It never did us any harm.

[Waterside Echo]

Thanks to The Daily Express. July 28th 1983,

[DaveH]

Thanks to The Daily Express. July 28th 1983,

I am surprised that this is 1983.

By this time I had been teaching for 5 years and at all state schools in England and Wales corporal punishment had already been outlawed.

When I started in 1978 senior staff could cane but young teachers like myself at the time couldn't, and by the time I was considered senior enough to cane it had already been abolished.

As to weather or not I would want to cane if the law had not changed, I don't think I would now, I don't actually see it as a suitable or appropriate punishment for young people in this day and age, even though their behaviour at times can be worse than that of previous generations. Like the settling of many arguments, disputes and breaches of the rules violence and hitting someone with a stick is not really the answer,

Now when I was a kid, the cane was used a fair bit and I may have got the odd whack, - and it didn't do me any harm, usually we deserved it, knew we had done wrong, owned and no one bore any lasting grudges. it actually seemed to be "fair" at the time.

Then again times change and how often do we think badly of our ancestory for committing 21st century attrocities by doing something that was perfectly acceptable and lawfull at the time? slave trade, racism, hanging, flogging, work houses, institutions for the mentally ill, military conscription or press ganging, no votes for women or men under 30, - we wouldn't want any of these things today, but at one time all were an accepted way of life.