R RUSSELL Smith (Letters, November 18) in his nostalgic recall of the days when teachers could physically chastise (assault, really) pupils, reminded me of an informal vox pop carried out by my daughter, a teacher, in my local a couple of years ago.

Around half a dozen men of my own age (50-plus) were questioned, one at a time, the question being: "Were you ever belted at school?" Beforehand, I placed an informal bet with my daughter that all would give effectively the same reply, namely: "Aye, and it never did me any harm." I'm confident that most pub discussions around this topic, amid such a demographic, would elicit the same clichéd response.

When each was asked how often he'd (definite gender bias in those days) been belted, the usual reply was, with a paradoxically accompanying sense of pride, and not shame: "Oh, loads of times." In "learning" terms, it clearly never did us any good either, then.

Eddie Orme,

65 Spottiswoode Gardens,

Mid Calder,

West Lothian.