Ever since the first time Haron and I toured a grand country house together some years ago, lost in reveries about servant girls being whipped, I’ve had endless fantasies about aristocratic birchings.

I wrestled with two scenarios in my dreams last night, each competing as if to be selected for a future story. In the first, the young Duke (for the lord of the manor is always young, single and kindly, albeit strictly concerned about the well-being and survival of his estate) would insist that any girl requiring thrashing would be sent to his study. He would issue them with a cane, to be taken to the Head Butler who would administer the punishment. The tearful servant would be made to return the cane immediately afterwards to his Lordship.

Scenario number two saw the Head Gardener plant a row of birch trees outside the window of the Duke’s study. Girls would be sent to cut switches for their floggings, whilst their employer watched from within.

Interestingly, in neither case was the Duke administering the punishments himself; he left that to his staff. Yet in both cases, his favourite girl (a recurring and some might say clich̩d theme of mine) would end up in trouble, and he would cross the class boundaries to console her afterwards Рalbeit in a most chaste manner.