Anyone who attended a British school during the 1950s, 60s or 70s will probably remember the humble plimsoll. It was part of the standard equipment of school life: black or white canvas, rubber-soled and usually kept in a shoe bag ready for PE.
Yet in many schools the plimsoll had another, rather less sporting purpose.
Known variously as the slipper, pump, gym shoe or plimsoll, it was used by some teachers as an instrument of corporal punishment. Most recollections describe pupils being struck on the buttocks, usually after being told to bend over, touch their toes or lean across a desk.
But there was another method which appears to have been considerably less familiar: the slipper across the palm of the hand.
The subject arose after somebody browsing Friends Reunited discovered recollections concerning Sir Wilfrid Martineau School in Birmingham. Former pupils remembered a Mrs Shervington, who was said to have punished girls by striking their hands with a plimsoll. Similar recollections apparently appeared among former pupils discussing the school elsewhere online.
For somebody accustomed to hearing of the slipper being used in the conventional manner, it sounded decidedly peculiar.
Was Mrs Shervington unusual? Or was slippering the hand a recognised form of school punishment that has simply received less attention?
The memories of former pupils suggest the latter.
One contributor who attended school during the 1960s and 70s had certainly never encountered it. At their school, the slipper meant one thing: punishment across the bottom.
Two female teachers were remembered as occasionally slippering girls in this fashion. Such punishments were apparently more often administered privately, although on rare occasions they took place in front of other pupils.
Public corporal punishment could create an uncomfortable spectacle. The pupil was naturally embarrassed, while the teacher could also appear flustered by having to carry it out in front of a class.
Yet elsewhere, teachers evidently had quite different ideas about how a plimsoll should be employed.
One former pupil remembered a mathematics teacher delivering one stroke of a trainer across the hand. When the pupil instinctively moved the hand, the stroke had to be repeated.
The punishment apparently stung considerably.
More alarming to the pupil was the teacher’s warning that another offence would result in being bent over a desk and slippered in the more conventional fashion.
Another recollection came indirectly from a woman who had attended primary school in the Leeds area. She remembered receiving the slipper and concluded her story by saying that her hand had stung for ages afterwards.
Suddenly, the supposedly extraordinary practice did not seem quite so extraordinary after all.
The slipper across the hand may not have been the standard method, but scattered recollections suggest that it was certainly known in British schools.
And, like so many aspects of old-fashioned school discipline, there appears to have been remarkably little consistency about when, where or why it was used.
