Some years ago a 98 year old ex- Akbar lad wrote about his experience of life as a boy on board the Akbar Training Ship

"I was sent to the Akbar at the age of 15 for stealing and was very quickly made aware of it's tough discilpline.

One day I cheeked an officer badly, and the Captain , awarding me 15 strokes of the birch, an told the man known as the Punishment Corporal, 'see that you give this rascal a sound flogging'.

Having seen the ships carpenter making the long whippy rods from supplies of fresh green well-budded birch switches brought aboard every so often, I quaked."

"All the boys paraded on the quarterdeck, where the flogging horse had been put out".

"I was stretched across it, with my legs and arms tied with canvas straps so that I couldn't move, and my duck pants were rolled down".

"Then the Corporal, taking his time, birched me on my bare buttocks, swishing me with all the vigour he could muster, I clenched my teeth and tried not to squeal, but at the third stroke I let out an ear-splitting yell.".

"It was like nothing I had ever experienced- my weals burned and stung like fire and I howled unashamedly."

"When they released me from the horse, I was cut and bleeding all over from the birch strokes, it was like a white-hot ball of fire, and I stood in front of the ship's company , weeping and squirming with the pain and humiliation."

"After a few weeks my scars disappeared and I was none the worse for being flogged. Indeed , the Akbar taught me self respect and made a new boy of me. I have only praise for the officers - even the Corporal, who was a kindly man, but with a stern sense of duty."

"Training Ships like this are what young hooligans need today. A caning outside the trousers, though unpleasant, didn't worry us too much, but a birching on the bare skin was something we greatly feared- it really hurt."