THE SPANKING WRITERS

The tartan skirt was too short, the leather boots too long. Haron and I ogled happily – and then corrupted the innocent scene, as we are wont to do.

Her uncle had been very clear: whilst she was staying under his roof, she would go out dressed demurely, or not go out at all. She’d presented herself for inspection that morning; he couldn’t not approve of her jeans and jumper.

Only, she’d changed clothes on the train, as a girl would. And would change back on the return journey, hiding in the bathroom. He’d be none the wiser.

And she wasn’t to have known that he would have had that call from an old friend, wondering whether he was free for lunch; that he’d have jumped on the train after hers; that she’d meet him, now, walking the other way along the street.

He’d be with his friend; she’d be in a group with hers. No words would be spoken. But their eyes would meet, and she’d shiver at the thought of the lecture later, and the tawse that would burn her outstretched hands.

Sometimes my imagination wanders into very dark places indeed. I developed a reality TV show concept in my sleep a few weeks ago, for example, and have been toying ever since with whether or not to blog it. The sort of thing I’ve shared with Haron, and a couple of friends, all of whom have grimaced, paused, and then given a guilty smile and a “It shouldn’t be. But that’s hot.”

The inspiration’s fairly clear – a cross between ‘V for Vendetta’ and ‘Sulphuric Acid’ (a remarkable, disturbing, brilliant novel by Belgian author Amelie Nothomb), mixed with the dawn of this year’s Freshers’ weeks around the country.

At the start of my dream, one of said new students is kidnapped, and taken to a dark, windowless room. Unbeknownst to her, her movements are being observed by a myriad of hidden cameras, broadcasting live to the nation. She’s well looked after – other, of course, than having been deprived of her freedom. Food is passed in to her at regular intervals, the staff check on her regularly. Uncannily, the books they also provide are just to her taste – almost as if someone had been observing her closely before snatching her from the street.

It’s the second evening’s broadcast that offers the viewers their first chance to join in. They’d been shown pictures of the punishment chamber. The various implements had been displayed, explained. The early show allowed them to vote: “Choose your implement now. Call or send a text message now!

The method of punishment duly selected (and the option of ‘No punishment’ having been soundly rejected), the later edition that evening allowed the general public to choose the number of strokes. Live on TV, the young woman would thus be stripped, showered, taken to the punishment room, and thrashed according to public demand.

The series would comprise more than just floggings; other tortures would be on offer too for the viewers’ delectation and the girl’s torment. Until, eventually, the public were bored of her: one night, the option to ‘Choose another girl’ would be offered. The incumbent would be abandoned, dazed and confused, at some remote roadside; the producers would set off to capture their next unwitting star.

The bus jerked to a sudden halt at the stop, the driver having seen the girl’s ever-so-belatedly outstretched hand at the very last moment. He opened the doors; she stepped back.

“Are you getting on?”

“Sorry, wrong bus.”

“Where do you want to go?”

“Sorry. I misread the number.” And she turned to walk away.

But she hadn’t bargained for the officers of the Transport Authority Police Service, ordering her to turn around. “You seem to be stopping a lot of buses this afternoon, young lady.”

For they’d had complaints, see. She’d been there making mischief for the past hour or more, forcing every passing service to pull to a stop at the very last minute.

‘Wilfully endangering the travelling public’ was the charge. The punishment? A fine, perhaps, or a few days at the Re-Education Centre. Well, that – and there’d be the call they would place to her father, who’d no doubt be quite dismayed at his daughter’s misconduct and arrest.

Or… They could deal with the matter back at the police station. In one of the cells. In private. No forms filled in; no record of the incident. Other than the stripes, which would no doubt continue to teach her a lesson every time she sat down for the coming week…

(This story is a true account of my journey to work one morning last week. At least, it’s true to start with. It rather veers off at a certain point!)

Our favourite library turned up a lovely book of reminiscences called “A Victorian Boyhood”, written by Lawrence Evelyn Jones in 1955. The title seemed full of potential – and when we saw that a third of the volume was simply entitled ‘Eton’, we started quickly scanning its pages for interesting anecdotes.

However, aside from one very brief mention of ‘swishing’, the book was short on descriptions of traditional Etonian discipline*. But there were a few sections that would doubtless hit the spot for anyone fascinated by the English public school.

First up: fagging:

[We] never ceased to wonder at our enjoyment of things such as fagging. For myself, my heart leapt up when Cockerell, who rowed in the Eight and was in ‘Pop’, told me after prayers to put a can of water in his bath, or sent me with a note to his friend George Lloyd.

To be free, if only a valet, [in] Cockerell’s room, where the Rules of the Eton Society were framed in light-blue ribbons and the white cap of the Eight hung upon the corner of a picture, was to taste privilege indeed.

But more impressive was his description of the man who served as Eton’s headmaster from 1884 to 1905:

Dr Warre, as we saw him, was greatness itself. I do not think it would be possible to exaggerate the prestige he had with us boys. Even today, I cannot imagine myself a contemporary of Warre’s, someone who could call him ‘Edmond’, pat him on the back, chaff him about his school-mastery ways… There must surely have been such friends in his life, for he was warm-hearted, affectionate, and entirely without pomposity. But no, Imagination refuses to contemplate such persons.

Warre stood alone solitary in his majesty. His physical presence, when he swept into a classroom on one of his periodic visitations, was overpowering; even a tough character like Mr. Impey, all sang-froid and disdain, became pliant and courtier-like when the Head came striding in, and Mr. Dyer ceased, temporarily, to exist.

Warre’s authority was quite remarkable:

And that reminds me of a sad, shameful episode. There was a visiting preacher who never should have been invited. Tiny, round, and red, with a voice like Mr. Punch, he was too small for the pulpit [and] kept falling off his stool… Throughout his sermon he appeared and disappeared over the rim of the pulpit with rhythmical alternation.

It would have been funny at a circus; in Chapel the effect was overwhelming. Yet nobody laughed; so small was he, that the point taken was not the absurdity of his eclipses, but the gallantry of his reappearances.

These began to be applauded, by a stamping of feet upon the wooden cross-bars of the desks – at first a controlled stamping by a small group, but one that gradually spread and swelled until every time he bobbed up again twelve hundred boots drummed out grateful acknowledgment.

There was nothing he could do but go on; there was nothing the Masters could do but become engrossed in the details of the Chapel roof; even the Headmaster could only chew the inside of his cheek and gaze sternly into space..

Next day came the inevitable summons to Upper School ‘after twelve”. Never was Warre so quiet or telling. He was not angry: he was heartbroken. He did not talk of irreverence or sacrilege. He simply said that he could not have believed that Eton boys would be so rude to a guest, to an old friend of his own. There were no punishments, no deprivations. He showed us his heartbreak and left it at that. We went away thoroughly ashamed.

Not a mention of a birching – yet I bet a fair few readers will have gone weak at the knees!

* When I used Word’s spell-check on this entry, it thought I was writing about ‘Estonian discipline’. If anyone has any interesting information on spankings in the Baltic States, you are of course most welcome to share…

The girl ran at full pelt across the bridge in Central Station, holding her boyfriend’s hand as they ran. The 16:03 was still in the platform: perhaps they might still make it?

They were half way down the stairs (taken two at a time) when the guard’s whistle sounded. We glimpsed them again on the platform, moments later, pleading for him to revoke his order, praying that the electric doors would slide open once more and let them on board. But it was too late: the train had started to glide from the platform on its journey north. She turned to her boyfriend, and buried her head against his shoulder; he hugged her, as the tears started to flow.

For her father knew that the library closed at one. He’d warned her last week when she’d returned home so late, and not for the first time – clearly suspicious as to how she might have passed so much time alone in the city. A final warning, ominous in implication.

And three hours could – just – have been explained away, had he been in a good mood. The library stayed open a little longer; she had to grab some lunch; there was a book she needed to look at in Waterstone’s. The previous train had been delayed, cancelled; hers had broken down, been subject to failing signals. (Surely he wouldn’t phone the train company to check?)

But the extra hour? She knew full well the implication, and the thought of daddy’s unforgiving belt was almost too much to bear…

PS actually, they caught the train, but you know how our minds work!!!