The Spanking Writers

A Latin teacher at my school taught us one particular grammatical construction with the memorable phrase, “The boy who had been caned asked for a cushion.”

I was reminded of this whilst reading the quirky bestseller ‘Amo, Amas, Amat’ by Harry Mount, which explores the joys of the Latin language. Mount’s wry humour is quite marvellous – and, not surprisingly, the discussion of school Latin lessons throws up a huge number of startles. My favourite?

An active verb is exactly that – it means acting, doing something to somebody else. A passive verb means exactly that – i.e. doing nothing and having something and having something done to oneself. So if you are “being thwacked”, “are about to be flogged” or “have been bullied”, then you’re in the passive.

The book comes, as you might imagine, highly recommended.

We’ve been invited to a play party at our friends’ house; it’s an extended school role-play affair. (Naturally, I’m a pupil and Abel’s a teacher.)

Once upon a time I delighted at being naughty and inviting punishment at such events; I planned elaborate schemes of pranks, rehearsed flippant remarks and generally thought that the whole point of it was to get spanked as much as possible.

I’m not sure what has changed, but the more I play, the more I enjoy just being good. OK, I can’t help showing of my, ahem, razor wit at the most inappropriate moments, but I’m not tempted to plan anything in advance, or to sit down with my girlfriends and decide: “Right, this is how we’re going to be misbehave.”

Maybe having spanking on tap at home has eliminated the need to cram as much play as possible in my rare play-days, or maybe it’s that even when I’m relatively good, I still get spanked an awful lot. Or maybe I enjoy being a schoolgirl so much that I don’t want to interrupt the lessons with unnecessary whacking. Or maybe there’s a degree of fear that if my play character is bad, other people will think ill of me. Or maybe I’m just really boring.

Be that as it may, all I’m bringing is my uniform and school supplies, whereas before I would have had my pockets full of slingshots, water pistols, silly noise-making gadgets etc. I’m not sure what I think about that.

According to The Times this morning, a new report for the UK government by consultants PricewaterhouseCoopers suggests that “business leaders with no classroom experience” could be recruited to run schools. Reporting to them would be a teacher, looking after academic issues.

I wonder where disciplinary responsibilities would reside? “Report to the Chief Executive, young lady?” perhaps?

The article is helpfully illustrated with a picture of a cane-wielding schoolmaster. I’m starting to dream about the job advert: “Package: £100k plus car, pension and beating rights.”

Full training would be required, of course. “The essentials of corporal punishment” would doubtless form part of the induction course. I’m happy to bid to run “Advanced caning techniques” for those requiring additional advice. All I need now is a gaggle of girls to be used for the practical sessions – any volunteers?

The milkman, usually fairly quiet as he creeps up to the front door to deliver our daily pint, woke me this morning with a great clinking of bottles. Still half asleep, I began to ponder an alternative early morning round, this time by the local punishment officer.

Legally-appointed, said official’s “morning round” would take in each village or district once a week. Parents in the relevant area would leave a note outside their door before retiring the previous night, requesting the officer to stop by: “Six strokes, eldest daughter”, for example. The young lady’s punishment would presumably be amplified by the thought that late night passers-by might pause, curious, and read the note.

The girl would be expected to be up and waiting from, say, 6am – showered and in her uniform ready for the school day. The precise time of the disciplinarian’s arrival determined by the number of other calls he’d had to make on the given morning. Punishment would be swift and firm, administered on the bare with a government-issue cane.

Anyone interested in providing such a service in our local area should apply to… No, hold on: sounds far too hot a scene to let anyone else play in my place. “Eight strokes, wife”. Haron won’t be sitting comfortably after I’ve left for work tomorrow morning…

Abel’s parents went on a cruise, and among the things they brought back for us was a carved wooden figurine of a bear sitting at a desktop computer.

The bear’s forepaws, attached to a system of strings and bolts, are supposed to tap-tap-tap on the wooden keyboard when you move him about in a certain way.

Only, the bear isn’t working quite right. He refuses to type with both forepaws. There he sits, grinning into his wooden monitor, his bear bottom planted firmly on his wooden chair… and he types one-handed.

We suspect, we have a fair idea what he’s typing, and what kind of sites he visits.

I just got surveyed, outside a London tube station. Three cute young ladies accosted me: did I have a minute to help with their sixth-form project? I was glad to assist with their educational development, as you might imagine.

The questions turned out to be none too demanding:

- Do you live locally? (In London? Nope, can’t afford it.)

- Are you here for business or pleasure? (Well, it was business, until you stopped me.)

- How did I get here? (What? In life? Long story. Oh – you mean this morning? Duh, the fact I’d just come up the escalator from the tube station might give you a clue.)

- Do you come here regularly? (Nice to see them practising their chat-up lines…)

- Do you believe that we are dressed smartly enough? (Bring back uniforms, I say! Ties, blazers and smart skirts all round…)

- Do you believe in corporal punishment? (Allow me to introduce myself…)

- When did you last administer a caning? (Er, at the weekend. Does the sound thrashing with a belt that I meted out in a hotel last night count?)

- How long are you staying in this area today? (How long do we need? Ten minutes for the discussion of your behaviour, five minutes each for your punishment…?)

- Would you like to pass any comments on our conduct back to our Headmaster? (The girls were most slovenly and disrespectful, and need to be dealt with severely).

Well, their survey went something like that. I may have drifted off into reverie on just a few of the points…

Do you like girls’ school novels? I don’t mean kinky books written for people who are into spanking and school role-play, but childrens’ books set in a girls school. Enid Blyton, anyone? Chalet School? Angela Brazil?

If I’m honest, I have to admit that these novels are not the best literature ever, but even if they can be corny, and sappy, and sort of start to blend in together after you’ve read a few, I still can’t get enough of them.

Spanking scenes in them are rare – you can find an occassional mention, but I don’t really expect it. Most of the time, the surroundings themselves are hot enough that absence of corporal punishment doesn’t matter.

Also, you can read between the lines, and add any imaginary spanking to taste.

For instance, here’s a quote from “We’re in the Sixth!” by Carol Ann Pearce (The Children’s Press, 1960).

Kate, Netta and Elizabeth discuss their friend Len (Helen) and her guardian (p. 17)

“I wonder what the General is really like,” said Netta.

“We’re never likely to find out, since he doesn’t come to any school functions,” said Elizabeth. “What a pity Len had no other relatives who could have been her guardians when her parents died.”

“I’ve never herd of any other relations,” said Kate. “The General is awfully old.”

“I wish I could meet him,” said Netta. “I’d soon tell him what I think of the way he’s treated Len all these years.”

Don’t think ill of the poor General; all he did was not get too involved with what Len was doing. And he did order her around a fair bit, and threatened not to pay for her further education if she didn’t distinguish herself at school. But that’s all by-the-by. Nothing else happened.

There’s also a very squirmy scene in which our heroines get called into the Headmistress’s office for a well-deserved lecture, but it would need too much context if I were to type it all in.

So, no spanking, but I like the book, anyway. As far as I understand, there are some prequels, but I haven’t been able to get my mitts on them. (The book itself is so far available second-hand on AbeBooks; I’m not aware of a more recent edition.)

Anyone else fascinated by Word grids? Well, there’s a website where one can devise new puzzles. Here’s one I made earlier:

Words can appear vertically, horizontally, diagonally and even backwards. You should be able to find the following:

• the
• naughty
• schoolgirl
• was
• caned
• on
• the
• bare
• bottom
• by
• the
• strict
• headmaster
• who
• inflicted
• six
• of
• the
• very
• best

A while ago I quoted a startle from   a fantasy novel “Firethorn” by Sarah Micklem, and, being only a few pages into the book, I didn’t express a further opinion. Unfortunately, I had to abandon the book in an airport having just finished it, but I loved it so much that as soon as my budget allowed, I got myself a second copy.*

What I didn’t know back when I’d just started reading it, was that the little startle I quoted was not even an appetiser, but rather a pre-feast nibble. There are numerous threats, reminiscences, allusions and narrow escapes, and finally a full-blown scene of a whipping of servants by their master:

He gave us a thrashing, all of us. He laid it on with a girth strap about our shoulders and backs and we stood still for it, one at a time, except for Noggin, who rolled on the floor and whimpered. …

Sir Galan gave me no more licks than anyone else, nor any fewer: exactly fifteen. I was the last to get my share. When he finished he said we should be grateful he didn’t have his strength back, or he’d have peeled the skin from our ribs, which he would do if we ever did such a thing again.

Mmm.

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*I love that book. It’s awesome. It’s the sort of fantasy novel with d/s-ish love story undertones that I wish I could write, but can’t. I want the sequel; now.

By remarkable coincidence a couple of days ago, on the same morning I’d been inspired by fantasies of a girl being caned before school, Pandora posted an incredibly hot account along similar lines.

My girl was merely getting one caning, mind; hers was up for 12 of the best from every morning for a week, before classes. Were I the Headmaster in Pandora’s account, mind, I’d vary the punishment routine ever so slightly – the girl would report to me immediately on waking, in her dressing gown and pyjamas. The alarm call would be sounded at 7.15 a.m.; woe betide her were she to appear in my study a moment after 7.20.

She’d know the routine after the first morning: she’s remove her dressing gown and lay it carefully over the arm of my leather armchair. Her pyjama trousers (silk, striped) would be lowered to her ankles before she bent to touch her toes.

I’d doubtless pause to admire the quality of my handiwork from the previous days, the marks still clearly visible. (Headmasters are smug like that). And then I’d administer her dozen, making her continue the count from where she’d left off the previous morning – including any extra strokes she may have received to date. “Twenty-eight, twenty-nine, thirty,…”

And then she’d would off to join the other girls in the communal showers, where – despite her embarrassment and her best attempts to hide her caned bottom from view – her stripes would doubtless be soothed and admired. Once dressed, she would find the hard benches in the school refectory to be particularly unforgiving, as she ate under my gaze as I dined at the top table.

And only then would the young lady get to go to class…