The Spanking Writers

Whiling away the time as Haron and I drove across the Pennines yesterday, I was inspired with a new scene idea.

The young lady – let’s call her Amanda – was highly intelligent. The sort of high-flying, destined for a top University girl that I like. Daddy was particularly keen that she should do well in her A Levels, and so had hired a renowned private tutor – a retired Headmaster, no less.

He was excellent, of course: encouraging the young lady to think more creatively, more originally. Their twice-weekly meetings seemed destined to propel her to great things.

But, you see, he didn’t seem that strict about time. Amanda found that she could arrive a few minutes late, with scarcely a raised eyebrow. Even the occasional quarter-hour barely seemed to register. And when the other girls were gathering in the park opposite school for a quick post-lesson cigarette? Well, it would be rude – and most un-cool – not to join them.

This time, she arrived over twenty minutes after her appointed hour. “And, pray, what precisely would you like me to say in my note to your father when I discuss your repeated tardiness?” he wondered, pen poised over the crested notepaper on his desk.

She concurred with his view that daddy would be most unlikely to approve of her continued failure to appear on time, and even less of the implicit attitude towards the costs of her lessons. Blushing deeply, she acknowledged that she would be sent to her room… that her father would follow her… that anything would be preferable to letting daddy know that she was letting him down. Or, particularly – as her tutor sniffed the air – that she was indulging in the forbidden Marlboros.

Blushing still deeper, she agreed with his suggestion that they should deal with the matter more immediately, and consented to his suggestion that she should touch her toes “to be dealt with in the way that I’ve always found so effective in prompting girls to improve her performance.” She watched in dread anticipation as he took the rattan from behind the bookcase, trembled as he lowered her knickers, and sobbed as he taught her most firmly that “ungrateful girls need to learn the error of their ways.”

And then he would have her sit on the hard chair, for the remainder of their time together and the discussion of the assignment that Amanda had completed oh-so-well.

2 Comments »

As part of my on-going research into matters of interest to our readers, I was delighted to come across a review of “Jeremiah Joyce: Radical, Dissenter and Writer” by John Issitt across at the Thomas Paine Society’s site.

One section describes Joyce’s support for some Scottish Radicals who had been transported to Australia.

Three of them were accused of plotting to murder the captain of their transport ship the Surprize. Joyce organised, edited and introduced a pamphlet The Narrative of the Sufferings of T.F. Palmer and W. Skirving during a Voyage to New South Wales, 1794, on board the Surprize Transport.

Palmer was minister to a Unitarian congregation in Dundee, the evidence against being a pamphlet he had produced on Paine’s ideas for the Dundee Friends of Liberty…

Also including an extract from Skirving’s log recording the flogging of two girls to force them to confess taking part in the conspiracy.

Sadly, I can’t find a copy of the “Narrative” anywhere online: the only available copies seem to be squirrelled away in the vaults of various Australian University libraries. We’ll therefore have to make do with imagining the captain interrogating the two nervous lasses, before instructing that they be soundly whipped until they acknowledged their culpability.

4 Comments »

A recent post pondered the final Headmasterial caning before a new law banned corporal punishment.

Of course, on reflection, there would have been far more “final punishments” than those imposed by legislators. Every summer, schools would see distinguished old schoolmasters hanging up their canes for the last time as they headed for retirement.

I picture one such boarding school Housemaster, much beloved by his pupils, returning to his study after dinner on the night before the end of term. There, in the dark corridor, waited a girl. “Lisa?” One of his favourites: he’d miss girls like this. The bright ones, the ones keen to learn, the ones whose smiles had made teaching so worthwhile.

“Mr. Rose sent me to see you, sir.” Hands trembling, she proffered a folded sheet of paper.

As she bent over a few moments later, he reflected on how easy it would be to lay it on gently. But that wasn’t his way; wasn’t how he would want to be remembered, wasn’t what smokers deserved. Her first caning, his last, would be no different to the others. Although each caning, he reflected, was indeed different: the offences the same, over the years - the strokes, the stripes, the tears alike. But each girl unique, each punishment a sharp, distinctive moment in time for her to fear and then remember.

Afterwards he’d write Lisa’s name in the punishment book, with her tally of six hard strokes, bravely taken. Even though, this time, he would take out a ruler and draw a neat line underneath her entry.

Even though, this time, as she wiped away the tears, she would tell him that he would be missed: not just by her, but by all of his girls. And he would permit himself the luxury of giving her a gentle hug as he wished her every joy and every success, and showed her out of the door.

4 Comments »

I swear, when I saw this quote in the “Private Eye”, I thought they had picked up a column by Abel.

Q. In your new series, do you strip women down to their underwear and make them cry?

A. We have this pink box, called the pod, that toured around the country with us. … A lot of women did break down and a lot of men were very candid with us - they felt safe and cosseted in this womb-like thing. (Susanna Constantine, “Guardian”.)

Nah, it wasn’t Abel after all. He doesn’t allow you the comfort and privacy of a cosy little room.

No Comments »

Young Ann Burke felt the wrath of the judicial system on this day 218 years ago. Age 18, she was charged at the Old Bailey with:

“feloniously stealing, on the 2d of November, in the parish of Saint Giles’s, in the Fields, a silk handkerchief, value 6 d. a muslin apron, value 4 s. a linen shift, value 12 d. a pair of cotton stockings, value 6 d. a piece of linen cloth, value 2 d. the goods of Lawrence Kelly.”

The victim of the crime provided sworn evidence:

I live in Bulkely-street, Saint Giles’s; I am an housekeeper; the prisoner was my servant when I lost the things, and continued till I took her up on suspicion of the robbery: I went on the 2d of November, and brought a constable, as I had before missed several things out of my bed chamber: and no one could have recourse to it but herself and mistress, that is my wife; and I could suspect no one but herself; and she acknowledged there were some of my things in her bed room, which she took out of my bed room; and on examining her box, which was in her room and which I desired the constable to open, there we found the silk handkerchief, which was mine; and the other things were found in the prisoner’s room.

John Taylor then gave evidence:

I am a constable; these things, which the prosecutor claims as his property (the things produced and sworn to by the prosecutor) were found in the prisoner’s room and box; and the aprons had been cut off, and the piece cut off had the prosecutor’s mark.

The prisoner called one witness who “gave her a good character”, but the Jury were in no doubt, and Mr Baron Perryn’s sentence inevitable:

GUILTY , aged 18.

Privately Whipped .

One assumes that the young woman would have spent much of the lengthy five week wait between her arrest and her court case contemplating the likely consequences.

More to come in the New Year in this ongoing series!

1 Comment »

The Times informs us that the Headmaster of Wellington College has a great approach to instilling good manners in his pupils:

[They] are being issued with a list of 12 common courtesies, encouraging them to touch their hats to passing teachers, stand when an adult enters a room and remove their hands from their pockets when singing hymns or the National Anthem.

Frankly, I think that if they need to be told these things, particularly the last point, then there was something wrong with how they were taught their manners in the first place, but a list seems like a good place to start.

I wonder what other things that should go without saying have ended up on the list. “Don’t moon the teachers?” “Remove your hands from your girlfriend’s knickers when assembly begins?” “Don’t toss M&Ms into each other’s mouths?”

I welcome your suggestions.

7 Comments »

A post on a New Zealand forum was sparked by allegations that certain religious schools continued to use corporal punishment, even after it had been outlawed.

It opens with a bizarre anecdote, in which one former teacher describes what happened on the day when the ban came into effect in 1989:

Our Deputy Principal played a joke on the senior school whereby he called every child into his office one by one to administer one last smack to each while he still could. Of course he didn’t, but kids were instructed to return rubbing their behinds and looking miserable to scare their classmates.

Actually, this hints at one of my more long-abiding daydreams: a Headmaster administering what he knew to be his last caning before the law changed, to a particularly deserving girl. My, how he would make it count.

2 Comments »

We found this coaster in a restaurant last weekend. Clearly, the advert is meant a threat, or if you like, a warning: don’t drink too much, or else.

At least, that’s what we thought it might mean.

6 Comments »

Next in our occasional series of posts on the anniversaries of real-life court cases recorded in the Old Bailey’s records…

On 4 December 1799, Mary Loftus and Sarah Edwards were brought before judge Grose, charged with “feloniously stealing” “five pounds of soap, value 3s. and a linen shirt, value 2s. the property of William Barnfield .”

George Osborne testified that he was watching his neighbour Mr Barnfield’s yard:

The prisoner at the bar, Loftus, came out of the house; she was servant to Mr. Barnfield… I saw her, followed by another woman, I cannot say who it was, and go into the warehouse; Loftus said to the other person, shut the door; it appeared to me that they had shut the warehouse-door, because I lost the light; I saw them go in; I gave information to Mr. Duffield, a friend of Mr. Barnfield’s; I staid a little longer, and saw the prisoner Loftus come out, and another woman, but whether it was the other prisoner I cannot say; they came along the yard and went into the house, and I saw no more of them; the prisoner Loftus has lived four years in Mr.Barnfield’s place, and I never heard any thing disrespectful of her till this time.

Thomas Sapwell, an officer takes up the story:

On Wednesday night; about six o’clock. I perceived the prisoner Edwards come out of Mr. Barnfield’s shop; I watched her some way up Bishopsgate-street, and I stopped her; I felt something hard in her pocket, and I took her into Messrs. Barnet and Cookson’s, haberdashers; I there searched her, and in her right-hand pocket I found two cakes of soap; under her left arm I found a shirt, and some more things in her left-hand pocket, which are not mentioned in the indictment; I have had them in my possession ever since. (Produces them).

Mr Barnfield’s initials on the shirt were enough to damn the girls. Their defence was brief, the sentence inevitable:

Loftus’s defence. I have nothing to say, but to beg for mercy.

Edwards’s defence. I beg the mercy of the Court, and leave the rest to my counsel.

The prisoner Edwards called four witnesses, who gave her a good character.

Loftus, GUILTY . (Aged 25.)

Edwards, GUILTY. (Aged 26.)

Privately whipped , and discharged.

I wonder whether the judge asked the punishment officer to take their pleas for mercy into account. Somehow I rather doubt it. I can’t help but wonder whether the two were hardened criminals, defiant in the face of their floggings, or good-girls-gone-bad quaking as they were led to the whipping post.

1 Comment »

A debate in the Guardian about the prevalence slipperings in Beano cartoons led to an interesting anecdote from a lady in Yorkshire:

I was slippered some 25 years ago very infrequently by my mother and was once caned on the hands at school. We had a painting compettition … and threw paint on one of our competitors creations. The 2 boys I was with got six of the best across their bottoms and I as the only girl got the cane across my hands. It taught me a lesson and I never misbehaved again at school.

The endless variety of offences committed at school never ceases to amaze me. The pupils in my scene version of this would comprise three girls, of course. But one would have to cane them on their hands, for authenticity’s sake. All I need now is someone who can offer a room that can get covered in paint. And two girls to join Haron in the competition.

4 Comments »