Posted by Jonathan Labaree on February 14, 2003 at 15:17:19 from 207.5.234.19 user JLabaree.
Below, Prue wrote: “their play was all about Victorian school - the cane etc and how things were done during those times”
I guess in NZ, as here in the US, you must have done away with the cane earlier than in the UK. In 1975/76, my family spent the year in Cambridge, UK. I was in the 8th form at a newly named Comprehensive School. My class was the first in that city not to take the 11-plus (my elder brother took an equivalency and was placed in a local grammar school, which was dropping forms year by year to become a sixth-form college), so the school system was still adjusting to the new ways.
Anyway, a number of teachers still had, and used, canes in their classroom. The more “traditional” of them had it hanging prominently in the front by the blackboard. You knew to be particularly on your toes when the cane in question was splintered at the business end and/or had been taped up by the handle for better grip.
I remember a few of my pals being hauled off for one infraction or another and returning sheepishly to the classroom, rubbing their sit-upons, and barely suppressing tears. Needless to say, they were our heroes and were treated to extra custard at lunch. Being a goody-two shoes, I never suffered this punishment, but I must have come close at the beginning of my time there when I didn’t know to call teachers “Sir” or “Ma’am”, or some the other codes of behavior.