Six of the very best

I've been following with interest discussions on another website with people recalling their experiences of being caned at school.  Disregarding the usual guff with the odd person claiming to have been made to bare their bottom for twenty stinging cuts of the senior cane there are some very authentic sounding accounts and one thing that seems to emerge clearly is that while many canings were designed to just make a point that the miscreant had overstepped the mark and to give them a bit of a jolt, sometimes it was much more serious and much more painful.

One wrote "The first time I got "the best", I was caught stealing money from the school library.  The first few canings I got at school were fairly tame affairs and I'd developed an idea that the cane wasn't that bad - so when my Headmaster caned me for the first time... the first stroke of what was my first properly done caning came as a great shock I could not believe anything could hurt that much. I thought something had gone wrong and I tried to tell the Headmaster  he was caning me too hard. I was horrified when he told me that he knew exactly what he was doing and that if I didn't bend over again, I'd get extra strokes - when I continued to argue, he pushed me back down and told me I was now getting three instead of the two he'd been planning. After the third when he let me get back up, he told me very clearly that he knew exactly how much he'd hurt me and he could make it hurt even more and I should just try and imagine what six of the best felt like next time I thought about misbehaving.  When I was caught stealing (and I'd arranged things so another boy had been blamed for a previous theft and been caned for it) I knew I was in for it, and the Headmaster did not disappoint. It was excruciating."

Four more of the accounts of "proper" canings are as follow:

“I can assure you that any more than two hard strokes of a senior school cane will have the offender in severe pain and unable to stay in position for the remaining ones. At our school as seniors we were held in position by another member of staff and believe me the intense pain in your bottom made your legs tremble and your cheeks clench and contract as if on fire.”

"Thankfully he didn't tell me to drop my pants. Just took me by the shoulders, turned me round to face the door and I bent over and presented my bottom to him for whatever punishment he decided I needed. He would decide. And he would punish. The waiting for that first stroke, the agonizing pain and the certainty that more were to follow, that awesome swishing noise that preceded each stroke, the sound of the cane whacking stretched trouser seat and then the pain, that awful burning. And then standing up when it was all over, trying to hold back the tears, opening the door and walking as bravely as I could past the headmaster's secretary who was sitting outside the study door in the next room where she could hear the sounds of caning from the inner sanctum, sitting quietly at her desk typing away, smiling slightly at me as she sat comfortably on her soft round bottom that hadn't felt the sting of the cane, watching me as I walked painfully past her desk. How miserable I felt, thinking of that contrast between my pain and her comfort.”

“He told me to remove my blazer and hang it on a peg. Then I had to pull out my shirt tail. Before I bent over, he said that if I jumped up before he had finished, he would start the punishment again. And when he had finished, I was to put my hands on my head, and not rub my bottom. I had to bend over a chair, push my bottom out so that my trousers were tight, and then he prodded round with the cane to make sure there was no padding. I had to be held in position. That task was given to the prefects. By the time he had finished, I was crying bitterly. The junior cane was no picnic. I stood up, one prefect tucked my shirt in, and the other passed me my blazer. They escorted me back to the form room with my hands on my head. I hadn't been allowed to wipe my eyes, and the rest of the form knew what had happened.”

“He then got a ordinary school desk chair and ordered my friend to bend over the back of it reaching down the front legs as far as he could so he was tightly bent over, then he gave him four hard strokes. I could see the cane sinking into the tightly stretched shorts. After the fourth stroke my friend was told to stand up and move over to where I was standing with his hands on his head. Then I was told to come to the chair and bend over the same as my friend had done. I too got four hard strokes. After we were admonished to watch our language from then on, we were told that we could go back to class. While both of us had taken the caning silently, both of us had tears in our eyes and in my case I could feel a tear trickling down my cheeks. As we left the staffroom the young female teacher was looking at us wide eyed. On the way to class we popped into the toilets and had a look at the damage. In both cases it looked as though the skin was just about broken and we were going to bleed.”