Although my home now is in Edmonton Canada, I did my nurses training in the UK and I can assure you George that in the 1938/1942 period at my hospital what was called a smacked bottom was used, when necessary, to correct and encourage. I'd taken a couple of years after school to decide and so I was just turned 18 when I started nursing school.

Corporal punishment generally took three forms. The tawse (a particularly wicked Scottish strap) applied to the hands, a flexible and much softer rubber strap applied to the bottom, bare of course, and a traditional English punishment cane for more serious matters.

The tawse and the bum strap, as we called it, were administered by senior nursing and teaching staff. If the tawse, or bum strap, was to be used first you would have a meeting with the senior nurse on the ward, or the teacher, at the end of which you'd be told of your punishment and given a time to meet at the corrections room. That was at the end of a fairly private hall in the basement of the nursing school --- a wing of the hospital. Generally, you'd get the tawse, or bum strap, later that same day. It would be given by the senior nurse, or teacher, usually alone, no witness.

The cane was a more formal affair and given my the head of the school. In my day, Miss Cassidy. A meeting with a senior nurse, or teacher might end with your being told she was asking Miss Cassidy to give you the cane, in which case you'd be given a cane slip with the particulars of your fault which you'd take right away to Miss Cassidy's office. Or, for some matters you'd be summoned from class directly to Miss Cassidy's office.

At Miss Cassidy's office there would be a wait, sitting on a hard chair, reserved for those to be caned. If someone came in the office, generally a teacher, Mrs. Allen, the secretary would often, and needlessly, point out to the visitor, "Elizabeth is here for the cane."

When it was time Mrs. Allen would send an intercom message to whatever senior nurse, or teacher, had sent you with the message, "Miss Cassidy is ready for Elizabeth now," and a few minutes later the person who sent you would arrive as a witness. Mrs. Allen would push the button on her office intercom and ask Miss Cassidy, "Shall we bring Elizabeth in now?"

In Miss Cassidy's office you'd be expected to stand in front of her desk while she lectured you and then she'd say, "The cane if you please, Mrs. Allen," and, "Elizabeth, lift your skirt and bend over my desk --- that's it, now grasp the other side."

By now Mrs. Allen would have handed the cane to Miss Cassidy, behind and out of my sight. Ahead of me I could see Mrs. Allen arrive on the side of the desk I was facing. "Let me help you dear," she would say as she took my wrists and held them in place. Behind me I'd hear Miss Cassidy say, "Bloomers down, please," and the person who had sent me for the cane would tug them down to my knees.

"Holding steady, Elizabeth," would come the command. I'd feel Mrs. Allen tighten her grip and say to me in a quiet calm voice, "Try not to tighten, it will just earn you extra strokes ... hang on dear."

As Mrs. Allen was speaking to me I'd feel the cane gently tap my bare flesh, then nothing, a pause, and suddenly I'd hear the cane swish and before my mind could process it would land and in an instant my bottom would burst into pain, I'd howl, Mrs. Allen would bear down hard to hold my wrists in place, and needlessly say, "That's one!"

By the time I'd had the minimum of six, to the maximum of 12 I'd be shrieking and bouncing like an Alberta bronco at the Calgary Stampede.

While I had several experiences of the tawse and the rubber bum strap it is the three occasions I had to go across Miss Cassidy's desk for the cane that I remember most vividly.