Sebastian Doggart’s article resonated with me (‘It gives me no pleasure, but I am going to have to beat you’: was I the last boy to be flogged at Eton?, 25 May). I had the dubious honour of being the first pupil to be beaten (or receive the “whacks” as we used to call it) by the newly appointed headmaster of my prep school, when I was also 13. Separately, the deputy headmaster was an enthusiastic administrant of the hairbrush whacks, but unlike the claim from the Eton teacher that he derived no pleasure, in my situation, on several occasions I remember having the distinct feeling that one of us was most definitely enjoying it (and it wasn’t me). Being the same age as the author, I know exactly what he experienced, in a very dark time of appalling treatment of children who were entrusted by their parents to these individuals and institutions.
Dr Julian Stone
Buckland, Oxfordshire
• I despaired at the response of Tony Little, questioned during his tenure as headmaster of Eton in 2002-15 about the school’s practice of flogging, which had ended years before. Sebastian Doggart gave an account of his brutal abuse, and asked Little if it was something the school should be ashamed of. “It was a different time,” Little said. “It’s hard to get back into the mindset of what happened 25 … years ago.” No, it’s not. Tap anyone over 50 on the shoulder and ask them.
Lynne Scrimshaw
London
• Like Sebastian Doggart, I too blame Eton for a brutal secondary education, not because I attended that school but because my own state grammar slavishly imitated a public school with common rooms, the odd minor-league pederast teacher, masters wearing gowns and mortar boards, and yes, of course, beatings. The public school system has a lot to answer for.
John Rushton
Bridge of Weir, Renfrewshire
• I first got the belt when I was four years old in my Scottish primary school in the early 1950s, for talking too much in class. I managed to stay out of trouble until I was 16 years old when, along with a couple of friends, I was belted for coming in out of the rain and being in our classroom before the bell had gone. Happy times.
Geraldine Blake
Worthing, West Sussex
• Sebastian Doggart, recalling his Eton nightmare, is entirely correct when he says “violence is the last resort of the incompetent”. I survived an Irish Christian Brothers grammar school education in the 1960s, but not without the occasional strapping on open palms. My experience was that the good teachers never needed to resort to corporal punishment. The force of their character was sufficient.
John Hunter
Crewe, Cheshire
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