How JKR depicts how we all live in England (Was Re: British V American)

[Jospehine]

No: HPFGUIDX 101773

 
On 17 Jun 2004 at 9:13, Jospehine wrote:
The other day I was at a champagne reception at one of our West End 
theatres and got talking to a lovely American woman who was visiting 
from New York. She was, luckily, a great HP fan and ultra friendly as 
most visitors are from the US. However, I got knocked for six when 
she asked me if I was caned when I was at school. I'm sure she was 
thinking about Harry's made up discipline at St. Brutus'. My eyes 
widened as I explained, very politely, that caning has been banned in 
the UK for quite some time.

"Shaun Hately" <drednort at a...> wrote:
But remember that the Harry Potter books are set in the past - not 
a long time in the past, but in the past nonetheless.

Consider that Prisoner of Azkaban (where we get the mention of St. 
Brutus) is set in 1993.

In 1992, while all state schools had been banned from using the 
cane for 6 years, and many private schools had also banned it, 
there were still a significant number of schools across the UK that 
were using the cane. It wasn't banned in private schools in Britain 
until 1998, and there were still at least 200 schools still using
corporal punishment at the time of abolition across the UK.

It's really doesn't seem that surprising that someone like Aunt 
Marge would be asking that type of question back in 1993.


Josephine now:

Good point! I hadn't thought about the time period. Thanks for that. 
But I think what I was more concerned about was the fact that this 
woman took the details in the HP books and applied them so easily to 
modern day England. Nevertheless, I was 14 in 1993 and I still think 
JKR's impression is a little inaccurate!