Absolutely. Supported it, even (not UK here, but rural France. I think it was universal). Many would have added some of their own if you had complained.
Too late to add : past primary school, which puts us in the late 70s, only one teacher I had hit the pupils. But he was doing it quite a lot. Giving back the graded schoolwork was a long drawn out process, involving quite a lot of tears, especially towards the end since he handed back the best grades first, and the worst ones last, hitting in various way for every mistake.
Once I moved to Paris from backward countryside around 1980, the culture was completely different. I don’t think I ever seen or even heard of a kid being as little as slapped by a teacher after that.
And finally : as a kid, I thought that corporal punishment was wrong, and sometimes thought that I wouldn’t hit my kids once an adult. But then reality would come back, and I realized it wasn’t possible. That would come a day when most parents wouldn’t hit their kids at all was a pipe dream. That it could be someday forbidden by law unthinkable.