Images of Lowewood

The online spanking soap opera that was Lowewood Academy may have bowed out to a graceful end, but its real-life counterpart is still very much alive. Thus it was that the Reverend Jenkins found himself putting on his vicar’s dog collar on Saturday morning, and heading off for a day’s teaching and whacking.

No doubt others from the lovely group who attended will post their perspectives on the day – the assembly, complete with uniform inspection; the various classes; the goings-on at the bottom of the garden, both legitimate (the games lesson) and naughty (as a certain girl sneaked out for her cigarettes).

I did enjoy my time in the classroom. First up for me was Religious Studies (biblical quotations*, acted out, before a short essay on whether the bible should be taken literally). By the time I arrived to start my afternoon class, most of the girls were quite hyperactive. “If you’d like, you can spend thirty minutes writing lines in place of my planned lesson,” restored order amidst the mischief, allowing us to start on Sex Education.

Clearly, I informed the girls, the key word for them to remember was ‘abstinence’. But the Headmaster had asked me to teach the new syllabus laid out by the Board of Education, in which girls needed to think of sex using the acronym “L.E.S.”:

• Legal: a short test on the age of consent in various countries
• Enjoyable: each girl wrote down three things they thought they’d enjoy with a sexual partner, and had to act one of their list out with one of her classmates
• Safe. If you’ve never seen eight girls in school uniform unrolling fruit-flavoured condoms onto bananas with their mouths, you really have missed out.

In the midst of the teaching came the Father Smith wing: girls sent out of class to be dealt with for some serious offence or other. Three girls came my way during the day; three short, lovely little sessions (including one with Martha that proved rather surreal given the issue under consideration!)

And then it was on to the detention sessions after the final assembly. Each girl was allocated to one of the masters, so that her behaviour during the day could be reviewed and addressed. Jemima was first in to see me; she’d instigated the insurrection in morning assembly, when the girls had sung a quite obscene ditty in place of the school hymn. As a result, the Headmaster had determined that they were each to be whacked.

Was it fair that she received six strokes? Naturally, although I was conscious that Eliane (Jemima’s real-life counterpart) has been feeling less than receptive to whackings lately. The scene felt balanced on a knife-edge: she needed, deserved to be punished, to be pushed yet not too far. (But was I cruel to point out after caning her that there were seven girls around the school being caned as a direct result of her actions? Well, a Lowewood teacher sometimes has to point out harsh truths…)

The eight other girl was going to be caned irrespective of the raucous singing. I’d made young Caoilfhionn wait outside the room, listening to her friend’s punishment – and now it was her turn. She’d finished bottom of the class, with -35 house points; had it not been for her, an entire class would have recorded positive scores for the first time ever. I didn’t doubt that she was a girl with potential: after all, she’d won the much-coveted Father Smith Cup for being the ‘most sporting girl’. And that, I explained, made it even more imperative that I dealt with her severely, to punish her – but more importantly to discipline her so that her conduct would be better in future. Indeed, I’d feel that I’d have let the school down if I didn’t succeed in ensuring good behaviour from her next time.

35 negative points? 35 strokes of the cane. On the bare. Hard, accurate, delivered with intent, lecturing her as I went. Remarkably, astonishingly deep and powerful role play: the chaplain correcting Caoilfhionn, never Abel ‘playing’ with Emma Jane – until it was over and we could come out of character and hug each other tight.

I must finish by thanking the Headmaster and his wonderful secretary, Miss Bellend, for inviting us and for organising such wonderful events. You two are at the fulcrum of so many people’s play lives, and we all owe you a lot. I do hope you’re both as proud as you should be of what you do.

* I do confess that one of the quotations in the lesson, about girls cutting switches from their orchard to punish their servants, was entirely made up – but none of the pupils seemed to notice!