I arrive back at Walpole House very wet. I go to my desk in the main Junior Hall where I and the other sixteen more junior boys have their desks. The Captain of Hall says that I can take off my wet jacket and hang it over the radiator to dry. I discuss being caught by Hamilton with my best friend. He’s sure I will get beaten, another boy joins the conversation and thinks I might get away with a Punishment Drill. Punishment Drills are nasty. I would have to report to the Parade Ground at 5:30 AM in gym kit and then it’s 20 minutes of very hard exercise including marching carrying heavy bags of sand. Some boys think a beating is preferable.
Time passes, I put on my, now dry, jacket and make my way with the other boys to the dining hall for supper - but the fate hanging over me rather spoils my appetite and I find I don’t eat or talk much. After supper, back at your desk, I struggle with my prep (homework) and manage to keep the big problem out of my mind most of the time. But it keeps popping back.
Later in bed you wonder if I might get away with a ‘Lattergate’, that’s a less formal beating usually of only 4 or 6 strokes given by the Monitor or House prefect in his own study. It’s named after a House that existed for new boys who went there for their first year before going on the their real house. Lattergate House was now used only for dayboys but the term Lattergate persisted as the milder punishment as compared to an ‘Old Grange’ which was a formal beating in front of all the School Monitors and performed, originally, in The Old Grange. At present though, the study shared by the School Monitors is known as the Old Grange when used for beatings, otherwise it’s just called ‘The Monitors Study’. I have been caned once before so I know what it’s like and lie in bed going through the routine and trying to remember just how much it hurts.
Time passes, I put on my, now dry, jacket and make my way with the other boys to the dining hall for supper -
Later in bed you wonder if I might get away with a ‘Lattergate’, that’s a less formal beating usually of only 4 or 6 strokes given by the Monitor or House prefect in his own study. It’s named after a House that existed for new boys who went there for their first year before going on the their real house. Lattergate House was now used only for dayboys but the term Lattergate persisted as the milder punishment as compared to an ‘Old Grange’ which was a formal beating in front of all the School Monitors and performed, originally, in The Old Grange. At present though, the study shared by the School Monitors is known as the Old Grange when used for beatings, otherwise it’s just called ‘The Monitors Study’. I have been caned once before so I know what it’s like and lie in bed going through the routine and trying to remember just how much it hurts.
Next Day