Bradford Lad: Truly Painful Lesson From The Beak
You arrive at school looking grimy enough to have just done a day's work in a pit. Naturally you can expect an encounter with the worst instrument of torture - the cane. Does it pay to argue about the punishment? Read Mike Coatesworth's vivid recollections, and wince in sympathy.
I remember when I was a young lad. Every morning, my aunt would get us up for school at around 7-30 and when we came down stairs, we would be welcomed with a piping hot bowl of porridge. I used to like mine with the milk floating on top and a big dollop of syrup.
In those days, school didn’t start until 9 o’clock, so we didn’t have to rush and my aunt knew this. So after we had our breakfast, we would have to do our chores. First we’d have to fill up the coal bucket, then clean out the fireplace and empty the ashes in the bin. Sometimes the ashes would be still hot from the night before, so we would have to be careful, as it wasn’t the first time I picked up a cinder and burnt my fingers.
Anyway, it only took us about half an hour and seeing as our school, Lapage Street, wasn’t too far away, this still gave us time to play on the Blackie. This was and still is a grass covered coal slag hill just off Barkerend road. Oh the fun we had there, sometimes we would get to the top and then sit on a piece of board and slide down the hill. We weren’t alone in our antics, a good percentage of our classmates were there too. So I would sometimes end up at school, looking like I’d just done a day's work in the pits.
When I eventually arrived at school, there would be a prefect on the gates and he would wait until I was right up to the gate before he slammed them shut in my face. It was no use me telling them there was still two minutes to go before 9 o’clock. Entering the Gymnasium, I joined a queue of other lads waiting for the same thing I was. A few minutes later, the head master came out of his office wielding one of the worst instruments of torture I have ever seen, “The Cane!”
One by one, the lads were made to bend over a chair, and then the cane he held in his hand would strike against the poor lad’s buttocks, which made the young lad leap three inches into the air with a scream of agony!
Eventually it was my turn! The prefect stood at the side of the sweating master and read out the charges. Being dirty on arrival at school, and being late for school, well the master said I was to get three strokes of the cane, which didn’t stop my legs wobbling. I had just watched other lads get a maximum of three strokes.
So bending over the chair, I listened to the master’s footsteps as they echoed around the gymnasium, he was taking a slow walk down, then I heard him coming back and the footsteps got louder as they approached me. Suddenly, I got up and moved out of the way, putting my hands up in protest. ‘Whoa!’ I shouted in protest and watched as he stopped in mid stride, a puzzled look on his features.
‘Look sir, can’t we talk about this?’ I asked him as he stood there his face getting redder for being robbed of his bit of sport! ‘I mean, three strokes is a bit excessive, don’t you think?’
With this, sudden pain in my right ear from where he clouted me, made me wish I hadn’t said anything at all!
Did you ever have one of those days when nothing seemed to go right?
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