Our UK readers who don’t mind staying up late may want to watch ITV3 tonight, at 12:25. As a part of their Roald Dahl weekend, they are showing Galloping Foxley, as part of “Tales of the Unexpected”.

ITV’s website sums it up thus:

A man is haunted by an unhappy childhood and taunted by school bullies - and a stranger on a train could be responsible for his misery. John Mills and Anthony Steel star.

Like this sort of misery:

When Foxley disappeared I knew he was walking down to the far end of the basin-passage. Foxley always did that. Then, in the distance, but echoing loud among the basins and the tiles, I would hear the noise of his shoes on the stone floor as he started galloping forward, and through my legs I would see him leaping up the two steps into the changing-room and come bounding towards me with his face thrust forward and the cane held high in the air. This was the moment when I shut my eyes and waited for the crack and told myself that whatever happened I must not straighten up.

Anyone who has been properly beaten will tell you that the real pain does not come until about eight or ten seconds after the stroke. The stroke itself is merely a loud crack and a sort of blunt thud against your backside, numbing you completely (I’m told a bullet wound does the same). But later on, oh my heavens, it feels as if someone is laying a red hot poker right across your naked buttocks and it is absolutely impossible to prevent yourself from reaching back and clutching it with your fingers.

“Foxley” is showing seriously late for me, but I don’t know if I can resist staying up for it. This short story is one of my childhood literary experiences responsible for the fact that out of all the flavours of spanking fetish, I’ve ended up with a British boarding school kink. I’ve got to see it on the screen.

Also, I love John Mills.

(Thanks to Gerrard for a heads-up on the TV programming.)

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