Birched in the prison courtyard

I was struck the other morning by a strange thing about judicial birchings. See, when I imagine or dream or write about these, they always take place either inside, in brightly-lit punishment rooms, or outdoors in the sunshine.

But this particluar morning was misty, cold. And suddenly it occured to me that it was just the sort of morning on which a lass might be led out into the prison courtyard for a birching. It’d be a dark place – overlooked by the barred windows of many of the cells, whose occupants would inevitably here the punishments taking place down below.

The guard would arrive early at the cell door in question, waking the girls inside. He’d call out a name, and the prisoner would realise that her time had come.

He’d march her down the corridors, lead her outside into the cold morning air, where a small group of official witnesses would be waiting. He’d recite details of the punishment that the court had imposed: that her jail sentence would include a birching, “to be carried out at the convenience of the prison govenor”.

She’d be ordered to strip – forced to strip, if she resisted – and tied, shivering, to the whipping frame.

And then they’d wait. Wait. Wait. Until the bell of the prison chapel struck seven.

As the echo of its peal faded away, a door to the side of the courtyard would open, and the governor would emerge into the cold. The group would salute.

He’d walk behind the girl. A guard would .read out her details: “Deborah Green. Aged eighteen. Convicted at Wandsworth Crown Court on the fourth of last month on three counts of shoplifting. Sentenced to ten weeks’ detention at Her Majesty’s pleasure, and thirty strokes of the birch rod.”

The govenor would hold out his hand, and the first birch would be passed across. He’d pause, measure it, and then commence the flogging…