Oh, what a time is now on Patreon. You can get main feed episodes before everyone else, ad free,

plus access to our full archive of bonus content, two bonus episodes every month, early access

to live show tickets and access to the Oh Water Time group chat. Plus, if you become an Oh Water

Time All-Timer, myself, Tom and Ellis will riff on your name to postulate where else in history you might have popped up.

For all your options, you can go to patreon.com forward slash oh what a time.

Hello and welcome to Part 2 of Education. Let's get on the show.

Music Okay, now, corporal punishment in schools might seem like a thing of the past.

Something happened in the 19th century, possibly only the 19th century, but in fact, what the French once referred to as the English vice, because of its commonality in British schools, was only abolished by Parliament when, do either of you know? Oh, this is going to be so much later than I expect, isn't it? I did know this because I actually remember them discussing it on the news. I would have guessed. Oh really? That late? Yeah. 80s? Yeah. That would have blown my mind. I would have assumed 1950 something. 88? 89? No, 87. So it was abolished by Parliament in the summer of 86. Ban was put to practice in 1987. I remember them discussing it on things like NewsRand. That's unbelievable. When was Live Aid? 1985. So it's after that. It's after Live Aid. Yeah. Well, Ma'am was a teacher in... She was a secondary school teacher. She taught in Liverpool in the 70s. And she was very against Corporal Applishment. She was once a kid had been naughty in her class

and the headmaster called her in

because he'd cane this boy

who'd been acting up

and you know like on the bum

and the guy was boy was crying

and my mum was like

at that point I'd never seen it happen before

but I was like I am absolutely against

you know corporal punishment at schools and my deputy head teacher at school, I told a very similar story. It was like, we've never done it in school, even when it was legal. Interesting. That's interesting. So I think it was sort of, it was only, you know, it was abolished by Parliament, but I think a lot of schools had decided not to do it. But I think in private schools, they were actually allowed to do it until later, but I'd have to check that. Wow, that's amazing. So much later than I thought it would be. Yeah, the Conservative government at the time, led by Margaret Thatcher, they weren't obviously by instinct abolitionists. But they felt it better that they acted before, as one minister put it, the European Court of Human Rights

obliges us. So they thought they'd get in quick so that it wasn't the ECHR rulings that made them do it

because the ECHR, there had been rulings in the previous decade, which had sort of made it obvious

that it was inevitable that Britain would have to get his act together.

I think generally if you've got a concern, the European Court of Human Rights has got an issue with something you're doing. It's probably time to knit that in the part of the way. Oh, you would say that, wouldn't you? Because you're a lefty member of the liberal metropolitan elite. Absolutely snowflake. You know, the centuries and the 80s

or several countries look again

...