The belt, later

My train to London was quite hideously late. The axles overheated, the power lines were down, and there were no free platforms at the terminus. The carriages were crammed full of irate travellers; the catering ran out; the lavatories blocked.

I’d overheard the lass opposite me – a student, perhaps, returning home? – calling her parents early in the journey to plan their rendezvous. They’d be waiting for her on the platform. Cuddles and hugs would be the order of the day, no doubt.

She then lost herself in her DVD, quite oblivious to the world around her. About five minutes after we’d been due to arrive – and a good hour before we did – her phone trilled loudly.

“No, we’re late….” “Very late, I think…” “I’m sorry. I thought you’d check…” “I think there’s a coffee shop…”

And then came a long pause, followed by a sniffle, and a “I’m really sorry” leading to an “I should have been more thoughtful”. Cue tears, to be wiped away after she’d finished the call.

I so wanted to offer her some consolation, to tell her I understood. After all, daddy had no doubt finished by telling her she’d go straight to her room when they got home, and she knew exactly what would happen there.

Too many daughters

In addition to the events I described last week, there were all kinds of other naughtiness happening in the family of Lady Susan Townley, where there were six girls looked after by two governesses:

My brothers’ tutor had a bad time, but so had our two governesses. The worst of it was that no alliance was possible between them, one being German, the other French. Their aim seemed to be to keep the two “schoolrooms” apart, that there might be no collision between its members.

This scheme of theirs it became our object in life to defeat. We used to get out of windows and perform the most extraordinary feats of roof-climbing to get access to each other. We exchanged surreptitious notes when we passed in the lanes, for, of course, no communication was allowed between the walking parties, making assignations in impossible places.

We even ran away – one of my sisters and I were gone for a whole day once. We took a train for the neighbouring watering-place and passed a blissful day on the sands, eating biscuits and jam, which provisions we had stolen with infinite difficulty from the larder.

When I was a kid, one of my most persistent fantasies was being one of many sisters and brothers, growing up in a wealthy household with several strict tutors and governesses. (The fantasy of an only child, I daresay.) I never thought that somebody really got to experience the sort of stern routines and wild hijinks that I imagined.

Running away for a day, to eat jam sandwiches on a beach is exactly the sort of thing I could see myself doing.

Of course, in my fantasies, my sisters and I got punished whenever we came up with clever schemes to fool the tutors. This didn’t make us behave better: we simply proceeded on to the next trick. Otherwise, there would be no more spanking, and I couldn’t live with that even in a fantasy world.

Caned in parallel

Hotel bar the other night. The rather delightful lady at the next table turned to me and apologised for any disturbance that her charges were causing. They were on a school trip, she explained: “seeing Europe” in a month. In fact, the youngsters were impeccably behaved.

That said, one of her fellow teachers kept checking up on the whereabouts of some of the party. Were they under suspicion of sneaking out for a furtive cigarette, I wondered? Had any of them boldly ordered booze at the bar, to be smuggled upstairs?

My imagination ran riot later. He’d conduct a room check: the hotel would have issued him with a master key to open the various doors. He’d knock loudly before entering: even that wouldn’t give Lisa and Vicky, two of the most senior girls, time to disperse the clouds of smoke, or hide the empty bottles.

They’d have been lectured at the start of the trip in no uncertain terms about the consequences of breaking the clearly-set-out rules. Reminded, on a regular basis. A ‘final final’ warning issued to all after some shenanigans the previous weekend in Paris: confirmation that the usual school punishments would apply for breaking the usual school regulations.

“I’m so very disappointed in you. Of all the girls I’d have imagined having to punish on this trip, you would have been the very last.” He’d leave them for a moment, telling them that by the time he returned, he’d expect them to be in position to be caned. Kneeling on the bed beside each other. Shoulders down, arms outstretched, pyjama bottoms down and backsides up.

It would take him a few minutes – to find his cane, to find his female colleague, and for her in turn to find her cane.

The girls would be ready on their return: he’d position himself to the side of one, right-handed, whilst his left-handed fellow disciplinarian measured out the rattan from the far side of the other. “Smoking always results in six strokes of the cane,” he’d remind them, before laying the first red strip across Lisa. His colleague would go next, paralleling his line across Vicky.

Then simultaneously. Then Vicky. Lisa. Simultaneous. Up to four each. He’d notice them holding hands: he’d choose to ignore it.

Vicky, Vicky. Lisa. Lisa.

He’d pause, allowing the girls a moment to try, in vain, to compose themselves. And then the best friends would hear the next dread sentence. “And drinking alcohol, too, always results in six strokes. Would you care to swap positions, Mrs Sandton?”

A home-made cane

In preparation for our annual Regency role-play event, Abel and I went into a theatrical costume hire shop.

After he’d tried on some tight white breeches (fwoar!) and fancy coats, he just couldn’t resist drawing the innocent costumier into a sordid conversation.

Abel: Do you have any canes?

Costumier:   Excuse me?

A.: Walking canes.

C.: Oh… No, we don’t hire out accessories. But you can make one at home.

A. Looks extremely interested.

C.: You can take a broom handle, and on top of it you put one of these knobs from the end of a curtain rail. You know what I mean?

A. Oh, yes, thank you! What a fabulous idea!

Haron (looking on, under her breath): If you think you’re beating me with a broom handle…

I don’t think he’s making a walking stick. But isn’t it just like Abel, to drag some poor woman into a conversation about canes – even if they were completely different canes…

The girls in the lift

Looking up from my coffee in the lounge of a rather nice hotel, my gaze happened to fall on the lift opposite. Or more precisely, on its occupants: five smartly-dressed young women, eyes downcast, studiously avoiding each other’s glance.

The duty officer at the punishment centre would have a similar view, no doubt. The girls for the 3 p.m. birchings would arrive in dribs and drabs over the preceding quarter hour or so. (After all, it really wouldn’t do to be late).

They’d be shown into the special lift – programmed to take them not up to the higher floors of the building, but directly down to the basement and the punishment rooms.

The doors of the lift would remain open until all of the day’s batch of offenders had arrived. Open, so that the world passing by en route to their offices could look in and see them, and reflect on the punishments that were about to befall such badly-behaved girls.

The return of the Electric Paddle

A few months ago I quoted from schoolday reminiscences of a girl called Naomi, who had been scared into behaving by threats of an “electric paddle”.

It appears, she was not alone. In a different school, a different kid fell victim to the same rumour:

I had two personal theories of how it worked:

1) The paddle itself was electrified, and every time it was brought down, it delivered not only a painful swat, but it also discharged a high voltage shock, thus doubling the the amount of pain it could deliver with each swing.

2) The paddle end was attached to some sort of swinging servo-mechanism, so that when held in front of the fanny of an ill-mannered child, all one had to do was press a button to have it deliver a high-speed barrage of paddles that could probbaly be measured in a formidable amount of paddles-per-second. A kid would not even have time to scream as the room filled with the sound of whirling servos and the SMACK SMACK SMACK of paddle on butt. The principal, of course, would simply be standing there smirking at how little of an effort it was costing him.

Luckily I was a good kid and never actually saw the electric paddle. In fact, I do not think I even recall any kids who had saw it first had either. However, I had no doubt the dreadful thing existed. I wonder if it is still around somewhere, rusting and collecting dust in some old file cabinet after it was retired to make way for a less violent school existence.

Perhaps one day a need for it will come again, and some fearful principal, his school being overrun by insolent brats, will take a deep shot of whiskey to calm his nerves as he unlocks the cabinet and pulls it out, whispering to himself, “So, it has come to this. I have prayed I would never have to use it. God have mercy on our souls.”

I love how the school rumours work. Clearly, a paddle in itself is frightening enough – but no, somebody’s imagination had to enhance it with even more terrifying qualities. “Oh, a paddle is scary alright, but guess what, it’s also electric.”

It’ll be a motorised cane next.

Punished in the school gym

Flicking through the TV channels, bored. Sport, soaps, property, sport, music, property, soaps. And then the screen that showed a school gymnasium. No pupils. Just, set out evenly around the room, three vaulting horses and three trestle-like beams.

It would be set like this every Friday night – it’d be one of the tasks for the students serving a detention after school that evening. They’d work in silence, some knowing from personal experience how the room would be used the following morning, others giving thanks that their teacher had given them a mere detention and not the dreaded Saturday detention.

For the Saturday detention girls would end their morning in here. They’d have worked for several hours in PE kit, cleaning and tidying the school; painting, mowing, polishing. Knowing that the gym awaited. Being led there at the stroke of midday.

They’d line up at the side of the room, backs to the wall. Names would be read out; the girls concerned would step forward. On command, they would remove their skirts and knickers, and take up position. The vaulting horses would each take two girls, one over either side, to be tawsed. The beams would be reserved for any girl who’d misbehaved (oh-so-foolishly) during the Detention; they’d be tied in place for a hard caning.

Once every position was taken, the Headmaster and his Deputy would walk around the room, administering the requisite strokes. And once each of the girls had been punished, they would be sent to stand in line once more, to rub their bottoms and avert their eyes whilst the next miscreants took their place.

Revenge on the tutor

A few posts ago I wrote about “Indiscretions of Lady Susan” by Lady Susan Townley, which had beckoned to me with its promising title. The lady’s family history was very interesting indeed, but the nicest part of the book came when she moved on to writing about her own childhood:

As I have said, we were nine children, and we fell naturally into 3 groups. There were “the boys”, who went to school and had a holiday tutor; “the girls”, my three elder sisters, who had a schoolroom to themselves and a German governess, and “the babies”, of whom I was the eldest, who had a lower schoolroom and a French governess.

We were certainly the naughtiest children I have met in fact or fiction…

I remember that on one occasion the tutor, out of temper with my youngest brother, took him into a secluded part of the garden, and tying him to a tree, laid into him with a riding-whip… The two elder boys, helpless witnesses of this act of barbarity, secretly vowed vengeance. On the following day they invited the tutor to go for a row on the Avon…

When in the middle of the river, they threw the oars overboard and quietly took the cork out of the bottom of the boat which, of course, began to fill. Then they waved a cheerful “so long” to the terrified man, and jumping into the water swam ashore, leaving him to what he supposed was a watery end. The air-compartments, however, kept the boat afloat, and when they considered he had been sufficiently punished, they brought him in.

For some reason but known to himself, he never reported them.

Oh, but in my fantasies he did.

Or better yet, Father was watching from the window, unnoticed by any of the participants. Midway through the adventure, he rang for the parlour maid.

“Bring me my cane,” he said. “And as soon as my sons come back, kindly ask them to join me in the library.”

As each of the boys bent over the library steps for six of the best, they relected tearfully that at least they’d had their revenge.

Punished at University

I was very good when young Smudge took me into her halls of residence earlier this week. “I *live* here,” she muttered under her breath as we walked in, no doubt mindful of my propensity to swat at the slightest provocation (or, indeed, opportunity). “Just don’t, OK?”

So I didn’t. But I clearly needed an outlet for the myriad of spanking ideas that immediately presented themselves to me, with the result that I had an especially vivid dream that evening.

It was summer;the lovely lawn around which the halls are set was scattered with lazing students. I’d arrived to visit Smudge – and turned up a little earlier than expected. So she didn’t see me walk up to her and her group; didn’t have time to put out the joint she was smoking*: looked quite mortified as I dragged her to her feet and told her – in full hearing of her friends – that I was going to take her to her room and punish her soundly.

She pleaded with me not to: “But people will hear”. “I don’t think they’ll be in much doubt what’s going to happen to you, will they?” I replied, taking off my belt.

Sadly, my dream faded before the spanking itself. So maybe I should have taken her to her room the following morning to re-enact the dream and fill in the missing scene. It doesn’t seem fair to have left her unpunished.

* I hasten to add that there’s no way whatsoever that Smudge would indulge in any naughty substances. (Skipping lectures seems to be her worst vice!)

Will he tell Daddy?

Walking down a London street, I saw a girl – seventeen years old or thereabouts – talking to a businessman in a crisp suit. He was smiling and affable. Her face was frozen in what she obviously hoped was an expression of polite interest, but her body language said plainly that she would be out of this conversation as soon as it was acceptable.

I think the businessman was her father’s associate from work. He’s been to dinner a few times, knows the girl very well. When she got onto the train this morning, heading for London instead of school, she had no idea she would walk into him while enjoying her stroll past swish shops.

She wanted to dash into a shop to hide, but he noticed and hailed her first. Will he tell Daddy that he saw her in the street? Would it be wise to tell him the truth, “My father doesn’t know I’m in London today, please don’t tell him.” No, impossible; grown-ups have a bizarre unspoken agreement about these things.

What if she said, “Please don’t tell Daddy you saw me; he’ll going to give me a whipping if he knows I was in London today.” No, that’s pathetic; she can’t let him know that she still gets spanked.

Act cool. Act polite. Act as though you’re supposed to be here. He won’t question it, or mention it to Daddy, or think about it at all five minutes after your part.