Other teachers were considerably more organised.
They had their slipper.
It lived in the desk drawer.
Or the cupboard.
Or the PE office.
It might remain there for years.
Generations of pupils could therefore become familiar with precisely the same battered old shoe.
The psychological effect should not be underestimated.
A slipper kept permanently in a classroom became more than an ordinary plimsoll.
It acquired a reputation.
Pupils knew where it was kept.
They knew the sound of the drawer opening.
They knew what its appearance meant.
And in some schools the transformation from ordinary footwear into legendary disciplinary object was completed by giving it a name.
