Fiction and non-fiction
Posted at 18:35 on 18 Oct 2011 by Pandora / Blake
Click to view BBC footage of a boy's school cross country run from 1948
I dreamed the other night about reading an autobiography of some (fictional) well-known man. My dream, of course, focussed on his school experience. The most memorable part was his recollection of cross-country PE. Long runs through beautiful green English countryside in horrible grey English weather. Icy wind and stinging rain that raised goose-pimples on your bare legs below your scratchy white shorts. And a sadistic PE master who would wait for you at a turning point, cane in hand - ostensibly to prevent the boys from getting lost, but missing no opportunity to slash at you across your damp, chafing shorts to encourage you along.
Because this was a dream, the same PE master could be waiting at every crossroads, snug in his warm blazer, applying a cane stroke to the seat of a struggling boy every few minutes during a 3 mile cross-country run.
I think I know where the dream came from. I'm still hobbling around on crutches after spraining my ankle last Wednesday, and when she was visiting over the weekend Adele Haze told us a story from an Australian autobiography she'd read - a true story, although I can't remember who told it - of a school teacher who delighted in caning the hands of the boy with the hurt leg with special relish, knowing he'd have to use his welted hands to make his way back to the back of the class on crutches. I shuddered when I heard it, sickened and unable to fetishise such targeted cruelty when I'm struggling so much with mobility at the moment.
Despite having loathed cross-country runs at school almost as much as I currently hate being unable to walk unaided, the school scenario of my dream appeals to me much more. Perhaps when I'm off the crutches my kinky brain will be able to appreciate the sadism of the true story, but in the meantime fiction suits me just fine.
Comments
I've often wondered why it's PE teachers who used to be the cruellest at school. Does the job attract cruel people or do they change once they become one? I first realised I was into spanking when I saw one of my female classmates spanked with a slipper over the vaulting horse by the games mistress. This was quite unusual because although corporal punishment was still in use in those days it was normally carried out in private. I still remember her squirming bottom in her tight red gym pants/shorts and to this day enjoy stories and pictures with sports background.
I don't know about PE teachers, but I expect it's connected to the macho culture among sportspeople... and the fact that so many teenagers are clumsy, skinny and have a poor relationship with their bodies/have no interest in exercise, so they have to deal with a lot of resentment and disinterest from their students. I mean, I've come to a much better relationship with my body and these days I work out several times a week, but at school? I'd rather have had my nose in a book.
I saw one of my female classmates spanked with a slipper over the vaulting horse by the games mistress
Oh, be still, my beating heart!
Talking at lunch, though?! Lunch had to be had in total silence? Wow. I suppose that isn't that surprising really but it wouldn't have occurred to me.
I do love the last person to get changed always getting the slipper. Horrible (did you ever get it?) but real fantasy fodder: the inevitability and impersonality of it, and the opportunity to earn yourself a punishment, if you were so inclined, without arousing any suspicion. Thanks for sharing these tidbits :)
(There's been a TV series made out of it, I wonder if any of the caning references made it in? http://aso.gov.au/titles/tv/i-can-jump-puddles/)
Talking at lunch, though?! Lunch had to be had in total silence? Wow. I suppose that isn't that surprising really but it wouldn't have occurred to me.
I do love the last person to get changed always getting the slipper. Horrible (did you ever get it?) but real fantasy fodder: the inevitability and impersonality of it, and the opportunity to earn yourself a punishment, if you were so inclined, without arousing any suspicion. Thanks for sharing these tidbits :)
I can still remember school cross-country runs after 50 years Fortunately as I got older I became a good runner, but the first few were a nightmare and there really was a PE master waiting with a plimsoll ready for anybody who didn't try, or who didn't improve their times.
I still remember him whacking an unfortunate boy still dripping wet and naked just out of the shower for very little reason in front of the class.
Jim
Talking at lunch, though?! Lunch had to be had in total silence? Wow. I suppose that isn't that surprising really but it wouldn't have occurred to me.
I do love the last person to get changed always getting the slipper. Horrible (did you ever get it?) but real fantasy fodder: the inevitability and impersonality of it, and the opportunity to earn yourself a punishment, if you were so inclined, without arousing any suspicion. Thanks for sharing these tidbits :)
I was caned twice at school but nothing to do with PE. Once was for talking at lunch, and once when there were more than the regulation 2 pupils per train carriage on the way to my (very old fashioned) grammar school in London! Mind you that was back in the late 60s. I aso remember our gym teacher always giving six whacks of a slipper to the last person to leave the changing room after PE!
Talking at lunch, though?! Lunch had to be had in total silence? Wow. I suppose that isn't that surprising really but it wouldn't have occurred to me.
I do love the last person to get changed always getting the slipper. Horrible (did you ever get it?) but real fantasy fodder: the inevitability and impersonality of it, and the opportunity to earn yourself a punishment, if you were so inclined, without arousing any suspicion. Thanks for sharing these tidbits :)
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