SIR - I don't know anything about schools that had children who had the "living daylights knocked out of them" and I suspect tha this was Peter Wilson's way of getting his point across by using poetic licence (T&A, November 29).
I went to Feversham Street Primary from 1944 and almost every morning I could be found (along with the same pupils) standing at the side of the assembly and consequently by the teachers' room awaiting our fate from Mr Clem Jennings, the head.
Our crime? Dirty hands from playing in the schoolyard prior to school. Our punishment? Stay in at break. Our let-out? Five minutes into the break, the head would appear and ask the miscreants, "stick or stay-in?"
I always opted for stick as we got a whack on each hand that stung for a moment and that was that. If you opted for stay-in (and I only ever knew it happen once) you were classed as a cissy.
Living daylights? I think not but it was salutary insofar as we were quite aware that if we "did the crime", we would "do the time".
What a shame discipline is missing from schools these days.
Phil Boase, Elizabeth Street, Wyke
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