Tues­day 19 January

Will boys nev­er learn? I had put up a large notice on the board, enti­tled SOCKS, warn­ing boys that any­one who didn’t wear the school socks in the pre­scribed fash­ion, pulled right up, could expect ‘seri­ous con­se­quences’. Did I have to spell out what I meant? Not twen­ty-four hours after I post­ed the notice, I caught Ross Junior – one of the dim­mer boys in the Remove, which is say­ing some­thing – with his socks around his ankles, sum­moned him to my study, flexed my cane, told him to take down his trousers and he had the cheek to look sur­prised, even indig­nant! I gave him six of the best for not wear­ing his socks prop­er­ly and four ‘extras’ for being a total moron. Harsh, but effec­tive, I fan­cy, judg­ing from the tears welling up in his eyes.

Sun­day 17 January

One of my most reward­ing days in my entire teach­ing career. Peter McEl­waine, who left last sum­mer and now has a well-paid job in a local build­ing soci­ety, came round to have tea with me and, in the course of a most cor­dial con­ver­sa­tion, THANKED me for not spar­ing the rod! ‘I hat­ed it at the time,’ he told me, ‘but the great thing about you, Miss Black­stock, was that you nev­er flogged a boy with­out good cause. Firm but fair: that was your mot­to.’ He then remind­ed me (I had com­plete­ly for­got­ten the inci­dent, I am ashamed to say) of the time I strapped him for run­ning in the cor­ri­dor. ‘I’ve nev­er run in the cor­ri­dor since,’ he said, with a cheeky wink. Was it my imag­i­na­tion or was their nos­tal­gia in his eyes as he con­tem­plat­ed my leather strap, hang­ing in its usu­al place?

Fri­day 15 January

It is still the first week of term and I have had to deal with a most dis­con­cert­ing inci­dent in the show­ers. I heard gig­gling as I was pass­ing, went to inves­ti­gate, and to my absolute hor­ror, found Watkins and Wrig­glesworth, whom I had giv­en six of the best not half an hour before, com­par­ing their stripes. Unbe­liev­able behav­iour! Call me naive, but I had always imag­ined that a boy unlucky enough to be on the receiv­ing end of my senior cane would dis­play a decent pen­i­tence for at least the next twen­ty-four hours. This almost boast­ful parad­ing of well-marked bot­toms seemed dis­re­spect­ful of the entire process. I gave the lit­tle toer­ags a fur­ther six of the best apiece, with plen­ty of fol­low through, but how do I know they won’t go off and com­pare the NEXT set of marks? I feel almost phys­i­cal­ly sick at the prospect.

1 Jan­u­ary 1953

I don’t nor­mal­ly believe in New Year’s res­o­lu­tions, but this year I am so bloody deter­mined to raise stan­dards at this school, how­ev­er much phys­i­cal pain it caus­es some boys, that I have made THREE res­o­lu­tions which I intend to keep scrupulously:

1.       There will be no sec­ond chances. As soon as I have warned a boy about his behav­iour once, that’s it. Any rep­e­ti­tion of the behav­iour that has got him into trou­ble and he can expect six of the best with the cane, pants down, no ifs, no buts.

2.       I must use my hair­brush more. For some offences, the cane or strap is NOT nec­es­sar­i­ly the best rem­e­dy. Some boys respond bet­ter to an old-fash­ioned, no-holds-barred, over-the-knee spank­ing with a wood­en hair­brush – with no lim­it on the num­ber of strokes. You just spank them till they are beg­ging for mer­cy, basically.

3.       I must be pre­pared to pun­ish my sec­re­tary Celia WITHOUT MERCY until she gets the mes­sage. It is vital she remem­bers who is boss.

Thurs­day 31 Decem­ber 1952

And so anoth­er year comes to an end. Itís been a strange twelve months. Look­ing at the offi­cial school pun­ish­ment book, I see that I have admin­is­tered 118 strap­pings, 33 on the bare, 48 can­ings, 18 on the bare, and assort­ed oth­er pun­ish­ments, all of which left their mark. The slip­per would nor­mal­ly be at the milder end of cor­po­ral pun­ish­ment spec­trum, but I shall not quick­ly for­get young Knox, after a mere eight swipes with slip­per, beg­ging, beg­ging me to stop. Who did he think he was fool­ing? I had promised him twelve swipes with the slip­per, and that was what he going to get, how­ev­er sore his bot­tom. I laid on the last four like an aveng­ing fury. Result? Knox has been a paragon of good behav­iour ever since. If I have learnt any­thing this year, it is that it is bet­ter to thrash some­one too hard than not hard enough ñ itís the best deterrent.
The oth­er curi­ous fea­ture of 1952 has been the way my daffy sec­re­tary Celia has TWICE had to be remind­ed, through the rat-a-tat of my cane on her back­side, that I donít put up with non­sense from any­one. Fin­gers crossed, I will nev­er have to deal with her in that way again.

Mon­day 21 Decem­ber 1952

…the last full day of term and noth­ing more oner­ous to deal with than the school car­ol ser­vice. I wore my aca­d­e­m­ic gown for the occa­sion, the boy scrubbed up nice­ly, there was a Christ­mas tree in the school hall and the whole atmos­phere was serene and stress-free, until… I could hard­ly believe my ears!!! Two fifth-for­m­ers, Cook and Atkin­son, were singing a ver­sion of Good King Wences­las that was so coarse and smut­ty and gen­er­al­ly obscene that I could see Matron blush­ing ñ and sheís a hard woman to shock. I wait­ed until the ser­vice was over, made a lit­tle end-of-term speech thank­ing the boys for their efforts dur­ing the term, then added, with men­ace in my voice: ëI am afraid Cook and Atkin­son are dis­hon­ourable excep­tions. Could they please present them­selves in my study immediately?í I donít like thrash­ing boys with the strap in Christ­mas week, trousers down, but needs must. My strap was warm to the touch after­wards ñ and I dare say their back­sides were, too.

Fri­day 18 December

… one of the stu­pid­est boys in the whole low­er fifth ñ which is say­ing some­thing. He is a friend­ly soul and, in gen­er­al, not bad­ly behaved. But his aca­d­e­m­ic work is so sloven­ly, and he makes so lit­tle effort, that I when I read his end-of-term reports from his teach­ers and saw that he had got bot­tom marks in just about every sub­ject, my patience snapped. ëDo you ENJOY get­ting bot­tom marks, Kelly?í I said, flex­ing my cane. The poor lad paled and start­ed gib­ber­ing. ëNo, miss, of course not, miss, it wonít hap­pen again, miss, Iím very sor­ry, miss, please, miss ñ not the cane.í ëBut, Kelly,í I said, smil­ing sweet­ly, ëI thought bot­tom marks were your spe­cial­i­ty. You get them every term. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, you are not the only per­son in this school who spe­cialis­es in bot­tom marks. Bend over and touch your toes.í Six real stingers lat­er and he was left with bot­tom marks that will last till Christ­mas and into the New Year. 

Thurs­day 17 Decem­ber †1952

Anoth­er dis­taste­ful episode involv­ing my way­ward sec­re­tary Celia. I had just giv­en Watkins six of the best on the bare ñ he had been run­ning in the cor­ri­dor for the third time in a week ñ when I heard a faint cough out­side the door of my study. On going to inves­ti­gate, I found Celia kneel­ing on the floor with her ear to the key­hole. She had been lis­ten­ing in on Watkin­sí can­ing! At a human lev­el, I could iden­ti­fy. There is cer­tain­ly some­thing hyp­not­ic, even erot­ic, in the sound of a cane land­ing full force on naked but­tocks. But that is no excuse for what I regard as lit­tle bet­ter than voyeurism. A sim­ple solu­tion was at hand and I wast­ed no time in apply­ing it. Six of the best for Celia, pants down, with Watkins watch­ing! From the sheep­ish way Celia left the room after­wards, I think she had learnt her lesson.

Tues­day 14 Decem­ber 1952

… hands in his bloody pock­ets! Con­sid­er­ing he was sup­posed to be read­ing the les­son at the school car­ol ser­vice, I took a very dim view indeed. I have thought for some time that Wil­son has been get­ting above him­self, but the lit­tle ras­cal is usu­al­ly clever enough not to get caught. He also has an annoy­ing habit of smirk­ing when oth­ers receive a thrash­ing. Well, he was for the high jump this time! An exem­plary sen­tence was called for, and I took great plea­sure in admin­is­ter­ing it. First, I made him write out fifty times, ëBoys who behave like total slobs get bot­tom mark­sí. Then I marked the said bot­tom accord­ing­ly, strap­ping his bare back­side until it was as red as a ripe toma­to. He wonít be putting his hands in his pock­ets any time soon.