THE MOST unexpected result of this week’s Times Populus survey of young adults was that almost half support the reintroduction of corporal punishment in schools — a striking change in attitude among a generation who must have been happy that they never experienced it themselves.

I was caned at school. It did not ruin my life, and I have no plans to sue for compensation. Nor did it build my character. To me, it was just a pain in the backside. To other people, however, corporal punishment has seemed to symbolise the bad old days in Britain’s schools.

With fellow parents a while ago, I mentioned that I had been caned several times at grammar school. One woman looked at me in horror.

“Caned for NOTHING, I suppose!” she cried, and others nodded in sympathy.

No, I pointed out, on the contrary, we were caned for fighting, bullying, persistent smoking, vandalism, petty theft, and obscene insolence — you know, all of the usual adolescent pastimes. But still they looked at me as if I were a victim of child abuse.

The demand to “bring back the cane!” has traditionally been the preserve of grumpy old men. This week, however, we learnt that it has suddenly become popular among twentysomething trendsetters. In the Times survey of the iGeneration — aged 18 to 30 — 47 per cent supported the reintroduction of corporal punishment in schools. Among men, support for the cane soared to 54 per cent, 39 per cent of women agreed. And 46 per cent of young parents were in favour of corporal punishment.

Most of these people could never have been caned at school. They are the generation who got away from the successors to Wackford Squires, after corporal punishment was abolished in state schools back in 1987 (private schools were brought into line five years ago). Yet now, many 18 to 30-year-olds are apparently so worried about teenagers behaving badly that they are keen to visit the joys of the cane on younger generations. The news-talgia that already has twentysomethings looking up their not-very-old mates on Friends Reunited, and dancing to Eighties/Nineties music at school disco clubs, now extends to wishing they could turn the school clock back to a time when they were still in nappies.

It seems as if these young people are already scared of younger people. In the words of one teachers’ union leader: “The younger generation is saying what you might expect the older generation to say.”

They see alarmist reports of violence in schools, culminating in a horror story such as the alleged rape of a London teacher by a 15-year old pupil last week. They worry about new generations of scallies and Chavs, coming out of school and on to their streets with no sense of discipline or self-control. In response, they told the Times survey that society would benefit from reintroducing the cane as a “punishment of last resort”.

That’s what it was when I was at grammar school in the Seventies. By then, only our headmaster was allowed to administer the cane. Which was just as well, given the state of mind of certain other teachers, such as the little sadist in stack heels who made miscreants taller than him get on their knees and crawl to the front of class, so that he could look down on them while issuing detentions.

The headmaster used a piece of bamboo about a yard long and sharpened at one end, like a big novelty pencil. He was kind enough usually to deliver strokes with a straight arm, so reducing the impact a little. Boys to whom he took a particular dislike received the full bent-elbowed whiplash. He tended to gather a few boys in his office to be punished together, to make you sweat and watch each other get it. This also had the effect of making you want to tough it out in front of your mates, trying to walk out as straight and nonchalantly as you could on shaking legs. The exception was the boy whom I recall running out holding his backside as if it was on fire, and going to the changing rooms to sit in a sink, while making hissing noises with his mouth.

Some other state schools were keener on corporal punishment than ours (not to mention what went on in the private ones). One friend of mine, just old enough to have received the leather strap at a Catholic boys’ school, recalls the relish with which certain teachers doled out beatings, especially the games teacher who enjoyed whacking boys on the behind with a cricket bat, and the bitter disappointment with which they greeted the abolition of CP.

On the whole, schoolchildren may well have been better behaved back then (although I wouldn’t overdo that point). But what is often forgotten is that the cane was used in schools like ours as part of a system of discipline. There were clear rules to keep and lines to stay within — although we sometimes broke and crossed them, we always knew where they were and what the consequences were likely to be. Good, tough teachers tended to have our grudging respect, and we got on with it.