I had trouble watching this once more, after all these years. I remembered enjoying it upon release but have never got around to watching it again. Watching it, I realised why. Firstly, it reminds me too much of my own wretched school and the wicked bullying and abuses by the teachers and headmaster and secondly it seems to relish the re-telling. There are too many scenes set in the toilets and the showers, too many kids grappling together on the ground or being hounded by their teachers. There are great scenes like the football based gym lesson where the teacher insists on having the ball all the time and, of course, most of the scenes with the young kid and the hawk are great. Some good views of the old town, its factories and local paper shop too. More worrying though is the attention given to the scene with the headmaster meting out his punishment with some glee. This is made far, far worse on the extras when it is revealed that the boys had been assured they would not in reality be caned but then were , 'for authenticity'. Furious, apparently, the boys then refused to go through any further takes but were eventually won over with extra payments. The ends, Mr Loach, do not justify the means and as for the killing of the bird and the trick upon the boy, 'to get me to cry', this was beyond the pale. There is such a thing as acting and a director should ensure that in order to achieve a sense of reality in the depiction of atrocities he does not commit further such atrocities.