It was the first day back to school after Christmas and the New Year in 1969. The first men ever had just orbited the moon in Apollo 8. The world was full of love. Yet here we were, stuck in an English O level class with it blowing a gale and rain beating against the windows of the classroom. The mood was very blue. After all the festivities, we were studying ‘The Canterbury Tales’ and being taught by Miss Yates. Miss Yates was usually a bubbly young teacher whom we had had since the third year. There was great excitement when we noticed a rather nice diamond on her ring
The doorbell rang and gran opened the door to see me and a police woman standing there, and a police car at the end of the driveway. Mum was away for a couple of days with aunty Sheila and so I was to spend the weekend at gran’s. It was the summer holidays and the weather had been warm and dry for some time. I had been in the Old Priory, an old house which was attached to a long since ruined priory. I thought no one was in and so had been swimming in their large pond, almost a lake, fed by a fresh
It is a bit sad when you get to the age when, thinking back to your school days, you remember the spanking, but not the name of the spanker. It was the geography teacher, and we’ll just have to call her Mrs Gee. I think it began with a ‘g’ or maybe that was a nickname, or ‘g’ for geography even. I don’t know. One of my class-mates, Linda, not a particular friend, had asked me if she could borrow my homework essay if I had already done it, as she’d lost some time off-sick and she just needed to
Mum had been on my case all morning before she went to work. Tidy your room, wash your breakfast things, comb your hair. I am sure you remember being 16 and in the school holidays. The last thing you wanted to do was, well, anything really. It was the Easter break and after school went back it would be solid exam work so I wanted down time. Fortunately, my pesky sister, April, was away on a girl guides camp or something, so once mum had gone to work I could just chill and do nothing. I did venture out for a game of football in the
My friend, Vivien, and I were at the local shopping street getting a few things for a sleepover I was having at her house. My mum was going to a work conference and she had asked Myra, Vivien’s mum, if I could stay over. We stayed over at each other’s house probably once every month or so, and we both looked forward to it. The last time but one we got into a fight and Myra had asked mum’s permission to spank me as she needed to do the same to Vivien. My mum gave her permission and told her if she ever needed to again,
I went to an all-girls summer camp from third grade through high school, first as a camper, then a CIT (counselor in training), and then as a counselor. This incident happened the last year I was a camper, in the 1990s; I was 14 and my friends and I were just turning into women, if you know what I mean. There was a boys camp across the lake from us, and on some nights we would sneak out to meet with the boys. Usually, they would canoe across the lake and meet us on the shore; sometimes we did the
My sister, April, and I had been arguing with each other, hammer and tongues, all afternoon. I am not sure why now, to be honest. We had been to the shopping centre with mum in the afternoon and she was at her wits end with us. Finally in the car, she stopped and turned around to us in the back seat, warning us that if we did not calm down we would be for it. Whilst mum didn’t spank us often, she was rather good at it when she did, and the threat cooled matters for an hour or two. However, the peace did not last and,
Mum was going away with a friend to a wedding one weekend when I was about 9 or 10 and I was deposited at my gran’s for her to look after me for the weekend. Normally, I would have loved it. We made buns and such like, and went for walks in the countryside. She lived outside a small village about 15 minutes from home. However, this particular weekend, my friend Jamie Pollard was having her 10th birthday party on Saturday and as gran was currently without a motor car it meant I would have to miss it. I was already sulking when
Some years ago, mum took my sister, April, and I to the Lake District one summer for a week’s camping holiday. Cash was tight and this was a great way of getting away reasonably cheaply. I was really up for the adventure. We arrived mid-afternoon one Saturday and the traffic, remarkably, had not been too bad until the last few miles. We were staying on a small camping site about a half mile from Coniston. We had brought a blow up dinghy, swimming gear and a few other things to keep us amused, or so mum hoped. We pitched the family-sized tent, which we had
I attended a boy’s grammar school in west London between 1959 and 1966. The events described here took place in 1962, when I was 14 years old. I was generally a well-behaved boy, respectful of authority and, if truth were told, probably a bit of a wimp. I was not spanked at home and my only prior experience of physical discipline was having my socks pulled down at primary school to have my calves slapped long and hard. At grammar school, corporal punishment seemed to acquire a new dimension and significance. It was by no means ubiquitous and many masters