blip

Old Codger wrote on Oct 21^st, 2013 at 2:42pm:


Please be patient while I decode this cryptic message with my copy of the Enigma Machine. 

Old Codger wrote on Oct 21^st, 2013 at 3:16pm:


Good Lord, no! Nothing so vulgar and low rent.

Put it this way .. I used to chat with Prince Zaid of Jordan when his body guards weren't around. 

You're privileged to have me here, gracing this board. 

Old Codger wrote on Oct 21^st, 2013 at 5:18pm:


Unfortunately, no.

The one who was eventually 'expelled' was the headmaster himself. He was just too cane-happy with us boys. Way over the top.

I think he had a paedophile interest in caning us boys in the privacy of his study.

A delegation of officials came over from London and removed him ~ even though he financially owned the school out of his own pocket.

I'm all for caning for bad behaviour, but the list of possible infringements was ridiculous.

____ ----  We would kneel on this foot-rest (the broken line here) ~ and

then, crossing our arms in front of our forehead we would rest our head on an armchair that was lower than the foot-rest.

This had the effect of stretching our arse and the back of our thighs tight as a drum-skin.

I mostly got 3 strokes only about twice a month for several years. Sometimes it was 4. He was a big man with hands the size of baseball mitts.

The worst I got was 8 strokes for being seen to have a cup of tea in one of the local town's cafes. I was 17 at the time.

And no ~ I don't think I deserved ANY of the canings I got. Same with most of the other kids.

We got the cane from a system of collecting 'X's (crosses). As you went through your week, teachers, prefects, and monitors gave you 'a cross' for some perceived infringement of the rules. These were entered into a Cross Book in the Headboy's study. At the end of each week your Xs were totalled up ~ and you got so many strokes of the cane depending on how many Xs you had accumulated.

By far the worst aspect of this caning system was the anticipation of a painful caning awaiting you in the headmaster's study after tea on Fridays. This had a numbing effect on one's ability to learn anything.

Sometimes, for days before the Friday you felt like the proverbial rabbit in the headlights. Frozen and petrified. Your ability to concentrate on the lessons was temporarily suspended. Great jolts of adrenalin fear would shoot through your body every time you remembered the encounter you were due to have with the Godlike headmaster on the Friday after tea.

To my headmaster's credit he only allowed the House Masters to do a little caning ~ which they did only very rarely. Not even the headboy was allowed to cane.

My headmaster was not hated, but was deeply feared. 

Sport was compulsory. Long 10 mile cross-country running on Saturday afternoons was a specialty. Snow and sleet, slashing rain and gale-force winds would motivate us to finish the course as soon as possible.

It was rugby ~ never soccer. Soccer was for the working-classes. I once had to be sent off the field because my fingers had frozen so I couldn't ball my hands into fists. 

*****

It was always "Sir" ~ never Mister so-and-so. The boys were always addressed by the masters (never 'teachers') by their surnames.

"My point is that you're a war monger."


you left out 'capitalist',  and you left out 'fascist'.


OC