There were the usual rules of good manners and deportment.
Respect for the teachers and staff, all adults and prefects.
Respect for peoples privacy and property.
Dress code for trips off the school grounds.
(out of bounds unofficially was a different matter)
Dinning hall behaviour.
Class room behaviour.
Some of the specific rules that I remember
Caps not worn inside the buildings.
The no talking rule in dinning hall at specific times.
No walking on the grass square in front of the dinning hall.
No chewing gum.
No talking after lights out (hard to enforce).
We were not supposed to be out of bounds except for public areas.
No running on the pathways in the school.
No sling shots.
The punishments if the rules were broken
If you broke the no talking rule or any other rule in the dining room the table monitor would usually give you a warning, if you kept it up then he would send you to stand against the wall, while there you watched the head table and when the duty master nodded you went back to your table. I do not remember how many times you had to be sent to the wall before the next level of punishment was administered. This could include picking up leaves down the drive way ( those wheelbarrows were awfully heavy ),or the cane across the rear end (I think the only person allowed to cane on the hand was the head master )also the writing of lines. Detentions were also used .
My main crimes
My biggest crime usually was talking too much at the wrong time.
If I remember correctly there was a prefect named Johnson? who was in charge of one of the detentions being held in a classroom, and as usual I could not keep my mouth closed, Johnson who was a very patient person gave me numerous warnings and finally gave me some lines to write. Unfortunately for me he was studying the "Charge Of The Light Brigade" by Alfred Tennyson. This is quite a long poem and I asked him if he was joking, now we are up to two repetitions, again I quizzed him on his seriousness, we are up to four rep's. Well you would think a smart fellow like myself would have caught on by now, not so! Again opening my big mouth wide and placing both my feet in it I'm now up to six repetitions!!!! Finally the penny dropped and I shut up.
I had written the poem three times when Johnson said that was enough. He really was a decent man.
What a pity that no one asked me to recite "The Charge Of The Light Brigade" at an assembly,it was the only poem that I remembered from my school days.
CRIME AND PUNISHMENT
