Boys will be boys - Ken Gibbs

The Beast of Bodmin Moor – aged just 3

  

In common with many of our XUNICEF colleagues, we ended up in a country different from that of our birth. We migrated, it could be said. I personally wondered whether my own childhood could in any way be compared to the childhood which our grandchildren face in today’s world in our adopted home. How gender determined my childhood journey is not examined as I was born one of five boys. We had no sister(s), so my experience was solely masculine.

We boys lived a comparatively isolated life where there was a natural pecking order. Being the fourth of five boys, I tended to be at the base of the pecking order pyramid, but there were times when there were squabbles when I felt that my place was not right being at the base of the pyramid all the time, but with three older brothers sitting on me, I eventually resigned myself to the reality. I looked forward to going to school where my older brothers would not determine what I could and could not do; or should and should not do. This became a case of ‘the devil is in the detail’.

On arrival at my all male primary school, I immediately discovered that the staff and teachers determined what I was allowed to do, not my brothers; but I found this quite challenging as school values and home values were not always compatible. I had to learn what made ‘A Good Boy’ and what, ‘A Bad/Wicked/Tiresome Boy’. The school staff ensured we knew which was which and they (the staff, that is) had systems in place to reinforce this learning. Good Boys got plaudits/rewards, and Bad/wicked/tiresome Boys got penalties/rewards.

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In junior school, the Good Boy rewards were aimed to develop both academic and sporting prowess and were, at this distance in time – around 70 years ago – pretty well graduated. One earned an ‘S’ which was recorded in a special book for a piece of work or skill which stood out. One page of the special book was used up when 12 of these symbols had been recorded (making for a ‘Star’), and 10 ‘Stars’ made for a prize which was presented at the end of the year. You knew that you had achieved an understanding of ‘Good’ behaviour if you received an end-of-year prize. They were not handed out freely, and the prize was always a book.

To differentiate between ‘Good Boy’ and the opposite, the ‘Bad Boy’ penalties were aimed to remind the recipient to abstain from such ‘bad’ behaviour as they were both noisy and quite painful, especially when administered with a cane to one’s backside. Or even with the back of a handled hairbrush which made even more noise but generally was not quite as painful. Graduated, did I say ?

Readers will no doubt be relieved that at primary school, I did not receive any beating. However, the brother who was immediately older than me (number 3 in the pecking order, that is), tended to have a different behavioural profile because he set the record for the school of receiving 27 administrations of behaviour correction in half a term, mostly by the cane. He wore the bruises as a badge of honour. . . . . Later in life, he referred to it as ‘character-building’, more for the ‘donor’ rather than for the recipient. Obviously, ‘number 3’ was even more of a difficult child than I had been.

Moving on to secondary boarding school, the reward systems were only slightly different from the primary school. ‘Good Boy’ rewards tended to be academically subjective but included a prize for an outstanding example of selflessness/courage. Obviously, the school was looking for heroes. At the other end of the spectrum the corrective behaviour systems were usually applied by a Master or senior boy to the rear end of the perpetrator. Looking back on it, to have allowed senior boys to thrash juniors as part of the system was barbaric, Dickensian and in terms of today’s values, scandalous. I have to admit once to having received four strokes of the cane from a senior boy for having bunked out of school in contravention of the rules which taught me one thing: Not to be caught.

Such systems sometimes had consequences. Judge for yourselves:

A contingent of boys attending the school had to travel from Zimbabwe to Cape Town (where the school was situated), by train – a journey of around 50 hours so there was ample time for mischief. Brothers numbered 2 and 3 happened to be booked in a compartment of four with the Senior boy who had administered the cane on us and they were looking to level the scores, if possible. Those were the days when fireworks were freely available – and what schoolboy ever said ‘No’ to buying some squibs ? Number 2 brother had a goodly stock and awaited the right moment when the Senior boy was reading, facing the wall, leaving his somewhat generous buttocks in view. The brother managed to place a squib in the ideal position but when he lit a match, Senior boy turned over and said, “No squibs in the compartment !”, thereby lodging the unlit squib firmly in position, and then turned back to the wall to continue reading. After a delay of some minutes, a match was lit and administered to the fuse of the squib, whereupon Senior boy turned over and was about to say. . . . .when there was a most satisfying flash and bang with senior boy dancing around trying to put out his burning rear end. Naturally, my brothers were motherless with laughter because they knew they were safe. If the Senior boy had elected to administer further chastisement, the whole school would know and his reputation would suffer even further.

We never did discover how he explained the burned seat of his trousers to his mother, but all the boys on the train celebrated the temporary levelling of scores.

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As I had been put into boarding school at the earliest opportunity – after all, I was the fourth experience that my parents had of having children and they must have been anxious to let someone else help in our ‘bringing-up’ – when it came time for me to leave secondary school, I was still too young to enter university. This problem was easily solved by a number of us staying on at the secondary school to what was then referred to as ‘Post Matric’. In our year, there were six left out of around 35 matriculants, meaning that we didn’t need a separate building. We were ‘housed’ in the school library and lessons were very different from those in the rest of the school. We were treated as if we were already adult.

The simplistic view of life for those in the school – learning the rudiments of good and bad behaviour – was exchanged for a more reasoned approach. Rather than being told what was right and wrong, we were consulted in how we should in – adulthood – work this out for ourselves. There were, it had to be said, some very interesting debates. We even were introduced to the thinking that in certain circumstances, assassination might be justified, ethically. Sounds contradictory? Most definitely, but when couched in terms of the attempts that were made on Hitler’s life, one was made to think about the greater good of all. Think of General Claus von Stauffenberg and later, Dietrich Bonhoeffer amongst many, many others. Wikipedia lists all the significant attempts that were made on Adolf Hitler.

Today, where physical chastisement of children is illegal or prohibited, one wonders if present value systems we instil in our progeny are sufficient to allow for a well regulated community ? Strangely, I never seemed to be on hand in UNICEF group meetings when the subject arose, if it ever did in the duty stations where I served.

This becomes important when trying to define absolutes for right and wrong. For schools, generally, right is most often what results in a well ordered administration – and more particularly, one in which the superiority of the staff/administration is not challenged rather than what is morally right. Remember how long it took to ban physical chastisement ?

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