Forums Forums Wirral History : Chasing the Past Wirral History Was it really better ?

Just reading through some of these posts again. You know it was pretty cruel in school then. I went to a mixed school in the sixties and the head had no problem with giving the cane. The boys who were given it had to stand on the stage in front of the whole school after assembly and be whacked in front of us all. Pretty damaging(mentally) I should think, to all of us. It was awful seeing it happen and made me
feel sick.The head always looked vicious, angry and red faced when he performed this act.The most bizzar of all was we had just said all the prayers etc. and supposedly learnt a lesson of goodness and kindness --followed by nasty punishment. Not much sense in those days.
The girls were given the rope! by a lady teacher. Some lady! Although the girls were not put on display.
Amazing but true!

I'm thinking back to 1981 and sitting in the school hall doing my chemistry O-level paper. Curtains closed on the stage, but the unmistakeable sound of the deputy head yelling at a boy and then a couple of whacks of the cane. Nowadays students would have grounds for appeal if there was any 'disruption' like that while they were taking an exam!

The cane is something to be debated. A horrible way to deal with child's minor misbehaviour, but my daughter is a teacher and I do understand that in the present day the teachers cannot find a suitable way for effective disiplne. Did you pass your exam?

I did pass -!- however, the argument today would be that I might have done better without distractions... (I'm not saying I agree with that, btw!)

I'm inclined to agree with you - or at least I think now we have gone so far in the opposite direction that there is no effective deterrent and teachers' hands are effectively tied. I saw, heard, and heard of plenty of unnecessary, sadistic behaviour, and some spur-of-the-moment violence (a teacher driven to slap a pupil's face, for example) and wouldn't want that to return but the knots that teachers, schools and education authorities are now tied in create a whole new set of problems.

I remember one teacher used to hit you with a plimsoll. I am convinced to this day that he got his jollies by doing it.

Personally I brought my children up properly and if any teacher had hit one of mine, they would have been hit right back by me and sod the consequences. Which ever way you look at it, it is violence and has no place in modern society.

I know it has been repeated many times but one only has to look at old school punishment logs to see that the same names kept cropping up thus proving it wasn't a deterent.

I truly pity teachers these days but it all boils down to parents in the end.

Sorry, this just made me laugh so much.


In my school I'm sure we HAD a cane, there was even a lot of talk of people GETTING the cane, but I can't actually remember ANYONE being hit with it, and I'm reasonably sure I would have been once, possibly twice, or more.

Sometimes it is not so much the actual cane itself but the deterrent effect it has, which is why, for some, it would never work and they received it again and again, but others conformed because of this.

Was anyone else on here "taught" by that sadistic bitch Sister Rita (nun) in Saint Annes junior school in Rock
Ferry?

Hmmm! Perhaps I could have put that a bit better. Doh!

remember being caught running in the corridor at Trinity Street school, downstairs so it would have been in the juniors, by the headmistress. She thwacked on the legs with a ruler, which left red marks on my legs. Went home at tea time and my Nana went absolutely ballistic and dragged me to the school. Don't think she chinned the head but I didn't get bothered with her again. My mum was at work down at the rops at the time.

i remember in primary school being smacked across the head by a teacher! if he asked me question and i did'nt know the answer i would say 'don't know sir' SMACK! right across the head!and this was in the infants! i never told my mum or dad cos i thought it was part of school life---well i was only little!!! it was years and years later i told mum and she said 'well you never told me!'
she said she would of gone up to the school if she had known. he was a horrible sadistic teacher.

I got caned for copying in a school exam once. It was my own fault. On Q7, the guy next to me put "I don't know!" I put "Neither do I!"

All the modern thinking do gooders. we have more violence on the streets today than we did in the late 40s and 50s. SPARE THE ROD AND SPOIL THE CHILD.

That sir is utter ballcocks. As stated previously my children never caused a problem for anyone because they were brought up correctly without being abused by anyone. The opposite of dogooder is a dobadder. With apologies to the proper English brigade!

Then how do you explain the deterioration of moral standards as compared with the 1940's/50's?

Unless I'm very much mistaken or have been reading the wrong comics, wasn't there just a little bit of violence in the 40s.

A little question for those who still think that its fit and proper to beat up children and cane them as a way of discipline. At what age should this begin?