Guest Posting: The Cane in Australia

Do you have a story to tell? Just send your account to me at strictuncle@gmail.com, and if I like it then I will gladly publish it here. What am I looking for? Authenticity, in a word. I want the real memories of real people. Don't worry about your writing style - I will sub-edit as needed.


Today's guest poster is Joe Cross.

Memories of the cane at school, but where do I start?

A boarding school in New South Wales, Australia. The house master system was in place as a left over from Tom Brown's Schooldays. There was a small house master  named Jim who had a gold tooth and to be told he wished to see you made you sick in the stomach. His chief hates were smoking, being out of bounds, being rude to other staff, and for some reason best known to himself, spitting. Each and every one of those crimes would earn the culprit between four and six strokes of the came.

The procedure was always the same: you knocked on his door and waited until he told you to enter.Your sin was then explained and you were told the number of strokes that you were to be given. The cane was then chosen from a collection of about eight that sat on the top of the bookcase. (Annie, the lady who cleaned the office, once asked me why he needed so many? I told her that he broke a lot of them) You would then bend over and hold the bottom rung of a chair and wait until Jim was ready.

The ritual was always the same. First he pressed his  hand into the side of your left buttock, although whether he was measuring the distance or just having his jollies I don't know. Next came the tapping of the cane across your buttocks and then the first stroke followed quickly by the rest of them. He would stand back on one leg with the cane behind his shoulder. Each stroke was delivered like a forehand tennis shot and sounded like a gun shot. You would be left with blue stripes across your bottom; the right one usually turning into just a huge black bruise after a few days.

When it was over the younger boys would leave the room  howling, and the older ones walked  very stiff legged. I remember running into Annie at the door after one such caning and she was as white as a sheet and in tears. Christ -  he was a cruel man.

The school was your typical huge nineteenth century building and on a quiet day you could hear a caning all over and we would look up and say "Jim's at it again." I was always caned a lot as a kid but never like that from anyone else. Today when I hear people say the cane should be brought back  my only comment is that it is only for consenting adults and never in schools.Those that say otherwise never knew the horror that people such as Jim instilled in children.