An old friend of mine pointed me in the direction of a couple of videos of my old school that have surfaced on YouTube. They were shot in 1996 for BBC Newsnight around the time at which the UK was debating the legality of corporal punishment. St James School was one of the last schools to abandon the use of corporal punishment in the UK.
If you look carefully, you can see the back of my head in one of our history classes.
For some reason embedding has been turned off for Part 2 of the video, but you can watch it on YouTube.
[Update:] Post updated to reflect the fact that the clips were shot by the BBC and not ITV. Thanks c.farrell for the update.
I am the one who uploaded the video clips. Yes, it was 1996 but it was BBC Newsnight, not ITV. See my page about the background to these clips, and goings-on at St James more generally, at http://www.corpun.com/vidsc.htm .
Would be interested in your comments on all that, in your capacity as a former student there.
c.farrell, thanks for correcting my mistake. I have now updated the post to reflect the fact that it was BBC Newsnight and not ITV who made the documentary.
I was a former student, and whilst caning went on at the school whilst I was there, I was never caned myself and as such wouldn’t want to comment on the experience.