When I sat down at my desk yesterday morning to work, the house felt strangely quiet and still.  

I glanced around my office, and spied the school desk, folded neatly against the wall. And suddenly my daydreams tranported me to life as a Headmaster, the desk in the middle of the room, the gentle knock at the door.

A girl came in – a girl I liked; a prefect. And whilst it was far from uncommon for girls in the school to be caned, it was exceptionally rare for prefects to receive corporal punishment. Yet on this occasion, I had little choice.

Prefects were dealt with somewhat differently to the rest of the pupils, as she well knew. Tradition dictated a birching, rather than the cane.

We discussed her offence; she apologised profusely. And then I asked her to remove her blazer and take off her knickers, and to bend over the desk. On instruction, she reached back and lifted her skirt, then bent right forward and held on tight.

Twenty strokes, the tradition had it. An examplary punishment for a girl who should have known better and set the  example. She held on bravely at first; the sixth stroke made her yelp;  she whimpered through the next few, sobbed for the remainder.

And then I made her stand, and she apologised, and we went through with the final part of  the routine. For she would be suspended from her duties for one week. I asked her to remove her prefectorial tie and hand it to me, her fingers trembling as she replaced it with the ordinary school tie I offered her in return. We would reverse the exchange seven days later…

Somehow concentrating on my morning’s work was rather tough after that :-(