BEXHILL SCHOOL

Worst moments 2: Action

 

Once we'd agreed that Anticipation was the worst thing about corporal punishment (see Worst moments 1), we considered what it was like once the action had started.

Almost everyone in the Sixth Form Common Room went along with the notion that a caning was top of the list, especially a really thorough thrashing with a Dragon. The first six strokes were bad enough, but if you were getting the Dragon, it probably meant you'd done something pretty awful - like you'd been caught smoking or drinking alcohol. Then you'd get twelve, but hardly anyone ever got through the last six without howling their heads off.

Sally disagreed. She just hates being whacked, but despite that, she seems to get into trouble more often than most of us. Sally reckoned that a good, hard, bare-bottom paddling was just as bad - and sometimes worse - than a caning. 

Then the two French exchange girls, Amélie and Nicole, reckoned nothing, but nothing, compared to a session with their old Headmaster's martinet. Most of us hadn't ever felt the martinet: that short, multi-tailed whip which seemed to be standard in all French schools. One or two of us had been given it - quite illegally, we suspected - by the Miss Thierry, the French teacher. It had stung, but it wasn't anything like as bad as the cane.

"But zat's because you didn't get it from our 'Eadmaster," said Nicole. "Mon dieu! You had to bend right over and zen you got at least 10 lashes on your bare be'ind. Very 'ard. You couldn't sit down for a week. Look, I 'ave a photo Amélie took secretly when we were being whipped for smoking last year. See 'ow bravely I am taking my fesée!" 

We squinted at the picture and had to admit that it looked as though poor Nicole was getting quite a flogging, so the martinet joined the cane and the paddle in our Top Three Most Feared Implements.