The Belt

As a child, particularly at secondary school, and due to my natural tendency to be the ‘funny boy’, I became an expert participant-observer of the employment of the ‘tawse’, as used by my ‘teachers’ to enforce ‘corporal punishment. (I say ‘teachers’ in this way as I don’t remember them being particularly instructive in anything else, maybe I wasn’t being overly attentive but I’m pretty sure I left school only with the ability to read, write and count and with the hitherto useless knowledge that Richard Nixon’s middle-name was Milhouse).

The ‘tawse’ was a leather strap split in two about 5 inches from the end presumably to give it an enhanced ‘whip’ effect over a wider area of the hand.

I won a Dunlop65 golf ball in the second year for receiving ‘the strap’ (or ‘the belt’ as it was more colloquially called) more than any other pupil. I would have been the owner of a collection of these balls if it was an annual prize such was my propensity toward this punishment.

On one occasion a Mr Fraser, frustrated at only being ‘legally’ entitled to administer six heavy strokes (he had a vicious ‘whipping’ technique which he aimed at your wrists), sent me to the Art Teacher Mr Masson for a further four (some school where the art teachers a fucking sadist).

Some teachers enjoyed giving the belt when there was snow on the ground. Try getting your hand severely warmed in arctic temperatures, it’s an experience.

I remember a pupil, a rival no-doubt for my crown, who deliberately separated his hands as the belt came whipping down towards them, thus leaving the fire-faced teacher to receive the kinetic force of his efforts on his own shins. Such fury did this engender that he attacked the lad. This resulted in pupil and teacher grappling and flailing about on the classroom floor to the collective joy of all others present.

Ah the joys of youth..