that reason, he couldn’t swing the cane. But because I lied to him, I have to be punished. He then said because he doesn’t like the cane, he believes it’s too harsh.

He likes to use an old foot trainer instead? In other words, whacked across the backside, bent over and hit with a trainer. He specifically said he couldn’t do it because of his wrist.

He couldn’t grip it properly. And that was his justification for then telling me he would have to do it with his hand so he asked me to put my hands on a shelf and bend over, he then gripped the back of my neck and that’s the main bit that I remember, how tight he was gripping my neck and he held my head down and proceeded to punish me with the smack OF HIS BARE HAND. He belted my backside with his bare hand 12 times.

And when he got to 10 hits, he said he didn’t do two properly because of his sore wrist, so he needed to put an extra two on so I receive the full punishment.

And he was making the strange grunt noises with each smack. It took me about maybe 30 years once I left school to realise what was happening. The memory just returned to me one day.

It wasn’t the actual experience of being punished, it was the sexual/homosexual arousal he was experiencing in being able to use this scenario to fulfil his desire, for smacking or punishing a 13-year-old boy. The excuse of placing his bare hands on the backside of a young teen and smacking them.

He was getting off on it and that makes me shudder, because I’m not into anything like that I’m straight but 37 years later now, I guess he’s probably in his late 80s or 90s or dead. But if I ever did meet him, I would have verbally challenged and tackle him over it.

So, in UK law it can’t be called assault or abuse because it was openly practised as a form of corrective punishing behaviour and that’s why you don’t hear about historical court cases of schools or heads of schools or teachers being taken to court.

Where people disagree now isn’t usually about the emotion, pain, and fear that was involved. And there was a lot of fear, but it’s mainly about whether those facts alone automatically place it into the moral category of the term abuse, which many people believe it was or whether historical context and legality change how that category is applied now, so it isn’t really about semantic avoidance. It’s definitional a disagreement about what abuse means when a society back then once fully authorised something that today it would forbid or abhor as assault or violence.

What’s not often realised is there are many adults now who were traumatised, especially in primary schools and senior schools by the cane and even children were supposed to be smacked with a slipper in primary school. But eight and nine and ten-year-olds in primary school were whipped ruthlessly by the Catholic teachers in the Catholic school that I went to.

And I remember the dominance, the aggression and the anger that these people had within them. I couldn’t whip someone with a cane to correct them or educate them or put them on the supposed straight and narrow. I can’t step into the shoes of people like that.

My experiences are really nothing compared to the experiences of other children and what they went through in establishments, organisations, care systems, orphanages and religious establishments and all the other covert activities that occurred.

The damage and suffering that was caused by adults that think they can just walk into someone’s room, walk into someone’s safe space and make things happen for their own needs and then leave that child damaged for the rest of their life because they were tricked or led into an action or behaviour that they live with now. The guilt and shame tortures them. So, my few little experiences of corporal punishment are really nothing compared to others harm done.

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