2Corporal punishment

2

Corporal punishment, the rat, the ice & me,

1979

The song:-Eton rifles

The artist:- the jam

The song:-Oliver’s army

The artist:-Elvis Costello

The song:-I don’t like Mondays

The artist:-boomtown rats

The song:-Up the junction artist:- squeeze

The song:-Message in a bottle

The artist:-the police

The song:-My sharona

The artist:-the knack

The song:-Into the valley

The artist:-the skids

The song:-Babylon burning

The artist:-the ruts

I DON’T LIKE MONDAY’S

MONDAY

A completely fucking shitty Monday morning, there are icicles the size of a horses cock hanging down outside my bedroom window from the dodgy guttering that has been in need of repair since the Victorian age, and

as I sat there on a blue rocking horse with a broken tail, wrapped in blankets to keep me alive, I was casually looking out of the bedroom window across the fields and football pitches situated at the back of our house, and all I could see was fuckin white,

yeah shitty white snow, covering the whole of the world, well as much of it that I could see anyway,

it was only 7.30 in the bloody morning and there were already so many idiot mums out there in minus silly degrees risking their kiddies lives,

throwing snow balls and the like,

and with all the kids in shorts and t shirts as though on the beach in costa del Benidorm at the height of fucking summer.

Also out there, was the father and son team who have been a regular fixture out on the footy fields for several years, and observed by yours truly,

the son must be at least ten years of age by now, and their regular shift consisted of son shooting at father who placed himself in goal,

I am guessing the father was looking at training his son to be a professional football player, the amount of training he put the poor boy through?

and I wonder to this day wether he ever made it in the world of football due to the amount of time they spent around them there football post,

While I am watching all this going on, my breath is freezing before it leaves my mouth, and

I suddenly realise I have to get myself dressed for school,

so it’s down stairs after a quick wash in the sink, because i had my weekly bath on Sunday,

how we did not fucking stink to high heaven with just one bath a week is beyond me today? but we didn’t,

oh and let’s not forget having to share the bath water,

being the second child I always got second dibs, so the water was not usually that dirty, although it did depend on what kind of shit our kid had been playing in Lon that particular day,

shame about are debs though, scummy cold water for being third in line, poor cow,

and with no central heating in the house, (it seemed warmth was not an essential back then,)

we relied on the wall mounted gas fires to warm the house, which gave you a kick up the arse to get your breakfast down pretty fast and fuck off out of the house for the two mile trek to school to warm yourself up,

and don’t think you’d ever catch a ride to school from your parents, because firstly there would only be one car per household if you were lucky, and if you happen to be stupid enough to ask for a lift, then the whole family would role around the floor in stitches, followed by get to fuck ya fucking pansy, from your dad,

todays trek though maybe a bit more of an expedition through ankle deep snow and an ice skating surface on most pavements and roads,

and as I take my first step out into the arctic circle

I promised myself I was not going to fall, slip skid or slide, like some knobheads making tits of themselves on there own adventure’s

no I shall concentrate, take my time, looking out for danger at every corner and every obstacle that may lay ahead, i’m no fool I thought,

I shall get to school in one piece, and achieve the impossible dream, in impossible circumstances,

and I did just that,

I triumphed,

and I was proud of myself,

and as I walked through the school gates, I punched the air with joy and fucking frost bite fingers,

but who cares I made it in one piece and I’m ready for whatever the day may bring.

Unfortunately it did not bring what I was expecting,

which was double English, R.E, and art,

no the day took an unexpected turn for the worse before I’d even got into the bloody school building,

I was jus one step from the side door to the corridor of my school,

now what happens next is so un fucking fair,

I am still seething about it to this day,

as I say I was just decending on the side door when I hear a yell from a man known as the headmaster,

he screams ”you boys to my office now”

I turn my head as my left hand reaches out for the handle of the door, which will ultimately lead me to the safety and warmth of the school’s main corridor, but that glance backwards was my down fall,

why the fuck was I so curious, because what I saw was two other boys snowballing and destroying the garden that stood between the door I was holding, and the door some two hundred feet in front of me where the headmaster was standing,

again he shouts, and my ears prick up when he screams “you three boys stand outside my office and don’t move till I have severely dealt with you”

Now I only remember seeing two boys,

my eyes are scouring every inch of that destroyed garden to find the other culprit,

he was not there, there was no one, oh fuck who could he mean? well the fucking finger of fate sealed that deal,

the six ft six inch monster of a man with a head as red as a fucking beetroot was standing very tall in the doorway,

while the two guilty boys shuffled up to to him, hands well and truly stuffed into their trouser pockets, and their heads hung so low, their chins are almost touching their chest,

The head masters left hand on his waist like a tea pot, but his right arm stretch out Strong,

his hand was in a fist with just his one long finger pointing directly at me , “you boy get here right now” he screamed, “I will not tell you a third time”

well the blood drained from my body and my bottom hit the floor, I would have pissed myself but it was far too cold for me to actually pass urine,

“I am an innocent man” I protested to Mr Martins (the headmaster) while he continued to lecture the three of us as we lined up against his office wall, and just to the side of the door leading to the chamber of doom, that I’m sure we would be entering soon enough,

we were also on clear view to any other pupil who fancied a good laugh at three boys tortured and tormented,

so you can imagine there was a great turn out of pupils lapping up the fun,

and you always get the fucking bookworm prefects milling around there, pointing and shaking their heads in disdain just for some extra browny points,

and the gossip central secretary’s have a field day with there Chinese whispers reaching every corner of the school,

while we poor innocent children, (well one child at least was fucking innocent) have to just stand there and take it,

Well no more, I will have my say,

“sir I do not even know these two”and I gestured to the boys with a wave of my left hand “I had only just arrived at school I added” in my defence,

“oh is that right” he bellowed “so you arrived after the bell did you boy” and with that he pointed to his office, and I was marched in there with his hairy fucking claw on my right shoulder,

Whack! the sound of the third and final strike of the cain came down to hit through the palm of my right hand,

the force was unbelievable but the pain was minimal as the hand was so numb from the last two strikes, as Mr knob head literally jumped to get some serious height and a good swing,

an obvious technique taught on his level five technical course,

Nowadays you go on health and safety courses to make your work place safe,

back in the day I suggest teachers went on cruelty courses level one two & three depending on the favoured type of punishment you would like to dish out,

our Mr fucking Martin had obviously worked his way up the ladder one thinks, he had achieved management cruelty level five,

which I believe is a mash up of all levels, but death was of course frowned upon even unintentionally, ( I heard you could get suspended for an unexplained death in class)

Now this is where it gets interesting,

I am dismissed from the torture chamber with knobeads voice echoing around my head, I have no idea what he is saying as I was still looking for my fingers, which I presumed had scattered all over his fucking office floor,

anyhow I end up at my form room just in time for my form tutor to mark me absent, so as I walk through the classroom door, more humiliation ensues, “Master Taylor welcome,

so kind of you to join the class” the sarcastic Mr Blackmore (an old school old bastard from a private school, who had no choice but to see his days out at a comprehensive for some seedy deeds from his past) he continues with his screeching at me (so uncouth for a snobby teacher one thinks) “please stop right where you are and face the class”

oh here we go, I am only thinking that more torture is not what I need just now, humiliation will do,

“Taylor as you can see by the faces of your contemporaries, we are all so intrigued as to why you see fit to join us at your leisure, while as you can see before you, they ( and the prick fans out his arms to the class) all arrived on time”

“Well Mr knobead two, I was framed and nearly decapitated by the despot of a headmaster, after doing fuck all! I arrived to school fighting through a fucking blizzard like a good boy,

Just so I could then be lectured in front of my schoolmates and the sexy Alison that I was hoping to ask out one day”

but with the reaction I see from her wetting herself with laughter I will probably have to give that a wide birth,

that would have been the cool thing to say,

but all I could muster was a mumbling sorry, and for this I get a fucking weeks detention and so much homework that I won’t be leaving fucking school till my late twenties

I tried to protest to all the writing he had piled on me in the form of homework, due to the hand injury I had acquired by a member of the faculty,

his reply came fast and venomous

“boy lets be honest now, you are left handed are you not, so let’s double that home work for misleading the teacher”

fuck me there must be a school policy to make sure you don’t deform the writing hand of the pupil you wish to deliver pain to,

and then to retop the morning off (and should I say it was still only 9.30am,) Mr knobead two declared the school was closing as the heating system had gone down, and all pupils were to fuck off home immediately, (and there you have it right there, level six in teacher cruelty, how to inflict and cause chaos to the masses, send all the kids out of school to there on devices without notifying anyone)

LATCH KEY KID

Well you’ve got to be fucking shitting me! if it wasn’t for this awful artic weather I would not have taken so much care with my assault on the streets of Warrington, so therefore I would have been early for school,

and none of the last half hour would have ever happened, but i have to look on the bright side, no school for today and probably none all week,

so the rest of the day can only get better,

I mean what possibly could go wrong,

So I leave the school grounds with Mark and Daren and of course a shit load of books in my rucksack supplied by knobead two,

we decide to take the scenic route home, through a gully Just across from the school and down along the Blackbear canal, (a very old and dirty overgrown kind of canal that leads onto other waterways,)

and like any 14 year olds we’re just strolling along shooting the breeze, kicking our heels, throwing snowballs, just taking our time along the canal, when Darren spots something small and fury scuttling across the iced covered canal,

well as teenagers what’s better than chasing a creature across a frozen piece of water,

So that’s exactly what we do,

well let’s get it right, thats what I do because Mark and Darren decide to stop and sensibly test the ice that is formed across the canal which was fucking solid, and I told them so as I cruised at full speed across the ice road,

and by then I had already made it to the middle of the canal, and I was gaining ground on the now identified rat, but that’s where it all comes crashing down,

literally

because when I heard a crackling noise it gets me thinking that maybe I should reassess my position,

and that is when I come to a complete stop, and as I look down, slowly I witness the ice starting to crack, I look back up wide eyed with beads of sweat appearing on my forehead, I stare opened mouthed at the rat, and it seems to stop and look at me, and I’m sure the little fucker smiles and winks before turning and strolling off with a swagger,

and when I turn to the boys they are on safe ground both also opened mouthed gesturing for me to get back to the side, well it was too late for me,

I drop like a sack of coal straight under the ice, my back pack luckily for me was on one shoulder as i sank faster than Usain bolt out of the blocks, but I bobbed straight back up in a second as my rucksack caught on the side of the ice, and I just grabbed hold of that side of the ice where I went down,

now a hero was made that day because Mark had started to shuffle across the ice which was pretty solid in most places and grabbed my arms and pulled me up and out, I was quickly on top of the solid ice, flopping about on my belly like I dying fish flip flopin about on a boats deck

but the ice held, Mark shuffled back and I managed to get back onto the top of the ice and scuttled to the edge and onto terra firma,

well I say dry land it was shitty wet snow,

Adrenaline must of kicked in though because I did not feel the cold at all,

the walk home was at least another mile, and with the wind chill it must’ve been minus fucking ten degrees, and the last part of my journey was all on my own some as Mark and Daren had made It to there place of residence,

so now I was on a lone crusade to get back home,

and with every step of the last ten minutes walking it got harder and harder,

and that was because literally my clothes were getting stiffer and stiffer, none of my joints could move and I was walking like a stiff mannequin zombie rocking from side to side,

as I reach my house I decide to enter from the back lane so I can strip off my sodden dirty uniform on the back door step, thus leavin no trail of snow, water or shit stains through the house,

and there would be no evidence for my mum to find out of my shenanigans,

I could have my clothes off and in the washing machine and up stairs before my mum woke from a deep sleep after her night duty at work,

being on nights, my mother was regular as clock work, bed by 8.30am,

I’m stripped to my underwear in a matter of seconds,

and as I take my first step into the kitchen from the back door, school uniform clutched to my naked body, I sensed something very different,

and that would be the sight of the fifteen year old lad sat in a night gown at the kitchen table, he had combed back wet hair, a glow and a smile on his face, and he was sat at my dining table with a full cooked breakfast in front of him,

and he was making quick work of that breakfast I can tell you,

and for the first time in living memory my mum was wide awake and on her feet before lunchtime ,

she was standing there cross armed and cross legged leaning against the fucking washing machine, watching me enter semi naked,

“look what I found” she says I had to put him in the bath, (what a fucking cheek I thought, I only get a bath on Sunday’s ) she had only gone and stumbled across the boy me and are kid were hiding under our beds for the past week,

story to be continued there one thinks.

TUESDAY

I’m sat on a blue rocking horse, with a broken tail, wrapped in blankets looking out the bedroom window towards the fields and football pitches, thinking about next Monday, when school re opens, I have no books I have no home work and I’m grounded till my 25th birthday,

so all I have to look forward too is a little bit more corporal punishment from knobead one and knobead two,

still it could be worse, at least it’s stopped fucking snowing.