One bad turn deserves another
I remember it well. There were about 50 boys of 10 or 11 years of age in my class and the teacher, Miss Clarke, a woman in her late fifties, unmarried, and I assume looking back on it, unloved, was giving us some form of test. We had each been given a sheet of ruled paper and told to write the numbers one to one hundred down one side. We were told that any mistakes would result in a caning. I had been a pupil at this school for four years and had seen many of my fellow pupils caned and strapped. Some had received it on their bottoms and some on their hands, but I was not as mischevous as most and beatings were something which happened to others. I don’t think I took …