This story is set in a Boys Public School on the Isle of Man in the late 1970's. The School, Douglas House, had once been highly successful both in terms of Academic achievement and as a first choice for many parents the world over.
Sadly School numbers had steadily fallen from a peak of 480 boys and a long waiting list to just 119 boys and no waiting list. Frankly the School was losing money and if matters couldn't be rectified it would have to close within the next year.
Drastic situations lead to drastic measures and although the Headmaster, Mr Boothby, was very popular, he had let school standards slip. The board of governors had sent a survey to every parent who had enquired about a place for their son as to why Douglas House wasn? t chosen. The result was that a large number thought the school was scruffy and dirty, the boys scruffy and badly behaved, the teaching staff scruffy, the teaching poor with lack of control and the academic & sporting achievements poor. Mr Boothby had been summonsed before the board and was sacked on the spot for allowing the school to get into such a state, along with three of the teaching staff.
After considerable searching the Governors appointed a new head, a Mr Gordon Burch, who had himself been a pupil, indeed a former head boy, at Douglas house. Mr Burch had an excellent teaching record and had taught at many boys public schools, most recently as deputy head of Crieff College in Scotland.
Crieff College had an excellent record and was full to overflowing, indeed it was almost everything that the board wanted Douglas House to be like, but even better.
The Governors had visited Crieff and were richly impressed with the overall appearance of the school, the boarding houses, the masters and the boys. The thing that jumped out at them the most was how smart the boys looked and how polite and well behaved they appeared. They compared this with the dirty scruffy sight of Douglas House boy? s unkempt hair, grubby trousers with torn knees and dirty shoes. The Crieff boys looked immaculate by comparison, with short neatly combed hair, clean knees, sparkling shoes and very smart, neatly pressed grey short trousers. They also impressed when they witnessed a 15 year old reduced to tears by the Headmaster in front of the whole school, when the boy was ordered to bare his bottom on the stage at assembly. They heard him howl as he received 10 of the best with very long cane and then they heard the lad apologise to the whole school for bullying a first year boy. As an extra punishment he was to spend the next 3 weeks as a first year boy in short trousers.
Mr Burch's brief was firstly to reduce costs, so that the school could survive another year and then to turn the school around within a year so that parents would once again clamour to send their sons to Douglas House. Mr Burch had visited the school many times during the previous months and had formed a plan of how he would achieve the goals set. Before taking over, he asked the board to send out a questionnaire to all parents of boys at the school about aspects of school life.
The findings were very similar to those of prospective parents and there was a strong mandate for the changes that Mr Burch proposed even though it would require an extra payment of £300.00 per boy as a one off supplement. An amazing 99.5% were in favour of the school reintroducing corporal punishment by Masters & Prefects. Parent approval was granted for unlimited use of hand, slipper, cane & Birch upon the clothed or bared buttocks, thighs & legs of all boys, both in private and in public. The changes he proposed to clothing were warmly welcomed as being very practical, likely to reduce parent cost in the longer term and should signify an end to peer group bullying regarding some boys lack of expensive and designer wear gear.
Mr Burch started preparing for his very first assembly at Douglas House and found himself rather surprised that he had to deal with a matter of wanton vandalism on his very first day. Somehow this could prove very fortuitous as it would underline to all of the boys that things were going to change in a very big way from this day forward.
Watch this space for the next chapter!!