CORPORAL PUNISHMENT

CHAPTER 56

CORPORAL PUNISHMENT

1963 +

( All of the events written in this blog are true events, and were witnessed by myself ).

( Photo 1 ) . The Graw Grammar school in Pontycymmer, the lower school had not been used for some time, and was being prepared for demolition, you can see the bricked up arches under the classrooms, which were open onto the yard/play area when I attended the school.

This particular blog is technically not about motorcycles or the world of motorcycles, but it does count on the basis that I’m the author, and I’m motorcycle related.

Hopefully this account of my early school days will give an insight into why and how my attitude to authority and lack of patience with bullying type of people.

I don’t suffer fools gladly, and will not tolerate any kind of bullying that goes on in front of me, wherever it is at work, in the street or in someone’s private house, if I am involved with the situation at hand or not, I would still feel the need to intervene, I have had a number of situations in the past where I have interfered with a situation with certain individuals behaving in this manner, only if I believe they are abusing another person, child or animal.

Adult, child or animal, abuse is abuse.

I can't turn my back on this kind of behavior at any time, read on and you may understand why I put myself in a situation what is usually termed by the person that I had to deal with, as (None of my business ).

I have always associated my early school days with pain, and public humiliation.

It was a time when school yard bullies were encouraged to discipline other pupils by using verbal aggression, and physical contact by the means of ruffing the victim up, and even a slap or two, no major violence was allowed, that would draw the attention of any teachers who were having a sly drag of a fag under the arches, out of sight of any senior teachers, the arches were under the class rooms, in my pre — comprehensive days, the covered arches opened onto the playground as it was termed back then in the 60s.

All this playground discipline happen under the watchful eye of the so called responsible adult ( Dinner lady ), who monitored the welfare of the children under their care, sad to say this kind of situation was repeated every break time, it was the norm.

The adult teachers of course used state sanctioned discipline methods, which included using Bamboo canes, 12” wooden rules, the flat of their hand, and any nearby object, wooden calk board cleaner, the actual calk itself, books etc, the last three items would become unguided missiles thrown across the classroom, there was also the verbal onslaught, the dark sarcasm, and the public humiliation in front of your classmates, and depending on the seriousness of the alleged offence, public humiliation in the morning assembly in front of the whole school.

Miscarriage of Justice

1963

Ffaldau juniors

7 years old

My earliest experience of this official sadism was when I was 6 or 7 years old, I was attending Ffaldau juniors school in the Garw valley, the year was 1963-64.

I was called out of the classroom during a lesson, the headmaster sent a message to my teacher which was a Mr Illtyd Evans, a short balding man with NHS black rimmed plastic glasses, who was single and late 30`s and stilled living with is mother in Pantygog, which I remember people were very suspicious of him because he was not married and his living accommodations, he was very knowledgeable man, and very polite to all his students, he was one of the good teachers.

The messenger was one of the caretakers at the school, a thick set middle-aged man wearing a blue denim one piece overall, he never smiled, he scurried me along the corridor at a fast pace not saying one word to me, at this point I was very nervous, the headmaster never spoke to the students directly, all kinds of scenarios were being created and dismissed in my mind, as I approached his office I could see, waiting outside the office in the corridor, there were two other boys of around the same age as me, they too were also waiting to see the Headmaster.

I was terrified, I had no idea why I was forced marched down the corridor and told to wait outside the office with two other boys, they too had no idea why they were there, the caretaker stood opposite us across the corridor with his arms folded with a watchful expression, why he was there, was another mystery, we three were incapable of running away, we were all so nervous that our legs did not work.

After what seemed like an age, the door open and the headmaster's secretary directed us to follow her into the outer reception room, again we waited there for ages, there was a muffled call from the inner office, and then we were lead into the Headmasters office, there were two people in the room our R.I. ( Religious Instruction ) teacher who was standing near one of the large windows, eyeballing us as we entered the room, and the Headmaster sitting at his desk.

The headmaster's office was quite large, on one wall there was a built-in wooden glass cabinet stained a dark brown which was filled with books, all lined up perfectly straight, it was so tall it nearly touched the ceiling, FFaldau was a school that was built in the Victorian era, and believe me the ceilings in the whole school were extremely tall, near the window sitting half into the room was a huge dark brown wooden desk taking up a fair percentage of the space in the room, the desk was neat and tidy with a worn green baize covering at its centre, and the wood of the desk matched the huge bookcase cabinet, right at the front, laying close to the edge of the desk was a very long Bamboo Cane that had some sort of tape holding it together, it was obvious to see that the Cane had seen much some use in the past, it was split down three side of its length and the tape was holding it all together, all three of us looked at that long piece of wood with terror, and with fear building up inside us, one of the boys started to sob.

The headmaster sat behind the desk, and said nothing to us, he was looking down and reading a small note that he had held in his hand, he eventually looked up over his glasses at the three terrified children trembling in front of him.

The headmaster was a tall studious looking man, he was slight of build, his hair was shiny with Brylcreem, he brushed his over his head from left to right to cover a large bald patch that he was sporting on the top of his head, his glasses were a tortoiseshell Pattern with thick glass lenses, he was a very serious looking man and took his job very seriously, I had never seen him smile, and he always looked if he had the worries of the world on his narrow shoulders, his name if I remember correctly was Mr Griffiths, he was easily recognised, he always wore the same suit, including a waistcoat of the same material in all weathers, the suit was made of a woolly material, a greyie-green with small specks of red randomly spread over the suit, it may well have looked the business when it was brand new, but now when I remember him wearing it, it looked like something my Bampi ( Grandfather ) would wear while he dug the garden.

The headmaster stood up and walked to the front of the desk, facing his victims.

Nothing was said, there was complete silence in the room, the R.I. teacher looked on with a stern look on his face.

This tall bespectacled man just stared down on us, and then without looking he picked up the Bamboo Cane sitting on the desk behind him.

And without taking his eyes off us, he said “ what’s your names, you first ”, pointing the bamboo Cane towards the boy on the far right of me.

The boy nervously spat his name out, then without speaking he pointed the Cane to the boy in the middle, the boy in the middle started crying and between his sobs tried to say his name, the R.I. teacher said “ speak up boy, so the headmaster can hear you”, the boy managed to speak his name through his tears, and then the Cane was pointed at me, I too stuttered my name in a very nervous fashion, this physiological torture had already broken the three of us, we were ready to admit to anything to get out of the office, and then to add tension to the situation, there was knock on the door, the headmaster shouted “ Enter “, it was the secretary with another note, she gave it to the headmaster, he read the note, and placed in the pocket of his jacket.

He pointed the Cane once more at the boy on my far right, and said in a stern voice “ Which is your writing hand “ the boy kept his head down and mumbled this one, holding his left hand up, the headmaster said “ hold the other had out in front of you” he then said very loudly “ open your hand boy, show me palm up, and extend your fingers “ he then turned to myself and the other boy “ you do the same, not your writing hand boy, and hold them there “, so we all followed this order, and the horror of what was going to happen next was transfixed in all our minds, we were so scared we just did what we were told.

He then said “ You boys are here because, you think you know better than the teaching staff, you seem to think that you do not need any education, and can slip out of school when it suits you”.

We all stared at him with confused expressions through our tears.

The boy on the far right me, mumbled something under his breath, the headmaster ignored whatever he had to say and shouted “ don’t deny it, you have been caught, and your names were given”, we all looked up at him, even more confused.

He spoke with a firm authoritative voice “ Hold you hands up, I don’t like doing this, but we can not tolerate this kind of behaviour “.

At this point the boy in the middle pissed his trousers.

We all had three strikes of the Cane, and this viscous prick made sure that he caught the tip of our fingers.

We were all balling our eyes out, holding onto our hands, I don’t know what they expected from seven-year-old`s.

The headmaster said to the R.I. teacher “ Mr Jones take them to the cloak room, and have them put their hands under the cold tap, and then they can go back to class”.

( We didn't have locker’s back then like they have nowa days in school, just coat hangers ).

Even at the time, at this young age that I was, all this felt wrong, this brutal attack destroyed any and all respect I had for teachers in my older years, using pain as a method to teach a lesson does not work, all it does is build resentment and harden your attitude against authority.

The saddest thing about this situation was that, we were totally innocent, and we were not the boys who were mitching ( playing truant from school).

The boys involved were caught by the farmer young Cinco on his farmland that lay above the school, and they gave our names as their own, back then the farmers would shoot rice at you from their double barrel shotguns, if they could catch you.

We innocent three were in class when the boys were caught out of school, it was impossible for us to be the same boys, the teachers did not bother to check if we were the same boys, they had our names and that was good enough for them.

We were literary used as whipping boys, and used as an example to the rest of the school, just in case anyone else had any ideas of skipping school early.

This, in my opinion was total misplaced and misuse of authority and abuse of power, all the terror and pain this situation created in me was that I could never trust the people in charge to do the correct thing.

I told my mother what had happened to me at school all she said was “ you must have deserved it or you would not have had the Cane “, my mother was old school, and she too employed the same kind of discipline.

The pain in my fingers did not disappear for days, a hard lesson to learn.

The boys that were caught Mitching got away scot-free.

If I had a time machine, going back and smacking the fuck out of that head teacher and the R.I. teacher would be in my top ten of things to do with time travel.

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THE WELSH ROOM

YSTAFELL CYMRAEG

1966

GARW GRAMMER

11 years old

In 1966 I was attending the first years of comprehensive school, which at the time was in Pontycymmer, it was original called the Garw Grammar School, before the compressive education system was created, and turned education into a mass production facility.

The main school for anyone above the age of 11 years was in Ynysawdre, 8 miles down the valley.

The 1st years was made up of a top school and a bottom school, they were old buildings of the Victorian style, the arches in the top school had been converted into classrooms for cooking which only the girls allowed to learn, and some other classes that I never had the privilege to find out what they were use for, the bottom school still had the arches to use if it started to rain, which it seemed to do all the time.

The top school entrance lead straight into a long corridor with classrooms going off all along its length, near to the entrance is where the Welsh room was situated, it was also used as a music room.

This room was just like all the other rooms in the school except for the fact it had an old upright piano in the room, under normal conditions when it was used to teach welsh, only Welsh as allowed to be spoken in the room, English was allowed when it became a music room.

It was raining and as I was in the top school playground at the time a group of us boys were allowed to shelter in the Welsh/music room until playtime was over.

We were just doing what unsupervised 11-year-olds do, making lots of noise and generally messing around.

I remember there was a small open fire grate in the room with a small coal fire quietly burning away, the room was far to big for this small fire to generate any heat to warm the room up.

Most of us boys huddled around the fire, to dry off and hopefully warm up a little, one of the boys lifted the lid off the upright piano and pressed one or two keys and within seconds a male teacher suddenly burst through the class room door, and for some reason he had a bamboo Cane in his hand, why he was carrying the Cane around with him I had no idea, maybe he was on his way to terrorize some other victims somewhere else in the school.

The teacher shouted “ Who did that, was it you “ aiming the accusation to no-one in particular, he looked around the room “ Who did it ”, he started to lift the Cane up in a threatening manner, most likely hoping he would get a full confession for his sudden hand movement.

No-one said a thing.

“ Right then, your all guilty in my eyes if no-one admits to misusing Music room equipment ”.

The teacher was speaking in Welsh, “ I did hear the English language being spoken in here”.

We all stayed quiet as mice, from experience even at our young age we knew whoever spoke up first would have had the full wrath of this stick welding Demon.

He continued in his angry rant in Welsh “ I’m not having this type of unruly behaviour in here, line up, your having the cane for you’re insolence “.

The problem with this teacher only speaking Welsh was that two of the boys in the group knew very little Welsh, and could not fully understand him.

We all lined up like programmed sheep, we knew the drill, we put our hands out like as if we were about to be given a gift, palms up, and then waited for the pain to come.

The teacher gave us all one strike of the cane across the tips of our fingers ( again ), which hurt for a long time after, and then he made us wait outside in the corridor.

( Another abuse of authority ).

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( Photo 2 ) . The top Garw Grammar School, the cookery classrooms were behind the windowed arches, the school was demolished in Oct/Nov 2021.

Woodwork

1966

GARW GRAMMER

11 years old

I was in the woodwork class in the top school, two of the boys in the class ( There were no girls, they were not allowed these type classes ), shaved off the bark on the wood project we were working on, because they did this before, the teacher, a Mr Coles told them to do so, he punished them by using a Plimsoll commonly called a Dap in Wales, but also go by the name of Gym trainers ( a type of black light shoe used only for exercising ).

The woodwork teacher obtained the Plimsoll from a pupils bag, and then told the boys to lean over one of the woodwork bench’s, and spanked them five times each on the butt, this was a light punishment, better than the cane.

Once the teacher did this everything went back to normal in the class, and we carried on as nothing had happened, just another day in school.

( Thinking back on it now, it was a very strange thing for the teacher to do, today there would have been a lot of questions asked about this kind of on the spot punishment by a teacher, but at the time it was acceptable and never questioned ).

COOKERY

1966

GARW GRAMMER

11 year old

For some reason that I can not remember why, my class was not allowed to go to our normal class room for the lesson we had on our class time-table, and instead were taken to the cookery class room until what the issue with the class room was sorted ( most likely leaking water radiators, the system was at least 50 years old in the sixties or even older ) once the problem was dealt with we would be taken back to our proper lesson, this was the first and last time I was ever in this class room, I remember the smell of bread baking very distinctly.

The tables were already laid out ready for the next cookery lesson, with all the cooking utensils and jugs and bowls all lined up carefully and ready to use by the next set of pupils.

We were told not to touch anything while we were in the room.

The teacher left the room for only a moment, leaving us unsupervised again was not a good idea, almost immediately we started throw knives and forks at each other, all this noise drew the attention of our teacher who stop everything with one very loud harsh word ( STOP ). of course we all stopped immediately.

The teacher pointed to the class and said, “ you, you, and you, stand here in front of me “.

Of course, I was one of the “ you`s “.

The teacher looked around the kitchen area and grabbed a very large wooden soup ladle, and proceeded to slap all three of us across the head with the wooden ladle.

Ok, we most likely deserved this punishment, it was not that bad, it hurt a lot less than a Bamboo cane on your fingertips, again this kind of immediate action for dealing out punishment to a pupil by a teacher was acceptable back in the 60`s.

WINDY MOON

1968 - 1972

YNYSAWDRE COMP

13 YEARS OLD

At thirteen years old, I had a full on argument with a teacher during a physics lesson.

The argument was wherever there was a possibility of wind on the moon, ( Movement of air ), the teacher by the name of Dennis Lloyd ( No relation ) insisted that there was oxygen in very, very small quantities on the moon.

I refused to believe this statement, and made a vocal point that I disagreed with him, saying that the moon was airless and it was a dry desert of a moon, otherwise the Americans would make a point of telling the world that there was air on it.

He marked my answer down as a fail, I refused to except this mark and insisted that if you can't breathe without the use of a spacesuit, it counts as no air.

He told me I was wrong, and literary threw my work book at me, and told me not to waste his time, and sit back down.

I would not let this go, as I walked back to my seat which was at the back of the class, I continued to express my point of view, I was sure that I was right on how I seen the data that was supplied to us, and I was not happy with the way he dismissed me from his desk at the front of the class.

we were made to walk up individually to the front of the class room, where the teacher sat and marked your work in front of you.

I sat down at my desk and kept on stating that I was right to anyone that would listen to me.

The teacher started to become agitated and annoyed with me because I refuse to leave the subject drop.

He half stood up at his desk, and told me in no uncertain terms to shut up and get on with my work, and who was I to argue with a teacher, he actually said “ that is not how you address your betters “.

I mumbled “ your not better than me “, he did not quite make out what I had said, he got out of his chair and walked across the classroom towards me, he stood over me and said “ Repeat what you just said, Boy “, I replied “ your not better than me “.

He said “ louder boy, so the class can hear you”.

I mumbled again “ your not better than me “, he made a face and said “ get on with your work “, he turned his back on me and as he walked away, I said, “ you can't fly a kite on the moon, so there is no air to create wind ”.

The teacher stopped in his tracks and turned around in a very aggressive matter, his face was red with rage.

He walked back up to me, and grabbed me by the collar of my shirt and physically dragged me out of my seat from behind the desk, and pulled me into the isle between the two line of desks, I could hear the buttons popping off my shirt, he literately dragged me like a rag doll to the front of the class, the rest of the class was dead quiet, and everyone looked terrified, some carried on with their work, not daring to lift their heads up just in case the teacher caught their eye.

He stood me up in front of the class, and this where the real abuse started, he had isolated me, and put in full view of everyone in the class.

You have to remember I was small, slight, short 13 year old boy and this teacher was at lest six foot tall and big built.

He lent over me at an angle so his face was level with mine, and he began screaming at me, everything had stopped in the classroom now, all eyes were on me and this abusive teacher.

He did not stop shouting at me.

He put his face right up close to mine, just like a sergeant major giving a bollocking to a squdie in the army.

I refused to back down, and accept his version of the idea of air existing on the moon.

He was shouting so much and frustrated with my noncompliance to except his view of things that he was now so red in the face he resembled a beetroot.

After a while he could see that he was getting nowhere with me with his abusive behaviour and told to get back to my seat and keep my mouth shut, and I was a stupid boy, and instructed the rest of the class not to follow my example.

I will admit I was terrified, and scared to death, but even back then at the young age I was, I refused to back down.

The problem with this situation was that it did not end after I sat down.

While I was sitting at my desk, he went into a rant addressing the rest of the class and kept making references to me, and pointing at me, saying things like “ I don’t want you to follow that stupid boys example and question authority, it will do you no good in the future “.

I just couldn’t keep my gob shut and had to say something, I said it loud enough for the class to hear “ it doesn’t matter what he says, there’s no air on the moon “.

And then there was complete silence.

The physics teacher, turned to look at me, and stared for a few seconds, and then stomped down the isle towards me with great purpose, he instantly grabbed my arm and shook me around like a rag doll, he held me so tightly he bruised my arm, he then, there is no other way of describing it, he dragged me across the classroom shaking the crap out of me on the way until we got to the front of his desk.

I remember seeing the faces of the rest of the class, they were all terrified, two of the girls in the room started crying.

He started screaming at again, and going redder in the face, if it was possible, he still had not calmed down from his first bout of uncontrolled madness.

I had my head down looking at the floor, trying to hold my tears back, and then I heard another adult voice, the classroom door opened and then my saviour came into the room.

It was Miss James the History teacher, she looked typical for the time period slim with mousy brown hair that cascade down over her shoulders, she wore glasses a lime green top with a navy blue mini skirt, even at 13 everyone had a crush on her.

She was a lot younger than Mr Lloyd the abusive teacher, maybe 10-15 years difference.

As she walked through the door, she said “ unhand that boy “.

Everything went silent again, all eyes were on Miss James.

Miss James had come in from the classroom next to the one I was in, she had come to investigate the reason for all the noise coming from this room.

He let go of me immediately.

She looked at me, and then to the rest of the classroom, she could see the whole room was in state of fear, she looked back down to me and said in a soft voice “ You, ok “ I looked up at her with my eyes all red, I was still holding my tears back, if it was the last thing I was going do was cry in front of this bulling teacher, then she said “ go back to your seat, everything will be ok “.

She spoke to the bullying teacher “ Can I have a word Mr Lloyd “ and then she pointed to the corner of the room, I went back to my seat, and they both walked over to the corner of the room, they both spoke very quietly for sometime, ten minutes or more, Miss James pointed at him and then the classroom numerous times, it was time for the abusive prick to have bollocking.

She turned to the class and said “ Goodbye children, please behave for Mr Lloyd “ she glanced over to me for a long couple of seconds, and then left the room.

The abuser went back to his desk and ignored the class for the rest of the lesson, and did not speak to anyone, the end of the lesson came, the bell rang, and we all left, he did not lift his head once the whole time.

From that time on, he marked me down on all my papers and class exams, even if I had the top score it would have been a fail.

In the following lessons I had with this teacher, he either ignored me or I would have an evil glance off him now and again, whatever Miss James said to him, it must have put the fear of god into him, maybe even for 1968, he knew he was in trouble if it went to the headmaster how he treated his pupils.

What he did not know was that he scared the shit out of me, I just did my best not to show him, out of the two of us, if anyone of was going to start to cry, I think it would have been him.

I witnessed other teachers abusing their authority while I was at Ynysawdre, I remember a time when my class was in gardening class, run by a teacher we nicknamed Digger, he was a short stocky man who always seemed to wear the same clothes at every lesson that we had with him, one day, one of my classmate, I do remember his name but will not mention it here, picked three small tomatoes of a stunted tomato plant growing in one of the green houses, Digger was informed by the class grass, and he confronted the pupil, the pupil pulled them out of his pocket and showed them to the teacher and as he did this, Digger punched him hard in the stomach, this was not normal behaviour for Digger, he just gave us a task to do, and generally ignored us, I can't really say it was out of character for him to do such a thing, I did not know the teacher that well, but I did find him sharp with words and arrogant and impossible to talk too.

( Photo 3 ) . Ynysawdre comprehensive school, demolished in 2014, and a new school built on the same site

I was walking past one of the gyms going to another class with my classmates, we were walking on the outside of the building, the gym we called the Barn which was basically the same size and shape of one, there was a class of girls practicing net ball in the Barn, we heard the female teacher shouting at the girls, so we all stopped and looked in through the door to see what all the fuss was about, one of the girls maybe around 13-14 years old must have just started her menstrual cycle period, and it was obvious to everyone what had happened, all the girls wore the same gym gear, very short brown skirts and brown knickers, red and brown were the school colours.

The female teacher screamed and shouted at his girl in front of everyone, the girl ran out crying, no empathy or sympathy forth coming from the teacher, it was quite possible this was the first time this girl had experienced this event in her life, of course 13 year old boys just laughed and forgot about it five minutes later, I can not remember having any sex education at all in school, I had to work that out by myself.

Another incident of abuse of authority I witnessed was in the library, one of our lessons was an hour in the library reading a book of the pupils choice in complete silence.

Which I enjoyed, I still read a lot today, well on this particular day, one of the pupils was playing the teacher up, I can't remember the teachers name, but I can describe her, she was in her late 40`s maybe even older, a bit frumpy and she was quite short, maybe around 5 foot tall or so, the average Welsh woman back then were all short compared to nowa days, her hair was graying, and she always looked very stressed and flustered.

This boy would not behave, and would not stop talking and making childish noises and disturbing the rest of the class, the teacher had told him numerous times to behave and in the end she told him to stand by her desk.

What he actually did was stand on her desk, stating that is what she had just told him to do, the teacher was very stressed now, one of the girls ran out of the class and went to call another teacher form a nearby class room, within a short time a male teacher came into the library, the misbehaving pupil was still standing on the teacher's desk, the male teacher walked over to the pupil and physically dragged him off the desk and grabbed the pupil by his throat and held him up against one of the library shelves, he said a few choice things to him, and then dragged him out of the room, and down the corridor, he never came back to our reading class again, ok, the pupil was in the wrong and so was the male teacher handling the situation the way he did, but it taught the rest of the class a lesson even if you have a soft teacher, there is always a harder one around the corner.

I have more examples, but this blog would turn into a very long case study of abuse, it has to stop somewhere.

All this happened a very long time ago, 50 years plus, and it was a different world back then, but even so, how could an adult explain away that kind misuse of authority, and using that kind of behaviour as a form of teaching method and installing discipline in the classroom environment.

In reality it was just another example of abuse, and can not be justified in anyway or form, it was the norm back then and it was never questioned.

Don’t misunderstand me, discipline is necessary in all forms of society.

But, public humiliation and actual physical abuse on impressionable children of a young age may have long term effects that follow them into their adulthood.

If you see it, stop it, wherever you are.

( Photo 4 ) . Ynysawdre comp, Dark and foreboding with no character, a bit like some of the teachers who worked there.