Tails of the Tawse

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After breakfast two of the worst offenders amongst the older girls (Hannah Turner and Violet Bateman) who were then under arrest were brought before the Leamington Petty Session at Milverton, and after much pressure on my part the Magistrate decided to hold a special court and ultimately sent these two girls to Borstal. I regretted to send the younger one aged 16 but it was absolutely essential to make an example to stop the riot. The third stroke landed lower than the first two had, whether intentionally or caused by my involuntary wrigglings across the desk. It whipped down across the very tops of my thighs and stung like bloody hell - even worse than those first two strokes. I screamed at the top of my voice and writhed over the desk in agony. Somehow I managed to stay down and to channel all of my efforts into holding on. But I was sobbing as I awaited the fourth and final stroke.

Is that Miss Sven­son?’ came the voice. ‘I’m so glad you’ve rung. I don’t want to be a busy-body or any­thing, or tell tales after school, but I thought I should let you know I think I saw one of your girls in the cof­fee shop here in the vil­lage; I wouldn’t have noticed her – she looked so grown up – except she was wear­ing some kind of a sash, and I know it’s the House Cuptoday.’

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Joe is a rather live­ly boy, good at his sci­ence sub­jects but rather weak in most of the oth­ers at which he should work hard­er. He is pop­u­lar with the oth­er boys and plays in the foot­ballteam.’ No, noth­ing thank you Miss,’ the girl replied again shift­ing her eyes towards Miss Pren­der­gast, who gave the slight­est nod of assent. Internal Home Office memorandum by Dr. A.W. Norris, 30 May 1923 OUTBREAKOFINSUBORDINATIONat the KENILWORTH TRAININGSCHOOL. By your own admis­sion, you have engaged in a cer­tain amount of minor mis­chief dur­ing the term which has gone unno­ticed or unpun­ished. As a result you have vol­un­teered to receive two strokes of the cane after which the school will con­sid­er the mat­ter over and done with. That is, of course, unless we sub­se­quent­ly dis­cov­er some­thing more seri­ous in which case you know the pun­ish­ment could be rather severe. Do youagree?’ Twenty-four? I am not sure that I can take another twenty-four . . .", but we had agreed there would be no let up, no soft beginning to my punishment (though the time over her knees had been no more than painful excitement in truth), that what Miss Spiteful decided upon would be what I should get, with any extras that might please her sadistic nature. No safe word.

My legs were trembling as I stretched myself over the desk. It was wide and I could only just hold onto the edge with my toes on the floor. I tried to make my grip as firm as possible and closed my eyes tight shut and waited. Well Miss Roberts, that sounds like a pret­ty good report to me,’ said Miss Sven­son. ‘But do you have any­thing toadd?’Go and fetch me that chair,’ she sud­den­ly instruct­ed, indi­cat­ing a low wood­en chair near the win­dow, ‘and put it in front of thedesk.’

I submit a recommendation regarding the application of the Managers of Kenilworth Training School in regard to the Model Rule No. 21(3) [...] with the addition of (a) "In case of grave necessity, corporal punishment on the posterior may be inflicted on a girl under the age of 16 if the previous authority of the Chief Inspector has been obtained. Such corporal punishment shall be administered strictly under the conditions

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And so they con­tin­ued down the list, about half of the boys and few­er of the girls opt­ing for the “Two” which were deliv­ered by Miss Sven­son in accor­dance with her own judg­ment of each of the pupils. The ratio­nale was to leave with a clean slate at the end of the term with lit­tle fear of lat­er recrimination.