As for me, I have already mentioned that my own share of strappings were unspectacular and less than a handful; I'd just bore you, but for my 'party piece' I will relate to you the last strapping I witnessed at school.
I went to school in Scotland, a very large school, with a modern extension to a tatty old school which it had definitely outgrown. Although a fairly conservative part of the country the period in question was around 1976, the '60's had almost reached Scotland and people were 'letting their hair down', quite literally. The dowdy uniform code (for the boys a black blazer with crest, grey long trousers, white shirt and school tie), was enforced with gusto, but the one tiny freedom allowed was that we all prety much got to grow our hair as oddly as our parents would tolerate. Then they began a 'radical' experiment. Casual clothes for 'Sixth Year Studies'. My God, you would have thought they had passed a motion to hand out free condoms with the dinner tickets. Just imagine. Laddies and Lassies, even if they were 17/18, going to school without their uniform ! The scandal.
Anyway, back to the subject matter. I suppose when I think about it that I probably witnessed no more than 3 dozen beltings (if you count a couple of 'class strappings' as one !), mainly of the one or two stroke variety; quite a mild history I believe from other schools, or even some of the non-academic stream classes in my own school. Clearly the period of maximum density was the last year of primary and the first two years of secondary when everyone watched you like a hawk for 'hooliganism' or other seditious behaviour.
Once you got to third year (15 years old or so) the beltings had thinned out to being almost remarkable and from fourth year they were most infrequent. All agreed, that boys who 'stayed on at school' i. e. didn't bolt for freedom at 16 and volunteered to stay on for another couple of years, were not the sort of boys who needed strapping in the first place. Well, that was the theory anyway.
I recall one boy, let's just call him William, was in Sixth Year Studies with me, i. e. we were a few weeks or months short of our 18th birthdays and almost ready for university, we were allowed fairly lightly surervised Study Periods and quite a bit of freedom in our comings and goings, no uniform, we were treated as 'young adults' to quote the namby pamby Form Master; but an 'utter nonsense' in the opinion of Mr McNulty who took the English component and who was a crusty 55 year old made of granite chippings and gravel. He stood about 5 foot 7 but was solid as the Bass Rock.
William had mentioned to me several times during the term that he had never been belted. never. Not a single wallop. He sounded increasingly fascinated at it as the term went by and often asked me, and the other lads what it was like. In any event it was clear he was destined never to find out. Until Black Thursday.
William looked older than his 17 and three quarters and had discovered beer and the pub. This day he was about 20 minutes late for our group (really a small class of about a dozen of us) and wandered in in a polo shirt and slacks without any evidence of having done a lick of work since the last class. This was NOT William, he was studious, reliable and a courteous lad. When McNulty 'thanked him for gracing us with his presence' in his sarcastic manner (they teach that at Teachers training College) we expected an apology and a half hearted excuse; it would have worked at that stage in our scholastic careers; we were all working very hard and under an awful lot of pressure and we were 'lightly' supervised.
But there are limits; to get off in a lie, you have to make the effort to tell a lie. William didn't. He told McNulty, in an insolent tone of voice, that he had slept in because he had been at the pub last night, he added, insult to injury, that he hadn't had much time to do any work on the assignment as he 'had been busy all this week'. Any old excuse would have done, but No, William wasn't playing.
McNulty looked as if he had been slapped on the end of his nose with a rancid kipper. "What..?" he stuttered. I thought he was going to have a fit. We all cracked up laughing, and in a small class situation that is disasterous. McNulty could see his control on the class collapsing (and probably visualised gangs of youths roaming the streets if this rebellion wasn't crushed). The final straw when McNulty's natural sarcasm at what pressing social obligations William could have had to keep him too busy for three consecutive nights to do McNulty's assignment was when meek, mild, polite William told him that he 'couldn't be arsed to do it'.
He didn't even say 'Sir' at the end of the sentence....
I don't know who was more stunned, McNulty, 11 Sixth Year Scholars in their 'grown up' casual clothes, or William himself. However startling it may have been for 'Sir' there was one thing programmed into his genes and that was how to deal with insolent schoolboys. he reached into his desk drawer and withdrew a light tan coloured 2 tail lochgelly, probably an 'H', certainly one of the thickest and stiffest straps I had seen in 12 years of schooling. It looked brand new, and may very well have been; it was so stiff you could have pointed it at someone without any noticable bend.
I hadn't even seen a belt in two years and hadn't witnessed a strapping in three. The entire class was stunned into silence. Would he really belt a Sixth Year Student ? Could he ? Would it 'work' (for some reason, comical now, we all had a suspicion that the reason they stopped belting you after about 15 was because 'it didn't really hurt' after that age; wrong!) ?
William looked dry mouthed and looked as if he was having more than second thoughts about that last couple of remarks. In a surprisingly quite voice McNulty simply said "Come out here young man, we'll see if a wee taste o' mah strahp will change yer tune for ye".
Unlike Primary where all beltings were at the front of the class, at Secondary school most strappings were given in the corridor just beyond the classroom door, not this one by the look of it. William stood up and walked slowly over to the teachers desk. You could have cut the air with a knife; the attention of all in the room as this little drama played out was utter.
William stood a couple of inches taller than McNulty and offered no defence or complaint when McNulty stood up and said "Hands out, two hands, cross them boy". It was the first time I had seen anyone belted out of uniform. William crossed his hands tentatively but uncertainly, McNulty straightened the elbows a bit, made him cross the hands more firmly then laid the thick tails of his tawse on the hands from the tips of the finger to an inch or so below the start of the wrist, both to guage distance and also to intimidate I suspect as this was a very thick and heavy strap, something which would not go unnoticed as it rested on the palms of a boy's hands.. He also had to push them down an inch or so as the boy was bigger than he was. He pulled the belt over his shoulder, elbow pointing almost up to the ceiling to get maximum 'drive' then with a twist that probably threw his back out, he lifted one foot almost off the ground and brought the tails of the belt down on William's crossed hands. The tails were a blur, and the CRACK!! of the strap was crisp and violent, like a pistol shot.
William's hands flew down and he half bent over, for a split second he looked as if he couldn't believe what had happened, "Up again boy, come on" Another THWAP!! and he looked in shock. I could see the dampness in his eyes, "Up again boy, you are getting six of the very best". My God. Six ? Number three CRACK!! and there were tears coming out of Williams eyes and he let out an Aaaah. Number four was a dull WHAPP (I think it hit the side of his hand and so the belt didn't hit 'flat'. William yelped and kept up an awful racket then and throught the remainder of the belting.
By this time there were four clear tracks of tears coming down Williams cheeks and he had his hands under alternate armpits and was lettinng out a bubbling sound. "UP!", William hestiated, "UP!!!" and up he went, a scarlet, swollen and no doubt throbbing pair of hands were presented for CRACK!! and another shaking of hands and blowing on them before, ever so slowly, they were presented for the final CRACK!!!.
McNulty was not exactly subtle. it was the boys first and last belting, he simply said "Now sit doon, ye'r no so clever when you have had a good leathering , ur ye?". There was no denying the wisdom of that. McNulty muttered something about there being 'a good dose of that' waiting for anyone else who wanted it, and of there being 'pleanty more where that came from' (something which never materialised; I never so much as saw a belt in school from that day until the day I left).
William sat with his burning hands alternately pressed between his legs or under his armpits, when he wasn't blowing on them or waving them around. The bubbling stopped after 10 minutes or so, the tears dried, but the tear tracks, red eyes, and bright scarlet swollen hands were evidence for the rest of the day and in the bus going home, that a self important 'young adult' could be brought down a peg or two and transformed into a naughty schoolboy in less than 3 minutes with a good hard dose of the strap.
As for William, did he get the belt deliberately, either to find out what it was like or to make sure he didn't go through his school career without ever having had the experience ? I don't know, he seemed to lose interest in talking about the belt after that (!). I think he did, but if so he got the De Luxe treatment that day.