Low life
Cuts
Jeffrey Bernard
There's something about Islam that stinks. To sentence a man to 600 strokes of the cane for attempting to smug- gle a trifling 4,000 bottles of whisky to quench, a thirst ought to prompt a change in the law in England. Middle Eastern and Arab persons found shoplifting in Marks & Spencer with £3,000 in their handbags should have their hands cut off and my but- cher, Bifulco in Old Compton Street, is just the man for the job. It seems that the poor man with a taste for scotch is to get his 600 strokes in instalments. It's barbaric and has me remembering my own humble thrashings at Pangbourne in 1948.
M3; first caning there was the result of some silly, childish behaviour on my part which took the form of writing a letter to the Captain Superintendent informing him that the college was going to be blown up and I signed the letter from The Stern Gang. Harmless stuff really but my poof of a housemaster said I could have six of the best with my trousers on or three on my bare arse. I couldn't make up my mind. Six takes a bit of time, three's short but desperately painful. Well, he made up my mind for me because the dirty old sod wanted to see my cherubic posterior. It made my eyes water I can tell you, but it was nothing like the 12 strokes I got for say- ing 'fuck'. It was a naval college at that time and it was like Captain Bligh's days. They made an elaborate business out of dishing out 12 'cuts'. After each stroke the Chief Cadet Captain (headboy) would call out, 'One. Two. Three.' etc. The Master at Arms did the actual caning and he had a good right arm. Anyway, I was on the verge of flaking out after ten cuts so they stop- ped. My arse was bleeding and that was with trousers on. I was quite the little hero for a couple of days and the entire college almost queued up to inspect the damage.
But the oddest caning I got was at prep school when I was 12. There was a crazy headmaster called the Reverend Walpole E. Sealy, which sounds like something out of Trollope. At breakfast-one morning at his table he spotted me working like a beaver at scraping the last possible drop of mar- malade out of the pot. He got into quite a frenzy and dragged me to his study yelling all sorts of nonsense about how merchant seamen were risking their lives in Atlantic convoys to bring this precious marmalade to England. I said that they were bringing arms and munitions and not marmalade but he hurled me over a chair and ripped into me with a very thin stinger. Thick canes, by the way, bruise more but thin ones hurt more. After that caning a day girl at the school, called Norma King, kissed me. It was the first time I kissed a girl and nearly
40 years later 1 find myself frequently wondering what ever happened to Norma King. It was a very important event for me. I vowed to spend the rest of my days kissing the girls and making them cry. So far, I'm afraid they're well ahead on points.
I also still often think about the 12 cuts at Pangbourne. That's truly etched. The wretched Commander Skinner, when he sentenced me, said, 'I'd like to give you more than 12 but there's a law against it and remember it's a tradition in the navy that we don't swear.' Tradition? You could have fooled me. 1 believe there were some odd casings at Westminster School when my brother Oliver was there. An eccentric headmaster used to quote the Bible at pupils while he was caning them and utter such pleasantries as, 'Those who live by the flesh shall perish by the flesh.' Good stuff if you're not on the receiving end.
But what about these awful Arabs sentencing a parched man to 600 strokes? What we could do, I suppose, is inflict 600 strokes on an Arab in London and I'd like to nominate Naim Attallah, the boss of Quartet Books and possibly the ugliest man I have ever met. Others that should be dealt severely with are all Iranians — except dear Leila — and the Pakistan Test Cricket team who are all teetotallers. Arabs, on arriving in this country at Heathrow, should be forced to drink a bottle of whisky and then be simply sent back again. Perhaps they should be sent to Pangboune. What on earth can it be like there now?
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