As I watched him sitting at the old wooden desk at the front of the classroom, it was an all too familiar sight. He sat there slowly twisting his wedding band around his index finger and uttering the words "go and get the black book". I distinctly remembered a feeling of disbelief that I was being sent to fetch what was then the dreaded symbol of opprobrium in the Boys' Grammar School.
This was in the mid fifties when the authority held and exercised by school officials was absolute. Caning (corporal punishment) was exercised as a means of control as much as institutionalizing the British - and their sycophantic subjects-fondness of hierarchy. The authority to cane resided with the headmaster, but teachers had their tools too. They could impose detention, "lines", or temporary expulsion from the classroom. And to aid and abet this authority, certain students in the most senior form (sixth term) would be elevated to the level of Prefects, a status which allowed them to vise assorted indignities on the subordinate students.
The specific reason that I was to receive a caning from Mr. Lopey has now vanished with the passage of time. But I am certain that I had done my best to earn this dubious distinction. In any event, after retracting my steps with the Black Book attracting such knowing glances at each classroom, I returned to my classroom to have my name entered onto the pages that would initiate me into a Club populated by truly famous malfeasants and miscreants. Many of these boys habituated the pages of the Black Book; boys such as.!!!!!!! (I will leave this to your recall).
When my time came to be caned, I was summoned to Mr. Lopey's office where I was greeted by the Headmaster flexing a 3 foot long, reed thin cane which was to be used to perform the dastardly act.
Psychology was not yet a word in my lexicon, but who can argue that Mr. Lopey was a master at using psychological pressure to heighten the experience for the novitiate such as I. His office conveniently opened onto the exit from the Girls' High School (in those days we were single sex schools, except for the most senior form, the sixth form/class), and he would generally begin his caning at about the time that the navy and white clad girls were disgorging from their classes. What an admiring audience! Despite his sometime surprise at finding me in such ignominious circumstances, Mr. Lopey commanded me to lean over the back of a chair, and with practical skill proceeded to whack me three times on my Khaki covered backside.
Needless to say, I didn't flinch, nor did I show that the pain penetrated my well-starched khaki pants. Because I was fully aware that the spectacle was being viewed by girls among whom might have been the then current object on my teenage infatuation.
