When I think back, the fear of bamboo on youthful fingers was probably the biggest deterrent of all in keeping boisterous 10-year-olds on the straight and narrow.
My Dad wasn’t averse to clipping me around the ear when I stepped out off line at home; indeed he occasionally whacked me on the back of the head and was promptly ticked off by my stepmother for overstepping the mark. “Jack, that’s dangerous,’’ she’d complain. ‘’If you must hit her, smack her on the leg.’’
To anyone under 30, the above scenario must sound Dickensian – and to some extent it was. But whilst I was a bit of a naughty child at home, I made sure I kept on the right side of the school authorities.
Only once was I marched to Mr Coleman’s study...for stupidly lobbing a lump of coal onto the playground. Don’t ask me where the coal came from because I haven’t a clue. Mind you, this was in South Wales and at the time I was a minor!
Anyway, you can imagine how this cowardly coal-chucker reacted when the headmaster brought out his cane. I burst into a flood of tears and apologies... and literally begged for mercy.
My emotional plea had the desired effect on Mr C, though I’ll never know if the cane would have hurt my hand more than his alternative punishment – the exertion of writing ‘I shall not throw coal on the playground’ 100 times.
Now I was a pretty typical kid and, whilst I was an angel compared to the child rioters of 2011, there is no doubt the fear of physical discipline taught me and my friends to respect authority.
I’ve a message for David Cameron, Theresa May and Co. Corporal punishment works. And it’s because Britain abandoned discipline that loony looters have been running wild in the nation’s major cities.
I have certainly never come across anyone who was permanently damaged, physically or mentally, by the after-effects of six of the best. In fact, everyone I’ve spoken to said the experience did them good.
But try telling that to the politically correct dummies who run our country. They would rather collaborate with the thugs rather than confront them – believing you can talk sense to the brain dead.
The vermin who destroyed England come from a subculture that has developed over the last few decades – a scum society where scallies perform street carnage while mum and dad are either enjoying the pleasantries of a comfortable jail cell or out of their minds on drink and drugs.
These lowlifes are only a tiny minority of British society, yet they can cause havoc, as we have seen so painfully recently.
They respect nobody, would not dream of working, and believe the only way of life is to steal from others. They live by the law of insolence, robbery and violence.
And the only way to deal with them when they go on the rampage is to give the police and, if necessary, the Army the freedom to stamp on them.
But in a country where most of the police are not even armed, what chance have we got?
Political correctness rules, just as it does in the schools where the little scumbags develop their obnoxious charms. Teachers cannot so much as raise a hand to discipline the rebels, who celebrate by threatening and even attacking the people trying to educate them.
This is where the problem began...we took legalised discipline out of the equation when the cane was confiscated from our schoolteachers.
