This is an image I have stumbled across many times over the years - if I had the time to hunt it out I probably have an original magazine with it in stashed away somewhere. I always get a little frisson of excitement when I come across it again.
The secondary (age 11-18) school I attended was an old traditional British grammar school. Sadly, it was an all-boys school. They did use corporal punishment including canings across the backside in very serious cases although the use was in decline and it was actually stopped altogether before I left. However there was plenty of evidence in the school archives that previous generations had been much more regularly caned for misdemeanours.
Most significantly, from the point of view of this image, morning assemblies were in a large oak panelled hall with imposing oil paintings of famous people from the school's history. The headmaster stood in assembly on a raised platform at the front of the hall. The major part of the platform was filled by a massive and extremely heavy old table - probably oak or mahogany. Although public canings were never a part of the regime when I was there I always wondered whether in more historical times, boys had been paraded in front of the whole school to be bent across this sturdy table and soundly caned. I think if this had ever happened there would have less apprehension and shock on the faces in the audience and more thinly disguised glee but I'm sure the apprehension of the recipient would have been similar.
