Today is the 30th anniversary of MPs banning corporal punishment in British state schools. PETER BARRON reflects on a painful person experience of the cane

EVEN now, almost half a century later, the memory still stings with a bitter sense of injustice.

Maybe eight or nine at the time, I was made to line up on the main hall stage, with several other small children – boys and girls – in front of the hushed morning assembly.

Sister Mary Stanislaus, the fearsome headmistress of St Peter’s Junior School, brandished her long bamboo cane and we were told to hold out our non-writing hands as she went along the line giving us a terrifying “thwack” from shoulder height.

I can still see the crazed look in the old nun’s eyes, and her pursed lips, as the stick, bearing the cracks of regular use, came down and left a burning, red weal across my palm.

It hurt like hell but the public humiliation was worse. Even so, I didn’t allow the lump in my throat to turn into tears. Not until later, when I was in the privacy of my bedroom, away from having to share my shame with my mum and dad. I cried buckets into my pillow then.

And, until this day, I honestly still don’t understand why I was caned. All I know is that we’d run for the school bus amid the chaos of home-time before being given permission. A teacher had apparently blown her whistle, instructing us to stop, but I didn’t hear it.

St Peter’s was a Roman Catholic school in the Teesside steel community of South Bank, and Sister Mary Stainslaus – “Stanna” for short – is remembered for her liking of that big bamboo cane, or the ruler. Once I even saw her furiously punch a boy on the arm.

She also liked a form of torture which entailed putting a chalk mark on the wall and making “naughty” children keep their chins on it while kneeling with their hands behind their backs. Try it – it’s excruciatingly painful after a minute. But if a child’s chin dropped, the board-rubber would fly in their direction.

As a child, I just accepted it as the way of the world. As an adult, I look back with the view that Sister Mary Stanislaus should never have been allowed anywhere near children because she had a sadistic streak, dark moods, anger management problems.

It should be stressed that I also had teachers who were kind, inspirational, charismatic and brilliant. Some, no doubt, used corporal punishment reluctantly, but there were others who clearly revelled in the power of the cane, ruler, or slipper.

Just five years ago, a YouGov survey found that 49 per cent of parents – and 19 per cent of pupils – believed that caning and smacking should be brought back for “very bad” behaviour but, in my book, they are best consigned to history – a history which saw MPs vote by 231 to 230 to ban it on this day 30 years ago.

Even then, the legislation might not have been passed had several pro-caning Tory MPs not been stuck in traffic created by preparations for the wedding of Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson.

Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher didn’t vote. She was busy having dinner with Nancy Reagan, wife of the American President.

Chris Patten, then Secretary of State for Education, was a big supporter of the cane. “Corporal punishment is viewed by many reputable and responsible teachers to be a valuable instrument of discipline,” Patten said at the time. “We should not take this instrument away from them without giving the matter adequate thought. The abolition of corporal punishment would undermine the teacher’s authority. That is the last thing we want to do in times such as these, when we face increasing problems due to the lack of discipline in schools.”

Despite his opposition, the vote went through by the finest of margins, although it wasn’t until 1998 that corporal punishment was finally outlawed in the few independent schools that still practised it.

Dr Ewan Ingleby, senior lecturer in education at Teesside University, is clear in his belief that corporal punishment has no place in education.

“I can’t see how any good can come of it,” he says. “My understanding of the definition of education is that it is about bringing people out of themselves, to see the world in a better way. How can we do that with the cane, the belt or the slipper? You might get an initial semblance of order but it’s never going to inspire learning.”

He points to a shift not just in education but in society in general, away from the authoritarian approach and towards guidance and support.

“What happened in those days couldn’t happen now because there’s been this shift. There is an appreciation that there are different categories of children. Back then, special needs children would have been beaten because of behaviour that was viewed as a challenge to authority and not properly understood.

“As children, there was an acceptance – almost an expectation – of it happening and it’s only when you look back as an adult, when you’ve gained more confidence, that you say: ‘Hang on a minute, that was wrong.’”

At Teesside University, Dr Ingleby teaches students from different cultures and, for some, such as those from some African countries, beating schoolchildren is still the norm.

“Their world view of education hasn’t yet evolved in the way that it has here,” he says. “There’s still some way to go.”

In Britain at least, corporal punishment belongs in the past, but that doesn’t mean the pain has completely gone away.

“I think the psychological impact is definitely long-term,” says Dr Ingleby. “There will be many people, including teachers, who saw things and didn’t do anything about it but now question what on earth we were doing in the name of education.”

  • What are your views or memories of corporal punishment? Write to Hear All Sides, The Northern Echo, Priestgate, Darlington, County Durham, DL1 1NF or email the Letters Editor at nigel.burton@nne.co.uk