Harkness – MacGillivray Stories

Mrs. Bonse taught the eldest children and was perhaps the oldest of the teachers in the school. She also showed me what favoritism in the classroom looks like. At that time, she had a son that was already old enough to live and work in Bahrain. She would sometimes proudly talk about him in class. Of course, we had no clue about what or where Bahrain was, but we had a vague idea that it was some kind of ‘colony’. In other words, we knew that the British had defeated the Germans in the war, and they were still world ‘rulers’. 

I always remember her having a pretty nasty expression on her face; perhaps she was just a nasty person, or it was just how her face was. Of course, children are sometimes prejudicial towards older people, especially women. This is hardly surprising as old women are often portrayed in children’s literature as witches with warts on their noses; at least that was the case in the Hollywood movies of the period. One example was the witch in “Snow White”, which although produced in 1937, was still popular in the 1950s. 

The Return of the Lumbago

There was this one experience I had with Mrs Bonse that made me question just how much I really ‘knew’ her. There was one time during the potato picking season so I had to stay at home for a few days because I got injured. My back had become stiff, and the underside of my foot developed a large green boil. To know more about where I got that injury, you can read this old post: Green Boils and Lumbago

On returning to school, Mrs. Bonse asked me in front of the whole class what had been wrong with me. I was feeling quite proud of the fact that I had an illness that none of my friends had had, and of which I had never even heard of before. I answered proudly, “Lumbago!”

Mrs. Bonse let out a loud guffaw and said, “You couldn’t have had that – that’s an old man’s ailment!” All the other children thought this was a hilarious joke Mrs. Bonse had made and started sniggering. This was quite unusual, as she didn’t make many jokes, as this would mean removing her perpetual grim expression. 

I felt quite embarrassed and didn’t think this was funny at all. Perhaps I never really ‘knew’ Mrs. Bonse. Maybe she had a sense of humour she kept hidden from us kids; but knowing her, it must have been a pretty dark sense of humour.

‘Favourites’

Mrs. Bonse was one of those teachers who have their ‘favourites’, like many teachers and my parents. She behaved in different ways towards me and my two brothers. 

Alistair attended her class four years before me, and she did not like him at all. On the other hand, she liked Stuart very much when he was in her class five years before me. In other words, she repeated the behaviour of our mother. 

As for me, I was not as lucky as Stuart. I experienced the system of ‘divide and rule’ amongst her ‘subjects’ that she used with us. The favoured subjects were ‘allowed’ certain honours such as cleaning blackboards and having their paintings picked out to adorn the classroom walls. Those not favoured typically never had paintings that were ‘wonderful enough’ to be hung on the wall. She would also send disobedient pupils to Mr. Heald, the headmaster, to be caned; of course included me. 

Mental Torture

I was sent to Mr. Heald on one occasion. As I was awaiting my turn to be caned, I realized how these punishments seemed to involve more ‘mental’ torture than the actual physical pain; children typically conjured up all kinds of horrible things in store for them during the waiting period. 

I remember waiting outside his office and imagining how I would run away from school or emigrate to a different country! This might seem absurd and quite funny now, but back then, it felt like waiting on death row. When it was my turn, I took in how pretty imposing and strict Mr. Heald acted; miraculously, he didn’t cane me after all. 

In retrospect, the ‘imposing’ Mr. Heald was perhaps a kind man. Let’s face it – many teachers at this time enjoyed physically chastising young children; it was like a ‘fringe benefit’ of their jobs. If they had unsatisfactory sexual lives, they could counter this by whipping the naked bottoms of young girls and boys. 

Corporal Punishments

At the schools I attended, girls were exempt from corporal punishment. However, when my mother worked in a Welsh primary school in the 1980s, she told me of the headmaster who loved whipping the bare bottoms of young girls with a tawse!²¹⁵ One might imagine that such practices, along with the practices of the eighteenth century Marquis de Sade’s France, had been cast into history’s rubbish bin; but no, they were still alive and kicking in the 1980s in Britain! 

Of course, the naive reader might imagine that this all belongs in the past. However, I happened to read the other day that physical punishment and torture of children in Wales has finally ended (in 2022!).²¹⁶ Of course, this is almost a half a century or more after corporal punishment of children was outlawed in Scandinavian countries.²¹⁷ Perhaps we are being a little naive here and focusing on our narrow European world. The fact is that in the majority of countries today, parents and teachers are still allowed to freely abuse and torture children.²¹⁸

²¹⁵ I won’t mention the name of the school or headmaster here but I have documented evidence for any readers who happen to read this, and were subjected to such tortures.

²¹⁶  https://gov.wales/ending-physical-punishment-children Read: 6 May 2022.

²¹⁷ https://blogs.loc.gov/law/2019/07/on-this-day-40-years-of-prohibition-on-disciplinary-corporal-punishment-of-children-in-sweden/ Read: 6 May 2022.

²¹⁸  https://www.fatherly.com/love-money/where-corporal-punishment-still-legal/ Date of reading: 6 May 2022.