So here I was, early in my fourth year at the school, standing, facing what we all call the spanking desk, the spare desk at the front of the classroom used for that very purpose, affording a good view of proceedings for the rest of the class, mainly as a deterrent for any other would-be wrong-doers. It also allowed the student a little privacy in that she does not have to show the class the pain and distress on her face during the punishment. It is enough for them to see the impact the slipper has at reasonable force on the curves of her knickered buttocks. Her skirt is swept aside and folded onto her back, leaving the target area completely clear.

While Miss R unlocks the cupboard and collects her favoured plimsoll, there is time for the student to reflect on her behaviour and the error of her ways for which she is about to be punished quite justifiably. Not all teachers in the school used physical punishment, some used lines, or detentions, but for everyone the slipper was the ultimate sanction. Miss R did not bother with detentions or lines. Swift justice was her guide, and there is nothing swifter then a good hard slippering and a reminder for the offender every time she sits down for the rest of the day, and sometimes the next day as well.

My first experience of school corporal punishment had been at juniors when at the age of 10 I chose to answer back just one time too many. I was called to the front of the class and told to hitch up my skirt for six with the stingy plastic ruler across the back of my thighs. That really hurt and left me with tears rolling down my cheeks and very sore legs when I sat back down on the hard chair. It also caused me some difficulty walking home, trying to prevent my skirt riding up too much so the weals could be seen. At home, though, I made the fatal mistake of walking up the stairs just as my mother came into the hall. She, of course, agreed with the teacher’s solution to my bad behaviour and in no time I was over her knee in the lounge, knickers at my ankles, and having her hand apply itself firmly and repeatedly to my bare bottom.

At Senior school, the Reverend H had slippered me two years previously after a pain in the backside girl had snatched a caricature of Mr H, drawn but not completed, off my desk and passed it around the class with the inevitable result it would finish up in the Reverend’s hands. Frankly, I found RE a bore and it amused me each week to spend some time, doodling and drawing. Obviously, I had to own up, and was called to the front. The answer was that the meaning of this was quite straightforward, and my main regret was that, unfinished, it was not the masterpiece I was hoping for. For insolence and inattention I was sentenced to three strikes of the tatty looking plimsoll the Reverend was extracting from his desk drawer. I was instructed to bend over the spare desk and he applied the slipper firmly to the back of my skirt. It stung me quite sharply the three times without causing any fatal damage and my bottom was sore to sit on for maybe a couple of hours afterwards, but I had come through, I had had my share of the school’s corporal punishment policy, survived, and vowed never to let that happen again. Turned out it was a well-deserved pain in my backside.

Fast forwards two years and I was now facing an altogether different prospect. Miss R had a fearsome reputation in her use of the slipper. As classroom punishments went, hers were the hardest and the most to fear. She also was known as a fierce advocate for female equality, she believed that young women should be able to make their way in the world as equals with men but the only way they were going to do that was with a high degree of self-discipline. The purpose of our school in particular was to instil that self-discipline in the young women it was educating and if it was lacking, and failure to produce homework for whatever reason showed a complete lack of self-discipline, it was required that the school provide that discipline in the form of a minimum three very hard swats with Miss R’s trusty plimsoll. Cruel to be kind, and cruel it seemed by the way Wendy MacD had left the spanking desk in tears the previous week and gasped in pain as she attempted to sit back down at her desk.

So, what was I thinking, to have got myself into this predicament? Well, I wasn’t basically. I could picture my homework book sat on my bedroom desk. The work was done, but the book was not now in Miss R’s possession, and that was all that mattered. I wasn’t thinking, I was far too intent on making myself look at my absolute best in case I ran into the new fifth former who had just joined the adjacent boys’ school. The chances are that he would have been on my bus and I had to make sure he noticed me. But now I was about to take a spanking for him and he would never know, or maybe even care. His rugged good lucks meant that he would have a choice, and chances are my forthcoming ordeal would be for nothing.

The wait was unbearable, the true meaning of punishment. Miss R was having difficulty with the lock on her cupboard door again. My Dad would say all it needs is a drop of oil but that would mean maintenance attending. Would ‘naughty girl waiting to be punished’ be classed as an emergency by the maintenance department? How long was this going to be as fear was beginning to turn into terror, stomach churning, goose-pimples all over and a cold quiver in my backside? At last, the lock freed and the slipper was revealed. I was almost pleased to see it. There was a haste about Miss R now, she needed to get on with it, and maybe just a little sympathy for the poor girl who had been made to wait too long. I was over the desk under instruction, my skirt swiftly pulled onto my back, and my knickered bottom available for the whole class to see, even those straining to look around Miss R to view the target.

Miss R didn’t care why the homework wasn’t presented, it was just that it should have been. You were supposed to put it on the pile when you walked in, or go to your desk and take it out of your bag and bring it to the front. I just sneaked in and sat at my desk hoping she wouldn’t notice. Sometimes my head didn’t work at all, how would she not notice? I think maybe the lock saved me because there was a pretty good chance I might have got an extra stroke for not owning up but because of the confusion she forgot about that. I realised I had left it on the table as soon as I got on the bus but because it was the later bus again, I didn’t have time to go back for the homework. I was already on two lates and the third would have earned me a detention, the note home and what that meant; Mum’s displeasure, her support for school discipline, and the inevitable target for her slipper.

I got the lecture about self-discipline being the most important thing if I wanted to become someone, and that if it wasn’t already instilled in me then I obviously needed some help. I cannot remember now just the words she used but in a lighter moment it occurred to me that they could have been interpreted as a suggestion that I should spank myself. So I just imagined borrowing Mum’s slipper and bending in front of the mirror and giving myself a good hiding! I think some people do that, can’t believe with much success.

The spanking itself was a huge shock. Mum’s carpet slipper built up to a roasting, but one whack from Miss R more or less delivered a complete spanking in one stroke. I couldn’t believe how much the first stroke hurt me, and there were two more to come after a pause of about fifteen seconds allowing the heat to build up in my bottom and the pain to begin permeating my whole body. The second seemed harder and I tried to dissipate the pain by rolling my hips and moving my legs. I so wanted to reach back and clutch my burning cheeks but the memory of another girl who tried to do that kicked in, the extra stroke would have been too much. The third arrived accompanied by a muffled groan from the other end. I was expecting a fourth for being deceitful, Joanna got four the previous week for lying about the whereabouts of her homework but then she was no stranger to Miss R’s slipper.

As I leaned there over the desk after it was over I noticed a tear drop into the dust on the floor where the cleaner had not reached. I felt Miss R pull my skirt back over my bottom and put her hand on my back as an indication that it was over, so that I could walk stiffly back to my desk, rubbing yet more tears from my cheeks. I was never a stoic, a spanking would usually bring tears to my eyes, and I admit I clutched my burning cheeks on the way back to my desk. Sitting back down forced a small squeak out of me, I was surprised that was all. My bottom was hurting so much. I had tried to keep quiet over the desk without complete success but had given a reasonable account of myself, however, sitting then on my poor throbbing bum, with the pain still building up was just so difficult. I really wanted a good cry but I couldn’t. Discipline and self-discipline in every respect.

After a slippering, Miss R didn’t bother you, she didn’t keep firing questions although she glanced over from time to time to see if you were coping, and then by about half-way through the lesson you could start to re-join the world outside the pain from the slippering although sitting would be a discomfort for some time to come.

I did eventually meet the boy and it was a disappointment. He was full of himself and very pushy, hardly worth the spanking. As ever, I vowed to myself never to be so stupid again. That was to be my last encounter with corporal punishment, I was determined! Determination or not, it turned out not to be the last by a good many.

JTo