Part Five. Don't get hit by Mr Stitt.

The concluding part of my Old School Days article.

In every school, those in authority achieve their position in the respect rankings in different ways. A teacher can project implied consequence through nothing other than demeanour. 

I think my perception of Mr Stitt was shaped in such a way - a man, imposing, though not overly threatening. You just sort-of knew he had to be taken seriously. Mind you, I wouldn’t want to give the man too much credit though, as there was one particular event that really did stay with me, not just because of the treatment he was dishing out, but also because of how I decided to respond at that time.

Beginning of class, and we all sat patiently, quietly, waiting for the science lesson to begin, Mr Stitt obviously had other things on his mind. He asked one of our pupils to go and fetch him a specific student–let’s call him “Brown”–from another part of the school. When brought in, Stitt began to question, well, more like interrogate him. 

“Were you throwing mud during the dinner hour?”, Brown denied all knowledge. He was told to hold his arms forward, hands face up. The question was repeated; this time upon his plea of innocence he received an almighty thwack across the palm with a ruler. 

Then came the same question, followed by the same denial, followed by the same physical consequence. This continued ad infinitum, and with every blow, in accordance with the laws of human nature, the hands recoiled as the boy backed away and Stitt moved forward towards him. 

There was something slightly sickening about this display of power taking place before an entire room of school children still waiting for their lesson to begin, and despite my churning stomach, this was a whole new kind of lesson - an opportunity to examine the moves, the expressions, the posturing. Once it had all finished and the desired amount of pain had been administered I had an important question to ask.

The boy was sent back to his class, I raised my hand. “Yes?”, asked Mr Stitt. Taking a deep breath, “Sir, did you enjoy that?”, I asked. For a few moments it was as though time stood still. I knew I was safe though, you see, I wasn’t a first, or second, or even third year student now - he would have to give me an answer. And what would that answer be? - Oh, nothing at all surprising - the usual and predictable, “We have to maintain discipline”, etc., etc. 

He did appear a little caught off-guard though. For me it was important to send a message, to let him know that these things were being noted, not just accepted. For a moment, hopefully, he’d felt as though a mirror had been held up before him. 

In the face of such behaviour from those allowed to inflict their arbitrary chastisement on many half their size, my instinct of what lay behind their motivation has moved on from what was then suspicion, to what is now a full blown belief - a certainty that there would indeed have been an element of gratification–of a perverse nature–for those inflicting the punishment. 

On the basis that even then, in the “good old days!”, in all other areas of our society, if you walked up to someone, anyone - in the street, the pub, in the home even, and physically assaulted them - regardless of your reasons, there was a good chance you’d be answering to the law … with one caveat, if those assaulted were young and defenceless you’d probably be answering to no one. 

In this light I see no reason why there would not be valid grounds on which to prosecute these people–something I longed to do for many years after leaving school. But, with the passage of time, and without anything “overtly” sexual involved (as far as I witnessed), it’s doubtful that one would get very far - and, of course, it was something sanctioned by the State.   

 With a tinge of irony, I occasionally smile to myself when recalling the immortal words an aunty spoke to me one day, “Kenneth”, she said, “in years to come, you’ll say these were the best days of your life”.  

    

Corporal punishment in British state schools, and also in private schools receiving any element of public funding, was banned by parliament in 1987.