n I WAS absolutely appaled to read your recent front page article on the poor youngster who was bullied at Gorse Hill School (May 28).

Only a week ago someone wrote in grizzling about bringing back corporal punishment!

When I attended primary in the sixties it worked perfectly well.

Not only would you think twice about bullying, you would not treat your teachers with the sort of arrogance they do today.

It did no harm whatsoever and since all the "good Samaritans" put a stop to it, behaviour has gone from bad to worse.

No discipline is allowed in the home or in schools, which has given the kids complete takeover.

In my day there was a very strict dress code, no shirts hanging out, everyone were the same, no designerwear - which has put enormous pressure on both kids and parents.

I also notice that whenever an incident of bullying occurs, it is always in schools where pupils are from deprived areas, which is why you have pupils frightened to go to certain schools and parents keeping them at home while fighting to get their child into a known decent school.

It is frustrating, to say the least when you get schools saying they do not tolerate bullying when they appear in your paper time and time again

I have seen school pupils attending in skirts you would wear to a nightclub and boys wearing ear-rings (never allowed in my day) and shirts hanging outside their trousers.

Why are there no inspections in school and why are parents allowing such behaviour?

I only once had the cane for answering back and I never went back for another I can tell you.

K HAFFENDEN, Warndon Villages.