We were in the second year at the local comprehensive school and the year was 1980. The good old days where teachers were teachers and not your friends, and where the slipper, hand or cane were commonplace. It was a Friday afternoon and the last double period, which meant dreaded double English Literature. That was bad enough at any time, but at 2.30 pm on a Friday, I couldn’t think of a worse end to the week.

“OK everyone, it’s not the weekend yet. Open your books at page 46 and we will study ‘The Merry Wives of Windsor’ for the double period,” instructed Mrs B.

“Please Miss,” piped up Annabel. “I have forgotten my book. Is it alright if I share Monica’s book?”

“No, come and get a spare copy. I know what you two are like for messing about. Now settle down, class!” Ordered Mrs B.

The class finally settled after 10 or 15 seconds, and she called on Beth to start reading. Beth was a good reader and she reeled off 3 pages in no time.

Mrs B selected her next victim. “John, you are next, please.”

Please! Like he had any option.

John was a nervous reader in class, and stammered and stumbled through half a page before it was my turn. I felt really sorry for John. I was a lot better and, after a page and a half, Tina was told to start reading. I was two rows from the front and could hear a chair scraping behind me. I turned around and saw Lucy reaching under the desk. Tina stopped reading and laughed at her.

“What is going on back there? Lucy, sit up,” barked the teacher, obviously not in the best of humours at this late stage in the week. “Tina, I have asked you to read. Now, please do so!”

Tina read about three more lines before she was laughing out loud again.

“What the heck is wrong with you two?” demanded Mrs B.

“Sorry Miss, Tina knocked my pencil case off my desk and my fountain pen ink is leaking, Miss,” Lucy said weakly, fearing she was about to suffer the wrath of the teacher as she had done on several other occasions that year.

“Here,” Mrs B said, tossing a carrier bag from her desk drawer to the concerned girl. “Put it in there, tie it up, and then both of you come here.”

Both girls slowly walked to the front of the class and put the offending bottle of ink in the waste bin as Mrs B indicated for them to do so.

“I’m fed up with this class being so distracted on a Friday afternoon. It is a lesson like any other on any other day. I will not have these constant, petty disruptions to my class.” She paused, briefly, for effect.

She then took her chair from behind her desk and placed it facing the class under the blackboard and in full view of the class, who from experience knew what was coming next, as did Lucy and Tina.

“I think it is high time that I reminded this class what is expected of you all behaviour- wise, and what the consequences are. I am sorry for you two, but you are the demonstration for today’s reminder as to the consequences for not following the school’s quite simple rules.”

With that, Mrs Brotherton perched her bottom on the chair, smoothed her black trousers, looked at the two girls, and decided who would go first as a murmur of excitement and anticipation of the inevitable shot around the class.

“Next one to utter a sound can join the queue!” Mrs B said, leaving the class in no doubt as to her seriousness.

Then there was a laugh from the back of the class. Donna had, for some reason, let out a loud laugh and instantly regretted it.

“Alright Donna, it seems like an all-girls show today. Come and join me. Tina, come here, come around to my right hand side and bend over my lap,” barked Mrs B.

Tina hesitated for a second longer than Mrs B was going to tolerate. Quite cross now, she took Tina’s wrist, pulled her roughly around to her right hand side and across her waiting lap. Within a second or two of landing on her tummy, Tina’s bottom received the first of 12 good firm smacks which landed on her skirt, which had been pulled tight across her bottom as she had been bent over. She was soon bucking and struggling to get up, but Mrs B expertly held her in place until she was sure Tina’s bottom would be sore and red beneath her skirt.

I was disappointed, as it was not unknown for Mrs B to whip up a girl’s skirt and spank her on her knickers, something all the lads enjoyed!

Spanking over, Tina jumped up crying and rubbed her bottom a little, glaring at the teacher.

“Don’t look at me like that, Tina, or you’ll be back over my knee before you can say Jack Robinson. Lucy, come here,” commanded the teacher.

Lucy was no stranger to Mrs B’s lap and bent over it without needing to be pulled over like Tina. Again, once in place Mrs Brotherton wasted no time in applying the first of the dozen spanks she was also destined for. Unlike Tina also, she did not struggle, kept her hands and feet on the floor and rode it out, occasionally glancing at her friends during the spanking with a ‘she wasn’t feeling a thing’ look on her face.

I found out later from one of her mates that she did indeed feel it, and in the girls’ toilets later she showed them the marks. Her bottom was really red, by all accounts.

Spanking over, Tina quietly got up and stood next to Lucy who looked astonished at Tina’s stoicism.

“Now, Donna, what was so funny that you couldn’t control yourself?” the teacher asked.

“I don’t know, Miss. The thought of all the boys watching the girls’ bottoms being spanked, I guess,” Donna replied.

“Well now, the boot is on the other foot, or is that the hand on the other bottom?” Titters from the class this time were almost expected by Mrs B. “That’s earned you a trip over my knee as well. Over you get.”

Doing as she was instructed, Donna lowered herself into position, ready for her spanking. What she did not see in that position was Mrs B reach behind herself to the black board and pick up a clear plastic ruler. I say clear, but its transparency was lost in a thick covering of chalk dust from the board. Donna jumped with surprise at the greater than expected pain as the ruler left a white chalk mark right across the seat of her tight-fitting skirt. Five more followed with slightly less obvious marks each time, all criss-crossing and overlapping as Donna’s bottom received the full wrath of Mrs B, each spank generating an ouch, oooh, or some other exclamation as the ruler made repeated contact.

“Any more trouble, and the person responsible will be straight to the head teacher’s office for a taste of her cane. Donna, get up, and the three of you get back to your seats. No squirming, or I will give you something to squirm about!” Mrs B was in her element now.

Needless to say, no one took her up on her offer, and the class was better behaved for the next few weeks, but eventually John and Mark got on the wrong side of her and felt their bottoms warmed over their trousers by way of punishment.

BS