JRGS News Archive Page 30

It is raining outside, a typically tropical downpour... bored with work, and not a lot to do in Bali since the bombs went off last October. So I decided to have a look at John Ruskin Grammar School in Google. I was delighted to see the article on corporal punishment and the register that Mr. "Joe" Lowe kept.
For those who remember, one was sent to the headmaster's office where we were required to wait. After some considerable time the reprobate was called in and his crime read out to him from the punishment book. Comments were solicited and the sentence revealed - usually a four or a six. The "criminal" was then required to bend over a table and read the crime while Mr. Lowe selected a birch with the correct swish. The punishment was then administered... and it bloody hurt.
Thus my years from 1955 to 1959 were not times to cherish. At that time, we were surrounded by a motley bunch of teachers. The RI teacher, whose name escapes me, carried a plimsoll in his back pocket, which he beat us with. I remember I laughed when the word "circumcised" was read from the bible - that hurt.

All right, I was not a model student and hated school - and probably deserved beating - all the same it was Dickensian. I'm glad we put the potato up Mr. Lowe's Morris Minor exhaust. The final straw was when some malcontents got into the school and painted the doors with graffiti. They broke into Mr. Lowe's office, ate his biscuits and drank his sherry. He hauled me in for that one and, for once, I was innocent. I got expelled just the same.

Overall, the school was an excellent seat of learning but it utilized the seat of pain too much. I never went back, and now I'm 61 - I don't regret a thing except for laughing at Mr. Peacock for being deaf and old. He was a nice man.

Terence Morris (JRGS 1942-50) adds: I recall Mr. Lowe's introduction of "School Rules" when he arrived from Wallasey Grammar School in 1945. They were more complex than anyone had even seen; more like a set of modern-day European directives.

[ML adds: Professor Morris - an acknowledged criminologist - also pointed out that, in his original email, Chris Green had referred to the article on "capital punishment," instead of what he meant to state: "corporal punishment." Which explains the lack of a gibbet at the Tamworth Road and Shirley Road sites. My error.]

Anne Smith (JRGS/JRHS teacher and Sixth-Form College Principal 1970-99) adds: What I remember about the punishment book was the two crimes for which boys were often beaten and which do not even exist in schools today: they were "horseplay" and "tomfoolery". Corporal punishment fell into desuetude shortly after the admission of girls to the school but, by default, not as at a local school by decree.
The announcement that boys would no longer be beaten at Ashburton School was followed by an outbreak of lawlessness which only stopped after a couple of young masters dealt out summary and illicit punishments at the back of the school! Ruskin was more circumspect.

ML adds: While Anne might be too modest to mention it, her 89-year old father, Ernest Millington, recently published his autobiography, "Was That Really Me?" According to a summary on amazon.co.uk, "Mr. Millington was an active and radical politician from an early age. He joined the short-lived CommonWealth Party and became a reluctant Member of Parliament in 1945; to do so, he left the RAF where he had become a Wing Commander in Bomber Command."
His formal education ended at 16, but he went on to become a teacher in some of the toughest classrooms of inner city London. "From the vivid accounts of piloting Lancaster bombers to anecdotes about the legendary figures of Atlee's Government, this book offers readers of all ages a personal portrait of Britain in the 20th century," the reviewer offers.
Published January 1, 2006, by Fultus Corporation; paperback, 192pp. ISBN: 1596820764.