WHEN I was a lad, schoolchildren were caned whenever they did anything wrong. Teachers used to beat us with board-rubbers and tennis rackets if we stepped out of line.

And I have to admit it never did me or my friends any harm. If anything, it made us respect our elders and helped us to be responsible citizens.

If teachers were too brutal, they were soon found out and punished, and I saw no real evidence of any excesses.

Nowadays, schoolmasters cannot lift a finger against a pupil without ending up in court on a cruelty charge.

A good friend of mine is currently training to be a teacher. He's doing well but is having awful trouble controlling some rowdies at the back of the class.

"Why don't you cane them?" I asked in all innocence. He laughed long and loud and told me it was now a mortal sin in schools to hit pupils.

So has this softly, softly compassionate policy helped our society? Has it heck.

I could have wept this week when I read of the 77-year-old war veteran in Aldershot who apparently hanged himself after being tormented for six months by youths aged between 11 and 15.

He ended up being arrested after trying to scare the kids with a replica gun, and the shame of the incident left the man feeling shattered.

Kids, you see, are almost immune from punishment, and don't they know it. A severe caning for any troublemakers might well have put a stop to this whole sorry episode before it escalated.

Trendy educational policies have robbed our youngsters of all their fear and respect, and that's why people are growing up without any values.

The younger generation reach adulthood expecting the world to owe them a living, and fearing nothing apart from motorway speed cameras.

We have a supposedly excellent school system here in Bucks. But wouldn't it be that much better if teachers could reclaim their power, and use it wisely, to stop the young yobs ruining things for everyone else?