My first taste of the slipper was in December 1973 and, just like my sister’s first slippering, was on school report day. It wasn’t as severe as Rebecca’s though as my report was not nearly as bad as that one.

I did like to fool around in class when I was at school but I knew which teachers I could do that with without risking a spanking, or a trip to see the Headmistress. The downside of that was that the teachers who didn’t spank you would be more likely to describe your misbehaviour in your school report.

My last report at the end of the 1st year contained a lot of comments from these teachers suggesting that I should be taking my education more seriously, but I had not got into any serious trouble and my mother’s reaction was that I had better buck my ideas up because if my next report didn’t show an improvement in my overall behaviour, I would find myself over her knee like my big sister had become accustomed to.

Of course, I didn’t think about it much when I started my 2nd year and continued to behave myself in the classes where I might get spanked, and fool around in the classes where I thought I was safe. December was, after all, quite a way ahead. As it grew nearer though, I started to worry a little about what my report would say and what my mother had promised.

When the day came that my form teacher told us our reports were all ready to be sent out, I began to panic. I asked various teachers what they had written about me and they all said the same thing; that I constantly fooled around and disrupted lessons and that I could do much better if I made the effort and was more disciplined. I knew that this report was exactly the report my Mum had warned me not to get and that I would be for it when she read it.

On the day I knew it was going to arrive, I watched from my bedroom window for the postman coming down the street. Mum shouted me that breakfast was ready but I stayed where I was. If I could get hold of the report before Mum saw it, I might be able to make it disappear. Mum shouted me again to come downstairs, just as the postman came into sight.

I came down some of the way, then sat on the stairs waiting for the post. Mum came out of the kitchen to shout again and saw me sitting there. She asked me what I was doing and I said something about trying to remember something I was supposed to take to school. I said I needed to be alone until it came to me. Unfortunately, the post arrived through the letterbox while we were talking so I had no chance to get to it first.

My next strategy was to eat my breakfast as quickly as possible and get out before Mum opened the brown envelope. In this, I was successful as there were several other letters that day and she had barely started reading the first one when I headed out. I then had a whole school day ahead, fairly certain that I was at last going to find out what a spanking felt like. My head was spinning. I couldn’t think about anything else. As usual, on my way to school, I called for my friend Sarah. We always walked to school together. She was my best friend and a lot of the fooling around I did in class was with her assistance. I rang the doorbell and her mother answered. As soon as the door was open I heard a loud ‘Whack’ from inside.

“Ah, Harriet, come in. Sarah will be a few minutes, I’m afraid.”

‘Whack’

‘Whack’

“Her father has just been reading her school report.”

‘Whack’

‘Whack’

“Have you had yours?”

I mumbled something about the postman not having been yet. Sarah’s mum knew that we did everything together and so must have had a good idea that my report would be as bad as her daughter’s. In fact, I was probably mentioned in Sarah’s report as being a bad influence on her. Hearing her getting a whacking just made me even more in dread of what I was going to get later.

“Come on through.”

I followed Sarah’s mother into their kitchen where I saw my friend pinned down over her father’s lap with her skirt up and her knickers down. Her bottom was bright red and she was crying.

Her father looked up when I came in and said: “Good morning, Harriet,” in his normal cheerful way, as if he wasn’t in the middle of punishing his daughter with a slipper.

After I had witnessed 16 smacks, Sarah was allowed up and out and we headed off to school. She told me she had got 25. I had missed the beginning. He had certainly not been gone easy on her. I had never seen a spanking before, only heard them, and I found it very exciting. Sarah was always very pale skinned and her bottom had been turned a very bright red, like a fire engine or a post box.

All day at school, I couldn’t concentrate on anything apart from my imminent spanking. Time seemed to drag really slowly. It was a strange feeling. I was scared and nervous, but also quite excited, but most of all I just wanted 4 o’clock to come so that I could go home and get it over with. The waiting was torture. Of course, as the time for the school bell got closer, my nerves were getting worse and when school was over and I was walking home, the knot in my stomach and the weakness in my bladder became more intense. I was reluctant to enter the house when I got home and when I eventually did, it was as I had feared. Mum met me with my report in her hand and the slipper was on the kitchen table. She reminded me of the promise she had made me on my last report day, and just as she had done with Rebecca a year earlier sent me upstairs to: “do anything you might need to do sitting down, while you still can.”

As I said before, it was an unsatisfactory report which my Mum considered worthy of a spanking, but it was not nearly as bad as Rebecca’s when she had been found to be regularly playing truant, so my punishment was not as severe as hers had been.

Still, 20 whacks with a slipper on a bare bottom (10 from each parent) was a pretty painful experience and I would not be sitting comfortably for a few days afterwards.

H