Corpun file 25186 at www.corpun.com

Daily Mirror, London, 12 January 1939, p.2

Rail Thrill 'Worth Cane'

By Our Special Correspondent

Click to enlarge

TWO schoolboys of thirteen were caned yesterday for playing truant. But, as they say, it was worth it, because they had travelled sixty-five miles in an open railway truck, then done the return journey in a passenger train.

The adventure of the boys -- Charlie Parsley and Ronnie Parsons, of Wood Green -- really began when they saw the film "Crime School," in which "The Dead End Kids" stow themselves away aboard a train.

That episode made Charlie think.

"We could do that," he said to Ronnie. "We will."

Tuesday was their first day back at school after the Christmas holidays. The morning dragged painfully and at lunch-time the comrades decided they had had enough.

Near New Barnet, six miles from home, they saw a stationary goods train. They clambered into an empty truck. Let Charlie tell the rest.

"There was a jolt," he told me, "and we fell on our backs in the truck. We looked over the side and saw that we were going very fast.

"At last the train stopped. We argued and then decided to get out. We walked along the line and came to a station. A porter told us we were at Holme, Huntingdonshire.

"The station-master gave us tea and cakes. Then he put us in a train for London.

"At school to-day we got four strokes of the cane, but it was worth it.

"Anyway we have only another month to do at school and then we are going to sea."