Looking Back

By Limey

Looking back to my time as a boy at boarding school on the south coast of England in the 1950's, I'm sure I was a candidate for many more whippings than I actually got.  Academically bright, too late I now realise, to my disgust, that I was also a very spoilt, self-centred, conceited, know-it-all, type.  Many of my school masters must have longed to get my bottom tightly over a desk, and, with a hard pliant cane, to give it a wristy six, or eight, 'cracks!!', of the very best.  That actually would have done me a world of good.  But it never happened, because I never really broke the rules badly enough to give them the opportunity.

When I was 15, a new Headmaster arrived. The senior English master had made me the editor of the school magazine.  But that year I was also taking the School Certificate government exams.  And I told myself that I wasn't going to do the two chores.  This was a bad cop-out, because I could have managed both assignments quite well, the magazine and the exams, had I chosen to exert myself.  But I, the lordly Derek Mills, chose not to exert myself. 
The result was, first, a weak showing in the exams. (I came fifth in the form, whereas I was used to holding the first or second place) -- and, second, a pretty poor magazine issue too.
Naturally, the new Headmaster, Mr. Stevenson, was disturbed.  The magazine was something of a 'shop window' of the whole school.  The third-rate quality of the first issue under his Headmastership made him look bad, and everybody else too.  He complained mildly to my Father about it, when they happened to meet that summer.
When my Dad told me about this conversation, I coloured up and got angry.  "I had the School Cert. exams to think about," I blustered.  "I couldn't spend time on the magazine, too."  My Dad shook his head.  He knew better.  Then I chose to forget about the whole thing, as being beneath my notice, the great Derek Mills, champion of the world . . .

However, going back to school that Autumn term, now in the Lower Sixth form, I was given an immediate cold douche.  I was astonished to find that my name was not included in the Headmaster's list of newly-made prefects.  Astonished -- and devastated!  Looking back, I'd have to say this was the worst shock of my life.  All my friends had been made prefects -- but not I!  I was suddenly the black sheep of the flock -- and all my school life I'd been used to being the white sheep!  I was crushed, humiliated, mortified.  Particularly as the months went by, and other boys, junior to me, were announced as prefects, but never Derek Mills! 

I was totally bewildered and embarrassed. I couldn't understand it.  Looking back, it seems unbelievable that I never put two and two together, that I never connected the two things -- that is, the Head's chat with my Father in the summer about the poor magazine, and my non- promotion at school.  In truth, my arrogance and stupidity were such that I'd wiped the whole thing out of my mind.  So things went from bad to worse.  I adopted an attitude of bravado towards the masters -- which resulted in my being slippered by one of them, very hard and long, in my pyjamas.  At the age of 16!  I got up, all six feet of me, from my bending position over the bed,  after six or so, and told him, "I've had enough!"  "Get down again, Mills!", he said.  And he gave me another six, with the heel.  I don't know which hurt the more -- my pride or my backside!

And then, sure enough, the ultimate degradation happened!  Achh!  Stupidly, I was guilty of horseplay at the wrong time in the dormitory.  The Head happened to come in on it. He excused the other lads involved, and made me the scapegoat.  To my horror, for the first time in my life, at the interview in his study next morning, he actually seized the chance to give me an undignified and very severe cane-tanning, over a chair. (And he followed a peculiar ritual in doing this.  I'll describe the details in a moment).  My cup of chagrin and humiliation was indeed full and flowing over! 
Such was the atmosphere that I did not go on for the expected second year in the Sixth form.  Instead, I left school prematurely, taking a mean-ish clerical job in the world of work.  It was not the best finale to my six years at the school.      

Looking back, I have often wondered what might have been changed, done differently, done better? 

Two things, I think.  God forbid that I should be critical of my Dad, but in my childhood and youth, probably out of misplaced kindness, he did let me get away with far too much without proper punishment.  We did have a token three-tailed strap, kept in the family room, but I remember feeling it only once, when Dad administered it in a wild rage all over my clothed body, about the age of eight.  He never again spanked me for anything -- whatever I did wrong, even, say, fighting with my two sisters.
For another example, I remember from time to time he would catch me reading in bed, after lights out, which he'd strictly forbidden. (My Mother used to let me stay in bed till midday next day -- I really was "spoiled rotten"!)  Anyway, as my Father would open my bedroom door, finding the light still on late at night, and me reading some novel or other, I would be caught red- handed.  Heart thumping, blushing, breath-taken, I fully expected a well-earned thrashing.  But it never happened.  Instead of getting me out of bed, taking down my pyjama trousers, and giving my bottom a good spanking or strapping, Dad would just put the light out and go on.  I was relieved in one way, but kind of disappointed in another . . .  After all, I'd failed to receive the punishment I really deserved, for direct disobedience . . . 

So again, what might have been done differently as I entered my last year at school?  Here are the two things.  Firstly, after his talk with the Head that time, and my blustering attitude, I think that might have been the opportunity for Dad really to straighten me out, to give me a number one thrashing with the strap, on the grounds that my laziness had let the whole family down. 
Then, secondly, after my tanning, I think he might have said something to me like this:  "Now, Derek, that's not the end of your punishment.  When you get back to school, you're going to go to see Mr. Stevenson immediately, whether you like it or not, and you're going to give him your humble apology for doing such a miserable job on the school magazine last term.  Do you understand?  Further, and this is important, I want you to be sure to ask him to give you a sound caning!  Remember that -- "a sound caning." The thrashing you've just had from me is for letting me and your family down.  But you've also let Mt. Stevenson and the school down.  And you deserve a thorough beating for that. You might as well admit it.  Right?"  Reluctantly, I would have had to agree, even though I knew Mr. Stevenson was in a class by himself as a beater of boys.

Back at school, then, I might have sought an early appointment with the Head.  I would have turned up for it wearing, not my regular school trousers, but only my thin, tight, brief rugby shorts, no underpants, to show that I meant business.  I would have said, in all sincerity, "Sir, I've come to apologise for the terrible job I did on the magazine last term.  I know it was bad, and there's no excuse for it.  I was just lazy.  My Father has already given me a thrashing, for letting him down, and the family, and myself.   But I also let you down, and the school.  I need to be punished for that too, to teach me a proper lesson, so that I don't make the same mistake again.  So, if you wouldn't mind too much, sir, could you please give me a really sound caning?  My Father thinks I should have one, and so do I."

Looking back, I think Mr. Stevenson might have smiled, after a speech like this.  I think he might have said something like, "A good man, your Father, Mills, if I may say so.  All right, I accept your apology, but I agree you do deserve punishment, and that it's likely to do you quite a bit of good.  Your first beating, is it?  I see you've come dressed for it -- or rather, undressed for it!  Good.  O.K., take off your blazer.  Come round to the back of this chair.  Pull up your shorts.  Get your hips right over the chair back, with your hands down on the lower front legs.  Straighten your legs.  And widen them.  Hollow your back.  Grip the chair with your knees.  And put your bottom up as high and tight as you can get it.  That's right.  Now don't move until I tell you.  Remember this position you're in now, you'll need to come back to it."  (This I wouldn't understand till a few moments later.)   "This is going to hurt.  I'm giving you eight."

Looking back, I would have seen him take off his own coat, then select the supple senior rod from his bookcase, what time I would have tugged up my shorts at the back to their absolute tightest with one hand, revealing a quarter of my naked buttocks, before replacing the hand on the chair leg.  Then I would have waited, for the first rifle-shot-like "CRRRAAACCKK!!" -- and the excruciating, blinding, white-hot pain across my behind a second later.  (No messing around, by the way, in those days in the English schools.  This kind of beating would indeed have been typical of many thousands, in schools up and down the Island, every year.)
This hypothetical caning of mine would then have followed the ritual of the actual caning which Mr. Stevenson administered to me following my fooling around in the dormitory, which I mentioned earlier.  After the first stroke, he would have startled me by telling me, as he did in fact, to stand up from the chair, and to take a walk around his desk!  My hands would be clawing at my rear end.  After the tour of the desk, he would then have had me resume my position over the chair, shorts again pulled right up.  After a few words of admonition -- "Legs wider, Mills, get your bottom right over" --he would then give me my second whack -- this followed by another rising from the punishment chair, another tour of his desk, back arched, and again the re-assuming of the position. 
This, I learned, was usually Mr. Stevenson's personal, specialist routine, or ceremony, of caning, whenever he had the time to do it.  He was a maestro at it.  I have never heard of anyone else's using this procedure, but I had to admit it was very effective.  The getting up, head back, face grimacing, hands clasped to the bottom, the walkabout, feet doing a pas de deux -- then the slow, deliberate, arranging of oneself (by now, pretty expertly), in a sharp convex curve over the back of the low chair again. 
This ritualistic routine, repeated after each tremendous cane-thwack, really made a leisurely, memorable meal of the whole punishment session, so far as the boy was concerned.  It extended the time of the caning, of course, so that each of the eight instalments of agony could build up to its individual intense crescendo.  Also, I have no doubt, the eight writhing reels round his desk, then the eight bendings over, and the eight practised re-offerings of the tight bum -- practice, of course, making perfect! -- gave eight separate sets of humiliation to the culprit, and eight separate lots of personal satisfaction, rather than just the initial one, to a professional caner like Mr. Stevenson.      

At the end of this prolonged six-minute "minuet", then -- or "reel" might indeed be the more accurate word! -- after the eighth stroke, I would finally have staggered up from the chair for the last time, at his command.  Sniffing tearfully, I would be gingerly rubbing my bottom, now artistically and thoroughly whipped, by a powerful virtuoso.  (The weals, concentrated round my underbum, lasted all of three weeks.)  He might have said,  "Well done, Derek!  Now that's over and done with.  We'll say no more about it.  We'll do much better on the magazine this term, right? You may get dressed now, wash up, and then go to your class." Then he would have shaken me warmly by the hand, and opened his study door for me to leave -- with the memory of a lifetime.

And, incidentally, looking back, I think something much better might have happened, if I'd had that kind of maturity, that kind of strength of character, to apologise to my Headmaster and to ask for my caning, as decent manners certainly required at the time.  Perhaps I might have seen the name "Mills" on the next list of school prefects, and thus stayed at school for the crucial extra year . . .  Who knows? 

Whatever -- we live and learn, do we not, looking back?