Spanking locations around the world - The Feldbar Spanking Paddle
The Feldbar spanking paddle
PJ wrote (22nd December 2024):
This is a rather entertaining little thread, for those of us in the UK who know the history! Those spanking paddles (leather, not wooden) were manufactured on a cottage industry scale by George Huntingdon, who actually ran a newsagents shop in Felpham, on the English South Coast. Thoroughly nice man, a bit eccentric but aren't we all, here in England...
This was in the mid 1970s to late 80s. George was a traditionalist in terms of punishment - not, I should stress, a nasty man, nor a fetishist. Anyway he believed in spanking at home and caning in school (still fully legal in those days and extremely widespread). British parents' implement of choice was nearly always the slipper - but George decided that some were more suitable than others, and that there would be a market for a simple flat leather paddle to sell to parents. He made them in a little workshop behind his shop, and literally tried them out on his own children, two sons and a daughter. I met them and should add that the kids were totally normal, very friendly and courteous, and were in favour of the paddle (they didn't like the cane, but I gathered they seldom were naughty enough to be caned).
George had by then extended his range to include canes, which he sold both to families and to schools. Over about ten years his paddle sales were into the thousands. Not sure about the cane sales but probably similar.
On one priceless occasion, a family came into the shop - parents with boy about 12 and girl about 9-10 - unsure whether to buy canes or paddles, but could they please examine and sample the wares? and he said certainly, and showed them into the back workshop where they spent a few minutes - audibly - before coming back out and purchasing both!
This was in the mid 1970s to late 80s. George was a traditionalist in terms of punishment - not, I should stress, a nasty man, nor a fetishist. Anyway he believed in spanking at home and caning in school (still fully legal in those days and extremely widespread). British parents' implement of choice was nearly always the slipper - but George decided that some were more suitable than others, and that there would be a market for a simple flat leather paddle to sell to parents. He made them in a little workshop behind his shop, and literally tried them out on his own children, two sons and a daughter. I met them and should add that the kids were totally normal, very friendly and courteous, and were in favour of the paddle (they didn't like the cane, but I gathered they seldom were naughty enough to be caned).
George had by then extended his range to include canes, which he sold both to families and to schools. Over about ten years his paddle sales were into the thousands. Not sure about the cane sales but probably similar.
On one priceless occasion, a family came into the shop - parents with boy about 12 and girl about 9-10 - unsure whether to buy canes or paddles, but could they please examine and sample the wares? and he said certainly, and showed them into the back workshop where they spent a few minutes - audibly - before coming back out and purchasing both!
I did purchase two or three canes for school use, and two paddles for family use - my youngsters felt the benefit for more than a decade, roughly mid 80s to late 90s. George's boys were pupils at the nearby Littlemead Grammar School, which frequently caned and slippered both boys and girls.
Lucas wrote (26th December 2024):
I think the museum (which sounds awesome) has mis-categorised the Feldbar Spanking Paddle as being used for punishment in schools in the early 1800s. When actually it was designed to be used for punishment at home in the 1970s and 1980s!
I'm really really surprised that these "Feldbar Spanking Paddles" were made out of leather not out of wood or something like wood. It really doesn't look like it!
But I guess it could be.
It also makes more sense for a UK spanking "paddle" to be made out of leather, not wood. The use of wooden spanking paddles to make children obedient in the USA seems to have been because of the use of similar paddles to make slaves obedient in the USA. Alf's wooden spanking paddle is the same length as the one used on Solomon Northrup, who wrote Twelve Years A Slave.
As you may have heard, one teenager who posts here. Used to be punished with a proper (leather) Lochgelly tawse. So it's a bit weird that someone would try to set up an operation manufacturing leather spanking implements at the opposite end of the country. Instead of just buying the original!
As you correctly say, it was a newsagents shop near the south coast. And it still is (similar): https://www.felphamvillageconservation.co.uk/living-history-locations/premier-felpham-bazaar
"Address: 5-7 Felpham Road
Description: Convenience Store and newsagents. Owners Harry & Mina Patel
Previously owned by Emma & Steve. Was Felpham Bazaar – sold a variety of items including papers in the 1960’s."
Sadly, the shop might now have dropped the name "Felpham Bazaar".
The shop is opposite "School Close" (or something like that), which I guess used to be the local village school in the 1800s when Felpham was much smaller. And has now been converted into apartments or something like that.
But the only "Littlemead Grammar School" I could find, was a bus stop near Chichester a few miles away. This agrees with what Wikipedia says, that secondary school pupils had to travel to Chichester, even if they lived in Felpham.
Did you teach at one of these schools? It's super interesting.
Someone should tell Mr Farrell of corpun.com about all this. Surely he must know about such a prolific producer of paddles and canes. He has a huge article about a different person (obviously with different motives) https://www.corpun.com/wildman.htm
I'm really really surprised that these "Feldbar Spanking Paddles" were made out of leather not out of wood or something like wood. It really doesn't look like it!
But I guess it could be.
It also makes more sense for a UK spanking "paddle" to be made out of leather, not wood. The use of wooden spanking paddles to make children obedient in the USA seems to have been because of the use of similar paddles to make slaves obedient in the USA. Alf's wooden spanking paddle is the same length as the one used on Solomon Northrup, who wrote Twelve Years A Slave.
As you may have heard, one teenager who posts here. Used to be punished with a proper (leather) Lochgelly tawse. So it's a bit weird that someone would try to set up an operation manufacturing leather spanking implements at the opposite end of the country. Instead of just buying the original!
As you correctly say, it was a newsagents shop near the south coast. And it still is (similar): https://www.felphamvillageconservation.co.uk/living-history-locations/premier-felpham-bazaar
"Address: 5-7 Felpham Road
Description: Convenience Store and newsagents. Owners Harry & Mina Patel
Previously owned by Emma & Steve. Was Felpham Bazaar – sold a variety of items including papers in the 1960’s."
Sadly, the shop might now have dropped the name "Felpham Bazaar".
The shop is opposite "School Close" (or something like that), which I guess used to be the local village school in the 1800s when Felpham was much smaller. And has now been converted into apartments or something like that.
But the only "Littlemead Grammar School" I could find, was a bus stop near Chichester a few miles away. This agrees with what Wikipedia says, that secondary school pupils had to travel to Chichester, even if they lived in Felpham.
Did you teach at one of these schools? It's super interesting.
Someone should tell Mr Farrell of corpun.com about all this. Surely he must know about such a prolific producer of paddles and canes. He has a huge article about a different person (obviously with different motives) https://www.corpun.com/wildman.htm
The museum website about the Feldbar spanking paddle:
British Schools Museum in Hertfordshire, whose collection includes this wooden spanking paddle; and the https://www.felphamvillageconservation.co.uk/living-history-locations/premier-felpham-bazaar Felpham Bazaar in West Sussex, where the paddle was made.
Regulations for corporal punishment in UK schools, and descriptions of the implements used, mention canes, sticks, rulers, footwear and various types of straps, but - unlike in the USA - never wooden paddles. So it's not clear (to me, when I originally wrote this!) why the Felpham Bazaar, whose main business was "Printing and Duplicating", thought that there was a market for what they named the "Felbar Spanking Paddle". There's also no certainty that this paddle, and the others made at the Bazaar, were ever actually used in schools. But the Felpham Bazaar is located right opposite what used to be the local parish school probably around 100 years ago.
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