Paraskevidekatriaphobia

PROLOGUE

No dear Reader, I am not responsible for coining the tongue-twister of a word, which I have chosen as the title for this story. That distinction goes to one, Dr. Donald Dossey, who I believe is, or was, an American psychiatrist who told his patients that once they had learned to pronounce the word they could consider themselves cured of their irrational phobia associated with Friday the 13th. For that is what the word, paraskevidekatriaphobia, which was coined by Dr. Dossey means: an irrational fear of Friday the 13th.

Of course, those of my readers who are beneficiaries of a classical education would have no need of an explanation of the meaning of the word; .they would have pieced together its meaning from its component parts. The Greek for Friday is paraskevi and for thirteen is dekatria and as everyone knows, phobia means irrational fear. Thus, the meaning of this, at first sight, fearsome word becomes obvious to those with a classical bent. It also becomes easier to pronounce if split into its component parts. Try para-skevi dekatria phobia for size; it’s not so difficult to pronounce, if you split it up.

As for myself, I had never seen the word until I came across it in, of all places, an article in the Radio Times, a venerable weekly publication, which now lists the television and radio programmes in the UK. Intrigued by this apparently un-understandable and, at first sight, unpronounceable word, I did a bit of Internet research to find that not only is Friday the 13th held by western cultures as unlucky, as most of us already know, but the number 13 itself is considered as an unlucky number; so much so that the National Geographic Magazine has estimated that 80% of all multi-storey hotels in the USA have no floor 13; the numbering of the floors goes directly from 12 to 14.

The belief that the number 13 is unlucky has an equally off-putting, unpronounceable name attached to it: triskaidekaphobia. It is all myth, of course – smoke and mirrors – and Dr. Dossey was quite right to dismiss it all as an irrational fear.

For readers, who are interesting in learning more about the superstitions surrounding the number 13, subscribed to by more people than you you might think, the Internet is a mine of information. There are many explanations as to why Friday the 13th is feared, of which the one, which fits best with western Christian thinking, is as follows: Jesus Christ was crucified on a Friday, and he was the 13th person at the Last Supper, attended by his Twelve Apostles. of whom, Judas, one of the twelve, and the one who eventually betrayed him, was also the last of the Apostles and the 13th person to arrive at the last ever table, at which Jesus was to sit for the very last time to break bread with his close followers. Hence the development of the superstition– and it is but a superstition, to which, nevertheless, millions of otherwise rational human beings, subscribe: an irrational fear of Friday the 13th,

As far as the number 13 itself is concerned, some numerologists believe the number 13 is considered unlucky because of its relation to the number 12, which precedes it. Numerologists consider 12 to be what is apparently known to the mathematical ntelligentsia as complete number: 12 months in a year, 12 apostles, 12 tribes of Israel, 12 labours of Hercules, 12 gods of Olympus, 12 hours on a clock..

The Internet tells us that a number is said to be complete if the sum of all positive divisors of the number is equal to twice the number itself. Thus the positive divisors of 12 are 1, 2, 3, 4, 6 and 12 itself, which throws a spanner into the works of that particular theory. The Internet tells us that the number 6 is the first so-called complete number. Its divisors are 1, 2, 3 and 6; sure enough 1+2+3+6 = 2 x 6 = 12. But, the Internet is singularly lacking about any number greater than 6 which fits the above definition of a complete number. Therefore, take the definition, for what it is worth, with a large pinch of salt.

However let us not dwell on the obscure mathematical machinations as to why Friday the 13th and the number 13 itself are held in awe by so many people. Suffice it to say that the events described in this story, took place in the late afternoon of Friday the 13th of June in the year 1924 at the boys public school, Churton College, located in the village of Great Churton near Hereford. Make of them what you will.

However, if anyone had asked any of the thirty boys, whose bare arses each received 12 cuts of the cane that afternoon, if Friday the 13th was a day to be feared, their unanimous, affirmative answer, conditioned by a uniquely painful experience, would have been a no-brainer. The entire group of 30 boys would have affirmed their adherence to paraskevidekatriaphobia, if they had known the word existed.

On that particular Friday, which just happened to fall the 13th day of June 1924 three separate lengths of rattan – wielded by the Headmaster, the then head-boy and the then Court of Prefects, who on were allowed on Friday afternoons only, to beat their schoolmates arses, whether they merited it or not – as sadly often is the case – delivered their painful message to the bare arses of each of 30 boys.

That salutary afternoon, the cane mated twelve times, each time with a resounding crack on 30 pairs of naked buttocks, leaving 30 boys each with a well-beaten, excruciatingly painful arse to contend with, which would remind each of them of his sins, each time he sat down, for a week or more. The total aggregate of 360 swingeing strokes of the cane delivered that afternoon of Friday 13th of June 1924 set an all-time record at Churton College for a one day’s bare-arse beatings, which were more or less a daily occurrence at the school, in those so-called good-old-days, in the interim period of peace between the two World Wars. However, was it just happenstance that it occurred Friday the 13th day of June, the only time in which Friday fell on the 13th day of the month in the year 1924 – or was it that Friday the 13th was fated?

CHAPTER 1

Mr. Augustus Caesar, hereinafter referred to as MAC, the nickname, which the boys given him, had been Headmaster of Churton, for an incredible 38 years, from 1885, when, aged just 27, he had acceded to the post, until 1923 when he had been forced to retire at the age of 65 by a new-broom-sweeps-clean, self-important, trail-blazing, ex-military, new Chairman of the Board of Governors.

MAC himself was an active homosexual, at a time when homosexuality between consenting males, even of those, who had come of age, was considered a crime, for which the persons involved could be imprisoned; as indeed they were; witness the trial in 1895 and subsequent imprisonment of the playwright, Oscar Wilde for his sexual relations with the much younger, utterly selfish and hedonistic Lord Alfred Douglas, (Bosie) the son of the mentally deranged Marquess of Queensberry. Bosie was, for some reason, not brought to justice and imprisoned as co-respondent in the affair with Wilde; and who, to his discredit – but then, he was a very discreditable, self-centred man – did not even appear in court to say a word defend is lover, Wilde.

To his credit in his 38 years as Headmaster of Churton, MAC never importuned any of the boys, whose sexually attractive bare arses he regularly addressed with the cane. MAC was a disciplinarian born, who, even as a junior schoolmaster, had never hesitated to beat boys in his charge. He had also a personal perversion; he was one of those rare men, who also enjoyed his own backside caned or birched, as much he enjoyed dispensing pain to the boys of the school; though it has to be admitted not quite often as he himself doled out stripes to boys arses.

Incredible as it may seem, he successfully satisfied both his homosexual desires and his love of having his own arse beaten, for almost forty years with one, James Prior, an apprentice gardener at Churton, when they first met in 1885. Prior was a young man of the same age as the new Headmaster and with the same sexual persuasion. As Prior supplied special maple birches to the Headmaster for use on his charges s, they met and fell instantly in love with each other They incredibly managed to keep secret their affair together for almost 40 years. They both were active as cocksmen and James Prior agreed to beat his lover from time to time; but their love for each other never diminished. When the Headmaster was finally forced to retire aged 65, James Prior left Churton with him. They took a house together on the south coast and lived for many active sexually physical years together as Gus and Jim. James Prior, as befits a long term lover, was the only person ever to address MAC by his nickname: Gus.

Author’s Note. I have just now noticed in proof-reading this, a fact, which keen readers of my earlier works about Churton will already have noticed, that I had, above, inadvertently inversed the roles of MAC and James Prior It was, of course, Prior who wanted his own arse beaten by MAC. However, as the two of them play no active roles in this story, I did not deem it necessary to rewrite the above section.

Not to put too fine a point on it, MAC was a peerless epicaricacist; one of those people, who derived considerable sadistic pleasure from correcting those of his charges, who strayed from the straight and narrow path laid down by the school’s rules, as many regularly did. He had no compunction in dispensing pain with the birch or the cane – and occasionally both – always applied vigorously and generously to the bare buttocks of the offender. But as a committed epicaricacist he then went on to derive pleasure from not only delivering, but also from observing the painful agony suffered by the individual he had just beaten.

So there you have in MAC, the definition of an epicaricacist; a person who combines sadism with schadenfreude, a German word, which we have assimilated into the English language, and, which means, in one word: pleasure derived by someone from another person's misfortunes. However, there is a relatively unknown and little used English word: epicaricacy, which has the exact same meaning as schadenfreude.

Not surprisingly, given MAC’s sadistic love of beating the bare arses of boys in his charge, on his appointment as Headmaster of Churton, he took immediate steps ensure a regular flow of boys each day to his study at 4:30 in the afternoon, whose arses merited attention from the cane.

Prior to the quite revolutionary appointment of someone so young as Headmaster of Churton, all the masters had considered it their God Given Right to beat the boys in class if they merited it. In the face of extreme opposition from a teaching staff, most of whom were older than the new Headmaster, including many who were old enough to be his father – and a rarefied few, teetering on the edge of retirement – , who were even old enough to be his grandfather, MAC, in his new broom sweeps clean mood of veni, vidi, vinci – I came, I saw, conquered – rode rough shod over his older colleagues. He was ruthlessly insensible to their feelings and abolished all beatings administered by masters in class. He replaced the beatings by punishment notes, issued by the emasculated masters, thereby ensuring that he had a regular flow of boys to beat to satisfy his own personal, somewhat sadistic nature.

The unfortunate recipient of a punishment note was obliged to redeem it with a bare arse beating from the Headmaster, at whose study he had to present himself at 4:30 in the afternoon, the very day on which note was issued. Thus crime and punishment were, time-wise, very close together, and the upside for the offender was that he was spared the mental agony of waiting for days knowing that is arse flogged some day in the future. But as many boys were to discover, the downside was that the new Headmaster knew how to get the best out of a length of rattan, replacing mental agony with the immediacy of excruciating physical pain. No boy ever left the Headmaster’s study other than bearing that quintessential hallmark of a public school flogging: the well beaten arse!

Gradually, the Headmaster built up an unrivalled disciplinary infrastructure at Churton, based on the regular intrusion of the bite of the cane and the birch into the lives of its pupils, via their bare buttocks. It was safe to say that with a complement of 480 boys, between the ages of 13 and 18 or 19, the cane was never silent for long at Churton. MAC alone, during his 38 year tenure, personally thrashed exactly 3835 arses, some of which several times. In the Headmaster’s private punishment note ledger, the name of every boy beaten was meticulously noted chronologically, in his own neat hand. Thus an average of about 20% of the boys, roughly 100 lads each year had the extremely doubtful pleasure of having their arses rendered sizzling hot by MAC, thanks to the punishment note system,

But MAC did not stop there in his quest for boys to beat. He took regularly to trawling the corridors to see if he could find any more fish to fry. Any boy, who had been expelled from the classroom for offensive behaviour, whom he found standing there, was immediately taken by the Headmaster to his study where he was, no questions asked, promptly beaten on the bare. It was then that a simple idea that had been long at the back of his mind, took form. A simple idea, which was to be adopted by almost all schools, where boys were beaten on the bare. And what public school worth its salt did otherwise?

The standard uniform clothing worn by Churtonian boys was cumbersome to say the least. It consisted of heavy black trousers supported by braces over the wearer’s shoulders. A black buttoned up waistcoat, piped with a band of the wearer’s house colour completed this mournfully dismal basic attire. To this was added a heavy coat with two short tails, which just covered the wearer’s bum. This outfit was completed by a pair of highly polished black shoes, white shirt and a blck bow- tie.

Needless to say getting dressed in the morning took considerable time, as the boys were obliged to wear this uniform at breakfast. Equally removing the requisite items of clothing to present his bare buttocks for punishment took the wearer considerable time. And then putting back on the clothing, in his post-beating agony took even longer. MAC was convinced that more appropriate attire must be found for boys who were to be beaten. What more simple than to make the boy change into his gym shorts and gym vest only, before presenting himself to the Headmaster to be beaten?

The lad had then but step out of his shorts to give access to that all important part of his anatomy: his bare arse. Then having received his stripes, it was a simple matter to put the shorts back on before limpingly leaving the Headmaster’s study in utter agony. This elementary attire was much more appropriate to the occasion than the boy fumbling around with buttons, belt and braces of the cumbersome school outfit to present his bare arse for punishment and then, when his ordeal – and it was an ordeal – was over, to repeat the operation in reverse, as it were.

By any standards, when the Headmaster beat a boy’s arse, it was a long and agonising experience for the recipient; the Headmaster always took his time, leaving a long appreciation pause between each stroke, to allow each intense cut of the cane to leave its mental mark in the boy’s mind and its its physical manifestation, in the form of an agonisingly painful, livid stripe, often flecked with spots of blood , where the cane had broken the on the lad’s bare buttocks. It was then a simple matter for the lad to pull back on his shorts and leave to bathe his wounds in the the cold water of the nearest lavatory, in an attempt palliate the pain raging in his arse.

MAC, never one to hide his own light under a bushel, shared his ground-breaking, revolutionary idea with his homologues in other public schools, in a very long letter, which appeared in the September 1886 issue of a now defunct magazine, called The Public School Master, under the title:

A suggestion for the appropriate attire for public school boys

to wear prior to being beaten on the bare.

Just a year ago, I was appointed to the Headmastership of Churton College for Boys, a public school of some 480 boys, with a reputation for strict discipline, which reputation, as new Headmaster, I felt obliged to uphold; even more so, as I was appointed on the strict understanding of the Board of Governors that I take in hand and restore the strict discipline for which the school has been famous among its peers for many years.

For the last few years the discipline at Churton had, unfortunately been allowed to slide, due to the chronic ill-health of my predecessor, whom I never met and who retired early and who has since died.

Churton is a public school, in the finest English tradition, where both the birch and the cane are in regular use. Since my appointment I have been force to be extremely severe with the boys, many of whom, due to the relaxation of discipline over the last few years had developed the feeling that they were free to misbehave without incurring any penalty.

I was forced, therefore to introduce the severest of strict punishment regimes. Any boy, no matter how old, from new boys up to upper sixth formers, who committed even the slightest offence, would find his buttocks severely beaten. Now as Churton beats on the bare and as the boys’ daily attire is, say the very least, cumbersome to take off prior to a beating and to put back on after a boy has been beaten, I found that beating six to ten boys a day, as I was forced to during the early months of my tenure, was taking an inordinate amount of my time due to the sartorial constraints imposed by the cumbersome school outfit.

I came up with the simple idea of making the boys, who were to be beaten, present themselves to me for beating, wearing their gym shorts and gym vests only. This, albeit skimpy outfit seems to me to be more appropriate attire for a boy who is about to be beaten and is obliged to bare his buttocks to receive the cane.. The shorts are easy to remove and equally easy to pull back on again, to send the boy on his way post-flagellation.

I can but recommend to those of my colleagues in other schools, who are faced with the same tedious problems of a boy taking off and putting back on again, post-beating, his cumbersome school outfit, to adopt this simple solution of shorts and gym vest as more appropriate attire for boys awaiting a beating.

I remain, Dear Sirs

Your most faithful and humble servant

Augustus Caesar

Headmaster: Churton College for Boys

This somewhat pompous and wordy letter propelled MAC, at the age of 28 to the very forefront of Victorian thinkers and proponents of the merits of corporal punishment in the English public school system, members of which were at that time totally convinced of the benefits of a well-beaten arse to the satisfactory development of their pupils.

His suggestion for the appropriate attire for boys about to be punished to wear, was adopted by most schools which practised beating it pupils on the bare, of which there were many. In such schools, like Churton , where bare arse beatings were a daily occurrence, those privileged to wield the cane, in later years, when beatings became less severe, fondly referred to the era in which the cane was liberally used on the bare backsides of their pupils, rendered easily accessible by their wearing of appropriate attire, as the good old days. For most boys, whose arses benefitted from the system – a doubtful premise, considering the excruciating agony of the canings they endured –it was a period, of which they retained the most painful of memories that they would prefer to forget.

By the end of the first year of his tenure MAC, with that zealous, single mindedness of purpose, which were attributes he possessed in abundance, had fulfilled the mandate of the Board of Governors, by the frequent, so-called, character-building, painful use of the cane and the birch on the bare buttocks of even the slightest offender. The boys rapidly realised that the free and easy days were over; that the dye was already cast and that, henceforth, they had to contend with a Headmaster, who obviously enjoyed beating the hell out of boys’ bare arses, in the best public school tradition. By the end of the Headmaster’s second year, thanks to his indefatigable efforts with the cane, Churton had fully retrieved its lost reputation as one of the strictest public schools in the best English tradition, at which the motto could have been: Pain is the Name of the Game.

CHAPTER 2

When MAC, was reluctantly forced into retirement at the age 65 in 1922, after 38 years in the post of Headmaster, he left his successor with a legacy of a well defined, disciplinary infrastructure in place. The Board of Governors had long cogitated on the choice of a successor to MAC, who, they all realised, had made Churton what it was today; academically up there with the Eton and Winchester, but in a league of its own when it came to discipline.

In fact, there was no need to have insisted that MAC retire, as he was a youthful 65 and had many more years left in which he could have efficiently continued to lead the school and to beat boys arses as he had done for the past 38 years. But it was not to be, as the new chairman of Board of Governors a peppery, self important ex-army man, Colonel Hartley, by name, wanting to leave his mark on the school, had insisted that as the Headmaster had reached the retirement age of 65, retire he must.

Colonel Hartley replaced MAC with a man whom, as the minutes of the appointment meeting show, the Board of Governors had ostensibly chosen unanimously; in fact the Colonel had brow-beaten his co-governors into accepting his candidate, in the interests of minuting the shared responsibility of the Board.

If the departing Headmaster had had an unusual name: MAC, his replacement had three given names and a totally unpronounceable, double-barrelled surname: he was impressively named: Mr. Sebastian Emmanuel Marmaduke Cholmondeley-Featherstonehaugh. If MAC had been considered severe with the cane, words fail me to describe the vicious, almost vengeful dedication, with which See-Eff (CF: his initials) – for that is the nickname by which the boys quickly came to refer to him – addressed the boys’ bare backsides when he caned them, which, as the boys were quickly to discover, he did most days in his study at the switching hour of 4:30 each afternoon.

MAC had been a closet homosexual, who had kept his regular, illegal liaison with his gardener, James Prior, secret for an incredible period, spanning almost 40 years; Chumley-Fanshaw, for that is how the new Headmaster’s name was pronounced, was an asexual virgin, who had never had sex with either a man or a woman, and who got his sexual satisfaction from the powerful arousal that he experienced every time he beat a boy. CF, as we will refer to him in this story, was one of those men, who regularly became so sexually aroused whenever he beat a boy that he was, on one occasion, obliged to interrupt a beating he was in the middle of and put it on hold for fifteen minutes or so, whilst he betook himself off to his bathroom, to assuage his cock, which was menacing him with a climax, with the relief of a hand induced orgasm, with the concomitant uncontrolled emissions of semen.,

Only once his earlier career, when he was a young housemaster at Bishop Charles’s School in Lancashire had CF ignored the urgent cry of warning from his cock, when he was beating a boy. The result had been an utter embarrassment for him; he had not been able to prevent himself from exploding into an intense orgasm, accompanied by a copious emission of his own sperm into his trousers. This had forced him to abandon the beating, by pleading a sudden malaise to the boy, who fortunately escaped with only half his punishment complete. CF was obliged to change not only his lower underwear, but also his trousers, which were sopping wet with his sperm, of which he was a copious emitter.

On his appointment as Headmaster, the Board had charged CF with the task of maintaining the academic excellence, of which Churton was justly proud. But equally important in the eyes of the Board of Governors, on which, in addition to the Chairman, Colonel Hartley, there were a number of ex-military men, who had forcefully, in no uncertain terms, expressed their views on the matter, was the maintenance of Churton, in the eyes of the public, as a school where the strictest of strict discipline was enforced. Even for minor infractions, there was a preponderance of governors, who were of the flog ’em and hang school of thought, with all that that implied for the boys. The fate of the pupils was sealed, when the Chairman of the Board said gushingly the new Headmaster “My dear Cholmondeley-Featherstonehaugh, I am sure I speak for the entire Board, when I say to you on their behalf that we can leave the question of discipline in your more than capable hands.”

Not surprisingly, the newly appointed Headmaster, having been given carte blanche to do as he wished concerning discipline, his first reaction was, not unnaturally, to wish to impose his will on the school and to sweep away the old disciplinary infrastructure put in place by his predecessor and to implement his own ideas. However, on his second day in office, he was pleasantly surprised to hear a knock on his study door, at 4:30 in the afternoon. On opening it, he found a group of four teenage boys, each wearing only shorts and gym vest, clutching a dreaded punishment note in his hand, waiting there, to be called into his study to be beaten.

The boys were supervised by the duty prefect of the week, whose role it was to see that the boys awaiting punishment the boys were in age order, youngest first, and remained orderly, whilst waiting to be called in to face a beating for their sins committed that very day in class. He glanced up the corridor, to see a clutch of four or five boys wearing also the same skimpy attire, standing outside of the head-boy’s study door obviously waiting to be beaten by him.

All the Board of Governors had told him about discipline at Churton was that the cane and the birch were in daily use and that a number of years ago, his predecessor had seen fit to introduce a standard, of up-to twelve parallel cuts of the rattan cane, delivered to the offenders bare buttocks. This had quickly become the one-size-fits-all tariff of twelve cuts on the bare, which was the situation CF had inherited as Headmaster.

Not surprisingly he was amazed by the fact that the four boys had automatically presented themselves to him to be beaten; somewhat of a fait accompli; so, at present he could do no other than go along with what was evidently a clearly defined system of conduct, which the boys obviously knew and accepted To the four boys, waiting at his door to be beaten, the new Headmaster was an unknown quantity, from whom they were naturally expecting the usual, twelve-cut, bare arse thrashing. Who was he a newcomer to put a spanner in the works and disappoint them? So he decided to suck it and see and go along with this aspect of the system, which obviously worked, provided he played his part as purveyor of pain in the mini-drama which was unfolding.

The duty prefect showed the first, trembling boy, the youngest of the four awaiting punishment, into the Headmaster’s study, announcing his name, as Adam Clarkson of the third form. Having just graduated to third form, Clarkson, who was no stranger to the Headmaster’s study was about to have his arse thrashed with a with a senior cane for the first time .The Headmaster had been totally unprepared for the scene into which he had been thrust and in which he was destined to play a key role.

He had not prepared himself to beat even one boy; but here he was presented, impromptu, with four young arses, needing his immediate attention. He knew he could not afford to make any mistakes in what would be his maiden beatings, as Headmaster of Churton. He was aware that the eyes of the entire school would be on his first performance and that the four boys, whom he was about to beat, would be closely questioned on this, the first encounter of any boy in the school with the new Headmaster. Did he measure up to or surpass in his mastery of the cane as the old Headmaster?

This would be the first time that he had beaten a boy, since he had resigned his post of almost twenty years as housemaster at Bishop Charles’s: a post, in which he had quickly established himself as being a right bastard, with the cane: a second to none reputation, which he had maintained throughout his entire career at the school.

The boys in his house had dreaded a summons to appear before him, in his study, before going to bed in the evening, wearing only their pyjamas. Such meetings always presaged an extremely painful night in bed for any boy unlucky enough to have been subjected to the ravages of the cane, which, in the hands of their housemaster, became the purveyor of agony incarnate. No one in the school, not even the Headmaster himself, held a candle to their housemaster, when it came to dispensing pain with the cane. He had a steely aptitude, given to very few, for the severity of his delivery with the cane.

But as he looked at Clarkson, who was understandably nervous,

he found that he himself too was, for some unknown reason, as nervous as the boy he was about to beat. He nevertheless pulled a chair into the centre of the room, and told Clarkson to assume the appropriate position over the back of the chair. His predecessor had left him a good selection of long, straight-handled, rattan canes in a cylindrical oriental pot behind his desk, from which he had no difficulty in choosing a long, whippy, senior cane with which to regale Clarkson’s arse.

When he turned round he saw that Clarkson had evidently been down this same path before and knew the drill. He had clearly resigned himself to the inevitable and was now bent calmly over the back of the chair, his bare, muscular arse held high, as if it was begging for the bite of the cane, and with his hands place firmly on the seat of the chair, in readiness to support himself for the agonising pain he was shortly to experience. Looking at Clarkson calmly awaiting his fate, had a strangely similar effect on the Headmaster, who found that he too, had suddenly lost all his nervousness. Why he had been nervous until a few moments ago, he put down the fact that he was now in charge of an entire school of 480 boys, which was a much more onerous task than being a housemaster, who was responsible for the well-being of 80 or so boys.. As a housemaster at Bishop Charles’s he had been a demi-God. Whereas, as Headmaster of Churton, he was God of all he surveyed and could not afford to put a foot wrong.

Looking at Clarkson, who was waiting patiently, and more importantly, was expecting his bare arse to suffer the indignity and excruciating pain of twelve swingeing cuts of the cane biting into his bare flesh. Rightly or wrongly, it was what every boy expected for his sins, from the system put in place by the former Headmaster; and as it had been there for decades, like the the ten commandments, it had become engraved in the minds of the boys, as if they were tablets of stone. The Headmaster had suddenly realised that until he had something better to offer himself, tradition, which had always counted for a great deal in English public schools, demanded that he continue as before. In a word: the show must go on; the new Headmaster must show by his actions that he was in control, otherwise there would be anarchy.

So he went ahead and thrashed Clarkson, who was not surprised at the outcome of the new Headmaster’s handiwork, which seemed better or worse than previously, depending from whose point of view you are judging the truly well beaten arse, which was the result of the Headmaster’s maiden intervention with the cane. There was little doubt in the minds of Clarkson’s classmates, who later viewed the damage to Clarkson’s arse wrought by the new Headmaster, that things had got worse under the new regime. The reputation of Churton at the top of the discipline league of public schools, was assured under the firm hand of Mr. Cholmondeley-Featherstonehaugh The boys, who, on the strength of one viewing of the results of his maiden beating at Churton took the words of his first victim, Clarkson as gospel, when he labelled the new Headmaster as a right bastard; and the name stuck.

CHAPTER 3

The nervousness he had experienced in beating Clarkson had had a salutary effect on the Headmaster. He had come fresh to a post in which he was king of the castle, so to speak; and like all men coming to great power, his immediate intention had been to make his mark as soon as possible. He had obtained the key post in a leading public school, which was spoken of with awe elsewhere. Churton was regarded as being primus inter pares – first among equals – one of the top schools in England both academically and also when it came to disciplining its boys.

As he had obtained the post of Headmaster, thanks, in part, to his stellar performance as the strictest of strict disciplinarian housemasters at Bishop Charles’s, it is, therefore, not surprising that his immediate intention as a new broom had been to sweep away the old and install his own system of punishment at Churton; that was until he had found the four boys , in the corridor outside his study, presenting themselves voluntarily for punishment, which, for some unaccountable reason, had made him nervous: him, to whom thrashing boys’ naked backsides was one of his greatest pleasures.

But next day, when six more boys, wearing appropriate attire for the occasion, presented themselves for punishment, at the same hour at his study, he realised that to ignore the disciplinary system, which was already in place and to judge from the little of it to which he had been exposed so far, was to look a gift horse in the mouth; and so, he decided he must arrive at a thorough understanding of the beast he had inherited before attempting to teach it new tricks. This he did over a dinner with Mr. Fogarty, the most senior of the six housemasters at Churton.

Mr. Fogarty had joined Churton as a young man, fresh from Oxford University, in the year 1890, only five years after the appointment of MAC as Headmaster. He had eventually been appointed Assistant Headmaster, a position he had now occupied for some 20 years. He was a devoted disciple of MAC when it came to discipline. As he had been at Churton through 33 years of the Headmaster’s 38 year tenure, he was the ideal person to consult about Churton in general and about the disciplinary system at present in place. Today, at the age of 60, five year from retirement himself, he was the only housemaster still using the birch on the boys of his house. So, whom better to consult on all matters concerning discipline at Churton?

What the new Headmaster learned from Mr. Fogarty about the system of discipline in place at present and about Churton in general was an eye-opener for him. He quickly realised that he had no need to impose his ideas on a disciplinary infrastructure which obviously worked well, which would be tantamount to reinventing the wheel; he could make his mark by tweaking the system and adding a few refinements to it. MAC had swept all the dross and lethargy from the scene, many years ago; there was absolutely no need, or indeed, justification, for him to start again from scratch.

According to what the Headmaster learned from Mr. Fogsrty, who had apparently quickly become MAC’s confidant in matters concerning Churton, although not evidently in matters regarding MAC’s sex-life with James Prior. Before MAC’s appointment as Headmaster, Churton had been a run-of-the-mill, middle-of-the-road public school. MAC had quickly realised that if as Headmaster he was to satisfy his lust for beating boys, on a regular basis, important changes would have to be made.

MAC had immediately seen that his position as Headmaster had largely divorced him from teaching contact with the boys. So he would no longer be able to beat the boys for their misdeeds in class as he had done in the past. Moreover, as Headmaster of Churton, his daily contact with the boys of his house whose misdeeds he had loved correct each evening, had vanished. Clearly in his new elevated position, he face an extreme penury of bare arses to beat, which required immediate action. A life for him, without a boy’s – any boy’s – bare arse to beat on a regular basis, would be intolerable.

If the members of the existing teaching staff had felt that they had been passed over for promotion – which they had been – by the appointment of a man much younger than any of them as Headmaster, just try to imagine their reaction to his first edict that they would no longer be allowed to beat boys who misbehaved in class. Henceforth, they would have to issue punishment notes, redeemable by a Headmaster’s beating at 4:30 in the afternoon of the same day. In one fell swoop, the new Headmaster had ridden rough-shod over his colleagues, to satisfy his own sadistic interests. He had, thereby, stripped them of what they considered was the God-given right of any self-respecting public school master, which was to beat any boy who misbehaved.

If they felt outraged by the Headmaster’s behaviour, they could do none other than obey. The murmurs of a nascent rebellion among the younger teachers; of talk of resignations on a matter of principle, came to nought; they realised that they were better paid at Churton than elsewhere; and, as with most people, money talks. Churton had always paid over the odds to ensure that it recruited the cream of the teaching profession to maintain its academic pre-eminence among public schools. Thus, the teaching staff held its counsel and remained silent on what they thought about their new, wings-clipped position. That is not to say that they did not feel resentment at the Headmaster’s action; but, not one single member of the teaching staff resigned on principle.

“Gradually MAC put in place the punishment system at Churton which you see today,” said Mr Fogarty. “MAC realised that he himself was not God Almighty and that he needed some help to keep order in a school of some 480 boys when they were not actually in class. He had resolved the question of discipline in class, together with his own personal need regularly to thrash the bare buttocks of boys, by the introduction of the punishment note system.”

“However prior to MAC’s appointment as Headmaster there had been two different sets of prefects: one group of school prefects, to control the the boys during the day when were out of class and another group of house prefects, who were answerable to their individual housemaster and who performed an analogous function in each the six houses. Mac promptly abolished this system. In future there would be three prefects per house, chosen each year by their housemaster, one of whom would be nominated by him as head-of-house. Thus there were 18 prefects in all; each with the mandate to beat his fellow schoolmates if they overstepped the red line and misbehaved. The prefects used – and indeed today still do use – the cane, with the alacrity and vigour of youth. Today, hardly a day goes by at Churton, without some boy receiving a prefects’ beating, which takes place at 4:30 each afternoon, in the school library.”

“Gradually, MAC transformed the corridor, at one end of which is located the Headmaster’s – now your study – at the other end of which are the head-boy’s study and sleeping quarters, into the Via Dolorosa – The Way of Suffering – aptly named, by one of the boys, as the place, in which the boys assemble, prior to being called in by the Headmaster or the head-boy, to face the cane in their painful comeuppance. The Via Dolorosa as you now see it, more or less dedicated to the punishment of the boys of this school.”

“At one end is your study and adjacent to it, on one side, is your secretary’s office. On the other side, progressing down the corridor towards the head-boy’s study, is the all-important, birching room, which strikes fear into the heart of every boy who enters it. It is accessible both from your study and from the corridor, where the door is emblazoned with the words, Birching Room, to remind the boys, who are waiting, somewhat nervously, in the corridor, of the potential fate, which awaits them once they are called in to face the Headmaster.”

“Then follow two rooms: a changing room and a lavatory to enable the boys to relieve themselves, before waiting, somewhat nervously in the corridor, to be called in to be beaten, wearing only the so-called appropriate attire., At the end of the corridor, then follows the head-boy’s study, which is feared by the boys almost as much as the Headmaster’s study, such is the vigour which the average head-boy puts into his beatings of his fellow schoolmates.”

“I need not remind you that MAC was the originator of the appropriate attire of gym shorts and vests only, into which all boys are required to change, prior to being beaten. In the half hour between the end of classes at 4:00 and 4:30, at which beatings for the day begin, any boy, who is to be beaten, has enough time to to return to his house and pick up his shorts and change into them in the changing room in the Via Dolorosa corridor.”

“All beatings at Churton, no matter by whom administered, are, de rigueur, applied to the bare buttocks of the offender. So boys, who are scheduled to be beaten by a prefect, also change into appropriate attire, along with the others. They then go and wait outside the school library, which is on the floor below and wait to be called by a prefect to be beaten, gym shorts down, on the bare. The original tariff for all offences was six cuts of cane on the bare.”

“However some ten years ago MAC decided that six strokes were not enough for the boys to feel adequate retribution, as distinct from correction, for their sins. So he upped the standard tariff for all offences to a maximum of 12 cuts on the bare, which is, as I assume you are aware, the maximum punishment presently allowed by the Board of Governors. Of course, de facto, 12 cuts became the standard tariff, and are today what all boys expect, whenever they are beaten. I should, perhaps, add that there are certain opinions, including mine, which do not agree with this one-size-fits-all approach to corporal punishment.”

“So there you have the complete picture, Headmaster. You have inherited a corporal punishment infrastructure, with some aspects of which you may not agree entirely, but which is tried and tested and works; it controls the worst aspects of a boy’s nature. And before I forget, MAC, your predecessor, considered that each individual housemaster was sovereign in his house and, therefore, he did not interfere with the disciplinary dispositions in individual houses.”

“I can tell you definitely, as the oldest member of your staff and as the longest standing of your six housemasters. and Deputy Headmaster of this school, that other than you, I am the only master still to use the birch, which I do on a regular basis, if I feel the offence merits it, which, alas, it often does. The other five housemasters have all voluntarily relinquished the birch in favour of the cane, which in all the individual houses, including mine, I can assure you, is never silent for long. Rest assured, Headmaster, that the boys are controlled in their individual houses as strictly as they are during the day in class.”

CHAPTER 4

As a result of this discussion, the Headmaster saw that he did not need to make many changes to render the punishment system at Churton perfect in his eyes. Who was he, given his sadistic penchant for beating boys’ naked arses, to object to a twelve stroke, one-size-fits-all approach, in which generations of boys, no matter what their offence, had tacitly accepted that they would automatically receive twelve parallel cuts of the cane across their bare arses. In spite of his love of applying the cane, to a boy’ s bare arse, the Headmaster knew that he basically agreed with the words of W. S .Gilbert, when he wrote, in the comic opera, The Mikado, the much quoted line: Let the punishment fit the crime.

Given his propensity for beating boys’ naked arses, he had no intention of back-tracking on the status quo of twelve cuts of the cane whatever the offence. Frankly, he was relieved that his predecessor, whom he had never met, but who was obviously a man after his own heart, had had the guts, some fifteen or so years ago, to double the tariff, from its legendary level, know as six of the best, to its present, almost criminal level, of twelve swingeing cuts on the bare. But he had done so; and it had been accepted as the new norm by the Board of Governors, but, apparently, also, without a murmur of complaint from the beneficiaries (sic) of the change: the boys themselves.

The dilemma he now faced was how to build on this already excessive schedule, to make the punishment commensurate with the misdemeanour, given the limitations imposed by the Board of Governors; a norm, which even he himself thought was exaggeratedly draconian in its severity, and so he diligently read school rules defining the limits of corporal punishment, which said quite clearly:

Boys, committing an offence or a breach of the School’s rules requiring correction for the error of their ways, shall be subject to a beating with a traditional, rattan punishment cane applied, by an authorised person, to their bare buttocks. For one given offence, no boy must be subjected to more than twelve strokes of the cane.

There was no mention of the birch; nor was there any obligation for every offending boy to be given the twelve cuts for any multiple offences. Nor was there any specification as to the mode of delivery of the punishment. In fact the twelve cut, parallel beating had become the default option: the cure-all remedy for all ills. It was accepted by everyone, including the boys, whose arses were to suffer from it, as part and parcel of the daily life at Churton: something they had to bear, in exchange for receiving a first class education. The Headmaster saw that he could drive a horse and cart through the loosely worded regulation. However, given his love of beating boys’ arses, which provided him with the sole sexual excitement in his otherwise solitary, celibate life, he had no intention of upsetting the apple cart; merely of rearranging the apples.

What he intended to do, was to let sleeping dogs lie; to allow the over-the-top twelve cut beating at Churton to stand as a monument to Saint Augustus, the previous Headmaster, who was hailed generally in the public school community, as the most influential thinker on the question of corporal punishment in public schools in the last thirty years. His fame as a guru was essentially based on that one letter to The Public School Master Magazine, concerning the appropriate attire for boys to wear preparatory to a beaten, which had more or less been universally adapted by most other public schools. This all goes to show that in addition to manners, one simple idea can also, maketh man.

The first thing he did personally, whenever he beat a boy – a daily occurrence, thanks to the punishment note system – was to introduce the concept of making the severity of the punishment correspond to the gravity of the misdemeanour. Twelve parallel cuts, hitherto the considered the automatic default option, almost engraved in stone, had to be considered as a flea bite. As many a boy could testify from his own personal experience, twelve parallel cuts with a cane, left his arse in utter excruciating agony.

But this was not nearly enough for the new Headmaster. He personally noted that there was no obligation, in the school rules, to apply the strokes parallel to a boy’s nether, rear anatomy. Considerable more pain could be delivered if strokes were doubled. By doubling is meant the overlaying of successive strokes on the same spot on a boy’s arse, progressively leading to a more painful outcome, the more strokes land on the same spot.

The first, and least painful of the doubling variants, was the so-called two-on-six option: consisting of six strokes given parallel, evenly spaced over a boy’s arse; followed by six strokes delivered in exactly the same places as the first six. And so it went on from there, becoming progressively ever more painful, via three-on-four, four-on-three, six-on-two, until finally arriving at the well-nigh hideously painful, unthinkable configuration of the twelve-on-one option: twelve swingeing strokes of the rattan cane, unimaginably painful, all applied in the same furrow on a boy’s naked arse. Even the Headmaster, in spite of his love of administering pain to any boy he was punishing, thought long and hard about this unbelievable painful option , which would leave the unfortunate victim with the feeling that his arse had been cut in two.

In a moment of rare compassion, the Headmaster showed a chink in his normally impenetrable armour. Hand in hand with his thinking on making the severity of the punishment proportionate to the offence, he decided that whatever the offence, a first-form, new boy should never receive more than six strokes of the cane. For the rest of the school, he left the standard tariff at twelve strokes of the cane. However, as boys discovered to their cost, the standard tariff was no longer automatically administered as twelve parallel strokes, but according to the to the judgment of the Headmaster as to the gravity of the offence, strokes were doubled, thereby causing more pain to the recipient of the beating. The boys quickly realised that the punishment regime under the new Headmaster was infinitely worse than under his predecessor, but there was nothing they could do but to grin and bear it.

The Headmaster introduced an important change aimed at tempering the enthusiasm with which even the mildest of boys, on his nomination to the rank of prefect, embraced the cane like long lost friend, as an adjunct to it arm, to be used reckless abandon on his schoolfellows, even for the most minor of offences, for which a verbal reprimand would have sufficed. He had seen this time and time again, in his twenty years as housemaster at Bishop Charles’s. So, now as Headmaster, in an attempt to calm the trigger-happy prefects, he limited their beatings to a grandly named Court of Prefects, which met in the school library and was allowed, only once a week at 4:30 on Friday afternoons, to beat the boys who had committed beatable offences during the preceding week.

The other thing he did was to consult it with the Chairman of the Board Governors, the irascible Colonel Hartley, that his reading of the only school rule to mention corporal punishment, was correct. As it only referred specifically to a maximum of twelve cuts of the cane for any one offence, his interpretation was, therefore, that he was free to birch a boy thoroughly, and then give him an additional maximum of twelve strokes of the cane, to reinforce the retributive longevity of the pain of the birch.

Colonel Hartley, being an ex-military man, was part of the flog ‘em and hang ‘em fraternity. As such, he readily agreed with the Headmaster’s interpretation of the only written rule governing corporal punishment, thus leaving the Headmaster; more or less free, to inflict on the boys of Churton, the most painfully draconian of beatings. It is unlikely that Colonel Hartley realised the power, with which he had endowed his new Headmaster, by giving him a free-hand, allowing him to birch and cane the boys of Churton. As new Chairman of the Board, Colonel Hartley had wished rapidly to make his mark at Churton. By allowing the Headmaster virtually carte blanche to birch and beat the boys at Churton, he had certainly had literally left his mark by proxy on the bare arses of countless generations of boys.

CHAPTER 5

The blood-bath – there is no other way accurately to describe the intensity of the beating of 30 boys, with which this story is concerned – happened to take place on the one and only Friday falling on the 13th day of the month in the year 1924, which happened to be in June.. Whether it was just happenstance or whether Friday 13th June 1924 was really an unlucky day, fuelled by the fear of the power of evil held by many, who, in the words of the estimable Dr. Dossey. have an irrational phobia associated with Friday the thirteenth, who knows? Suffice it to say that in the year 1924, that Friday fell but once on the thirteenth day of the month: Friday June 13th. And on that very day, a cataclysmic series of record-breaking beatings took place at Churton.

The one, single, solid, fact that 30 boys had been beaten on Friday 13th June 1924, was enough to give credence to the rumour, particularly among those, who had had the somewhat specious privilege of having their bare arses caressed by the cane that very day, that Friday the thirteenth was somehow cursed. As result of the cataclysmic beating of 30 boys in one fell swoop all the boys, who had been beaten that day, professed to have an irrational fear of Friday the thirteenth.

Every day, the number of boys available for the Headmaster to beat was uncertain, until the fatidic hour of 4:30 arrived, when, each weekday afternoon, the Headmaster opened his study door, to find out how many nervous boys, each clutching, in his hand, a hated punishment note, condemning him to that hallmark of every public school worth its salt: a painfully well-beaten arse, for the creation of which the Headmaster had quickly become justifiably famous.

On this Friday the 13th of June 1924th , there were among the ten young men standing there, only four, third-form boys, who had punishment notes, condemning them to a Headmaster’s beating. The other six young men, all aged 18, were upper-six-formers, who had had the audacious temerity to present themselves to their Headmaster, ostensibly for a beating, wearing their normal school outfits

Had they had the slightest common sense, they would have realised that their defiant act of lèse majesté, cocking a snook at one of most strictly enforced rules at Churton, would have the same effect on the Headmaster, as the waving a red rag in front of its nose, purportedly, has on a bull. In a word, the Headmaster was enraged at this recalcitrantly defiant behaviour. He resolved, there and then, to bring this group of six young men, who evidently thought that they were above the rules of the school, to heel; and in no uncertain terms either. Had they known what their Headmaster had in store for them, they would have been on their knees, begging for mercy.

So how did the Headmaster come to have a total of ten boys to beat that particular Friday? Or better said, four boys and six young men aged 18, who could no longer be considered as boys, who were now in the upper-sixth-form, in their final year at Churton, all hoping to go to Oxford or Cambridge in the autumn. Well, the explanation is quite simple.

The Headmaster had, that very Friday morning, gone by train into Hereford, where he had some business with his solicitor, with whom he subsequently lunched. Making his way back to the station, he passed by the Laughing Minstrel Public House, from which, to his utter horror and disgust, the six young Churtonians, all of whom he was, later that same day, to thrash within an inch of their lives, as the figurative expression has it, were being ejected by the landlord, from the premises onto the pavement, with the verbal admonishment from the landlord: “Sling yer hooks, young sirs and don’t ever think of coming back here neither. I don’t want no lah-di-dah types, like ye lot, upsetting my regular customers. I neither need nor want yer fancy money. And I can give yer a piece of advice; before any of ye think of entering any pub again; learn to hold yer drink; otherwise ye will find yerselves being regularly thrown out on yer ears. Now be off with ye all, before I call the police to lock the lot of ye up.”

It is difficult to say who was the more surprised: the Headmaster or the six lads. What was sure was that the Headmaster was furious. The six of them had cut classes for the day, in itself a serious offence. But to make matters worse, they had had the audacity, as bold as brass, to wear their distinctive school outfits, thereby identifying themselves as boys from Churton and bringing the name of the school into disrepute. The Headmaster was justifiably furious; a fury which was tempered somewhat, by the alluring prospect of being able to beat the naked arses of not one, but six young men, aged eighteen, later that same afternoon: a rare pleasure, indeed!

Even just thinking about the delicious prospect of beating six, relatively mature, bare arses, stimulated his cock, confirming, if such confirmation were really necessary, the strong, symbiotic relationship between corporal punishment and sexual arousal. In view of his inability to control his cock, which with precipitate eagerness of pleasure, to come, was already prematurely stiffening itself and emitting the first drops of precum, the Headmaster, was relieved to be able to sink back in the seat of in his first-class compartment, of which he was, thankfully, the only occupant, out of sight of the boys, who were travelling third-class.

On arrival at Great Churton station, he gave the boys a curt order to present themselves at his study at 4:30 that afternoon wearing the appropriate attire for the occasion, which said it all as to their fate. And, that is how the Headmaster came to have ten arses to beat on that particular Friday.

Turning now to the head- boy; Friday afternoon beatings were always an unknown quantity for him, as he never knew how many boys \

Thus, the head-boy could do nothing to foresee the number of demerit beatings might be expected on any given Friday. On an average Friday afternoon, the demerit boys numbered three or four, which added to the few boys, whom the head-boy intended to beat for other offences, gave average of five or six boys, whose arses were on the line to be caned that afternoon. However, when opened his study door that Friday 13th June 1924 to see what the wind had blown in, he was pleasantly surprised – for he, like many boys , when elevated to the level of prefect, with a mandate to cane his schoolfellows, had found he enjoyed enormously beating the hell of out of their schoolfellows bare arses, which he did on a daily basis without a sign of mercy – to see, in addition to the three boys, whom he had himself convoked for a caning, no less than seven boys, each clutching a demerit card in his hand, waiting nervously there.

The head-boy’s heart literally jumped for joy, at the sight of ten boys standing nervously there appropriately attired for the arse beating drama to follow, in which they would each, in turn, play the leading role. He would spend a pleasant hour as master of ceremonies, making each boy shed his shorts and present his bare buttocks to the agonisingly painful kiss of cane, which would, leave evidence of its painful passage in the form, twelve, livid, evenly spaced, parallel stripes, from the bottom of a lad’s back to the top of his legs. The ten boys awaiting their painful fate that mythical Friday the 13th day of June in the year 1924, had good reason to be nervous, for the present head-boy, the senior prefect at Churton, had established a formidable reputation among his schoolfellows, as being the hardest caner among the present group of prefects..

Those boys who had had the misfortune to experience beatings from both the Headmaster and the head-boy, judged the latter to be primus inter pares, the first among equals. However, one thing was certain, as any boy, who had had, what might best be described, as the very doubtful pleasure of having his bare arse beaten by the head-boy of Churton, would testify; the present incumbent of the post certainly knew how to deliver a well-beaten arse at a level levels bordering on perfection.

Coming now to the Court of Prefects, created by the newly appointed Headmaster; this had taken over the right of each individual prefect to beat his schoolfellows for the most piffling of offences. Under and edict from the Headmaster, no prefect would any longer, as had hitherto been the case, be able to beat a boy whenever he felt like it. Henceforth, any prefect wishing to see a boy beaten, would have to submit a written statement of his offences to the Council of the Court of Prefects, composed of the the six house captains, who then decided which boys had committed offences serious enough to justify a beating before the full Court of Prefect the following Friday afternoon.

The prefects initially felt they had been emasculated; robbed of what they considered their God-given right as prefects, to beat their schoolfellows at the drop of a hat. The prefects, whose wings had been severely clipped felt much the same as the masters had felt, way back in 1885, when, a new young Headmaster, named Mr. Augustus Caesar had forbidden them to beat boys in class and had introduced the punishment note system. Today almost 40 years later, that system had weathered the years and was still intact, supplying, as it had done over the years, the Headmaster with his daily flow of boys to beat.

For The Court of Prefects, given that there 18 prefects in a school of 480 boys, all as keen as mustard to beat the hell out of their fellow schoolmates arses, for even the slightest offence, to find, each Friday afternoon, 15-20 boys awaiting punishment by the Court was par for the course. The punishment routine conformed strictly to the one-size-fits-all tariff: twelve parallel cuts on the bare. The Court of Prefects dispensed its justice each Friday afternoon at 4:30, in the school library, which was cleared of other users, for what was normally, by far the most formidable beating session each week, in terms of the number of boys being caned.

The standard tariff set throughout the school; twelve parallel cuts on the bare, was delivered by the Court, with a junior cane for first-formers and with a senior cane for all others. The prefect, who had assigned the unfortunate boy whose arse was being beaten, was awarded the honour of delivering the first six strokes. The remaining six strokes were delivered by six different prefects, each of whom gave the unfortunate boy’s , by now agonisingly painful arse, one stroke, thus bringing the total up to the norm of twelve, allowed by the school rules.

To be invited to participate in a Prefect’s Court beating, an invitation, which no one could refuse to accept, was considered by most boys to be fate worse than death. Not only did the Friday contingent have to change into the appropriate attire in the changing room on the Via Dolorosa, which was on the floor above. The candidates for beating were beaten in the alphabetic order of their surnames, which led to long waits for those boys with surnames alphabetically disadvantaged in view of the weekly number of boys to be beaten; a wait which heighted the nervousness and anticipative fear of those outside, who could hear, across the closed door, the cane playing its viciously percussive music on the bare arse of their schoolmate, who was presently inside.

This was followed by the somewhat degrading spectacle of an oft tearful boy limping out of the library, on his way back upstairs to the changing room, to don again his normal school outfit. Many a boy, sporting an arse flaming with the long-lasting pain of the cane, gave thanks to the previous Headmaster for having the foresight to install the lavatory adjacent to the changing room. Originally designed for boys to relieve themselves prior to being beaten, it also offered immediate access to cold water, to bring at least temporary, palliative soothing to lad’s arse, suffering from the very real pain of the cane.

Once a boy was called in to face the full Court of Prefects, most of whom, figuratively put, were out for his blood, he faced the indignity of being forced to expose his all to the full conclave of 18 prefects. Boys, at boarding school, have little to hide from each other, showering naked, as they do daily, or after sports, with their schoolmates. But there is a world of difference between being naked in the presence of your schoolmates, when you are part of a crowd of naked boys and being made to expose alone, your sexual equipment and be visually tortured by the gaze of 18 prefects, most of whom are about to take great pleasure from seeing your naked arse beaten raw with a cane.

Prefects beatings, limited, by order of the new Headmaster to once week occurrences, at the Friday afternoon meeting of the Court of Prefects had soon become the highlight of the week, in a school were the cane was in daily use. The fact that all boys who had been selected for the final list to be beaten were to be beaten together, constituted the major blood-bath of the week. The Headmaster and the head-boy, both of whom beat between three and five arses on average each day, clearly beat a total of more boys each week, than the Friday beatings at the Court of Prefects. But it was the sheer number of boys beaten, which gave the Court of Prefects beating their abominably invidious but nevertheless somewhat attractive, epicaricacistic allure. A strong whiff of schadenfreude permeated Churton every Friday afternoon, when the Court of Prefects was in session. \

But what rendered the Court of Prefects beatings most spectacular was the fact that a large number of boys were beaten in a series each Friday afternoon. It cannot have escaped the notice of even the most unobservant of boys appearing to be beaten before the full Court of Prefects that virtually to a man, all of them were sexually aroused; the tenting of the crotch of their trousers showed this quite clearly. And so the Court of Prefects, Friday afternoon beatings took on an overtone of sex, which all bare arse beatings usually do, however much the prime mover wielding the cane might protest to the contrary; thus, confirming the strong relationship between homosexuality and corporal punishment, if indeed confirmation is necessary.

The Friday afternoon beatings by the Court of Prefects were each awaited with bated breath by the entire school. However it was temporarily displaced from its habitually pre-eminent position in the minds of the boys of Churton, by the events which occurred on that prophetically, fatal day, Friday, the 13th day of June 1924. That fatidic day, the all-time daily, beating record was set, with 30 boys across all ages, being thrashed, in groups of ten each, respectively, by the Headmaster, the head-boy and the Court of Prefects. What made the occasion so unusual is that the Court of Prefects found itself, that day, with only ten boys to thrash, a number well below the weekly average, whereas the Headmaster and the head-boy found themselves embarrassed with the rich harvest of ten arses each with which they had been showered; and to paraphrase slightly the books of Psalms 23:5, the felt that their cups were running over.

There was no question of the either the Headmaster or the head-boy not rising to the occasion, as the ten boys boys standing nervously outside the head-boy’s study were to find out. They were called in one by one and made to drop their shorts to have their bare arses thrashed with twelve parallel cuts of the cane As the head-boy, a secret sadist, enjoyed enormously beating the hell out of boys arses, they were, that day victims of his perversion. The boys each left his study so thoroughly well-beaten that they felt their arses would never feel normal again, once the excessive pain, they had endured, had dissipated itself. All in all, that Friday afternoon, the head-boy delivered 120 swingeing cuts of the cane to the naked arse of ten of his schoolmates: an all-time record.

That Friday afternoon, at exactly the same hour, the Headmaster’s group of ten boys to beat was totally exceptional, comprising as it did, four boys with punishment notes, which supplied his usual daily quota of cannon fodder and six upper-sixth-formers, whom he had almost tripped over on the pavement as they were being thrown out of a pub, during their strictly illicit trip to Hereford earlier that same day. He had immediately told them to return to Churton, but had not harangued them over their unauthorised excursion to Hereford, as he was too enraged by their outrageous behaviour. He had just told them very firmly and calmly to present themselves at his study at 4:30 the same afternoon, wearing the appropriate attire for the occasion, which said it all.

To his astonishment when he opened his study door to call in the first of the punishment-note-boys to face his somewhat painful, immediate destiny, he saw, to his utter astonishment that the six upper-sixth-formers had seen fit to ignore his implicit instructions about wearing appropriate attire and had the effrontery to ignore his instructions an had presented themselves, for they knew was punishment, wearing their normal school outfits. He was incensed by the behaviour of these six young men, who obviously considered themselves above obeying the orders of their Headmaster. However, they were brought back to the reality of their situation, in no uncertain terms, as the Headmaster, completely enraged by the flouting of his instructions, barked at them:

“Gentlemen, and I address the six of you, with the courtesy of an honorific, which your behaviour, observed by me earlier today and again just now, indicates that you are unworthy, when the Headmaster of the school to which you still belong, and which is responsible, in loco parentis, for your behaviour and safety, gives you an order, he expects it to be obeyed without question.”

“Now, earlier this afternoon, at the station in Hereford, I ordered you all to present yourselves at my study at 4:30 wearing the appropriate attire for the occasion, which, unless you are all as thick as two short planks, which I very much doubt, you must have been aware that I intended – and, in fact, do still intend – to beat you, for your disobedient actions, which are both numerous and serious.”

“Now, gentlemen, I am prepared to give you one last chance to redeem your ways and save yourselves from immediate expulsion from Churton. You will all immediately return your houses, find your P. E. shorts and vests and present yourselves back here at five o’clock at the latest; this time appropriately attired for a beating, which, in view of the serious nature of your offences, I can assure you will be extremely painful. If you choose to ignore this, let us call it, final offer of clemency, then do not doubt that you will all be immediately expelled from Churton and leave the premises of this school tomorrow, which would end your ambitions to go on to university next year. Think long and hard before you make such an irreversible decision, which will affect you for the rest of your lives.”

CHAPTER 6

They all looked nervous, which they had good cause to be, as the Headmaster, figuratively speaking, was out for their blood. Even though he had vented his spleen on the arses of the four boys, whom he had just flogged, he was still full of rage at the sixth formers. They had shown, by their actions that their arses were in need of a therapeutic shock, which necessitated a severe dose of the birch or the cane – or, as the six of them were about to find out – the birch followed immediately by the cane. The Headmaster had decided to exercise his prerogative, which he had discussed with the Chairman of the Board of Governors of Churton, which was to make the punishment fit the crime.

He did not agree with his predecessor’s approach, imposing a standard tariff of twelve cuts of the cane, applied parallel, no matter what the offence. However, as he was as a great believer as his predecessor in the benefits of corporal punishment to the recipient, he threw his own scruples to the wind and decided to exercise his sadistic streak to the full, as this which brought him the only sexual satisfaction in his life He had already beaten the four punishment- note-boys more than soundly; even though he knew, in his heart of hearts, that the punishment he was administering was disproportionate to the offences the boys had committed in class.. He told himself that he was merely upholding one of the key immutable rules of the school, which was accepted as the norm by everyone, the boys, who suffered, from its application, included. But he knew that was brainwashing himself into acceptance of a rule, which he knew was unjust in the interest of his own sadism.

The Headmaster had, therefore, decided to throw the book at the sixth formers, not only physically, but mentally as well. It was most unusual, at any headmasters’ floggings in most schools, to allow any individual from a group, all of whom were to be beaten, actually to present whilst their companions in crime were being punished. What normally happened was the whole group was shown into the headmaster’s study, where they would suffer a tirade of verbal chastisement together; but when it came to the actual act of beating, each boy was beaten in private.

However, the Headmaster of Churton on that fatidic Friday 13th June 1924 was so incensed by the bad behaviour of the sixth-formers, that he had other ideas. He showed the entire group of six young men, directly into the birching room and told them, perfunctorily, to remove their shorts and go and stand in line with their noses pressed firmly against the wall, exactly as if they were first formers; an utterly humiliating position for six young men, aged 18 plus, who were in their final year at Churton.

The act of showing them into the birching room had already put the fear of God into them, as none of them had thought of the possibility that they might be subject to ultimate punishment: submitting their naked arses to the legendary Churton maple birch, whose pain inducing properties were almost as famous, as was the concept of appropriate attire for boys awaiting a beating on the bare. It is safe to say that with a prospective birching in view and with the indignity of being made to stand in line, arses and cocks naked, with their noses pressed against the wall, the six of them were on the point of shitting bricks; and if they had known that the Headmaster intended to murder their arses with pain, they would metaphorically have done so.

What the Headmaster had decided to do was to make the punishment as severe as the school rules would allow, and as long drawn-out as possible, so that the six lads realised the enormity of their actions. He proposed to give each lad six strokes of the birch and then take, what might best be described as, a private masturbation pause. He knew from past experience that after an aggregate of 36 cuts of the birch, applied to a series of six naked, muscular, young buttocks, he himself would be so sexually aroused that he would need a break to allow him to relieve himself by jerking himself off in private and thereby enjoy the orgasm, which he felt he merited as compensation for his travails.

He subscribed wholeheartedly to the maxim: all work and no play, makes Jack a dull boy; so why not snatch a few moment of pleasure, from what was really hard work, in saving the six young men from their worst selves. That is, at least, what he told told himself; but deep down inside himself, he knew that he would enjoy giving vent tot his pent-up, sadistic streak in thrashing the hell out of six young men’s naked buttocks. The opportunity to thrash not one man’s, but six young men’s naked buttocks, was a gift from God, which he had every intention of exploiting to the full. The six, nervous young men waiting humiliatingly there, half naked, had no idea what they were in for. But the evident, seething wrath of their Headmaster promised the worst and he was clearly not in mood to disappoint them.

The first of the young men to be called to account, to answer for his sins, was strapping lad called Nathan Babcock; he possessed a pair of well-rounded buttocks just crying out to be punished – and for something else besides, which was never on the Headmaster’s agenda. Babcock nervously approached the birching frame, over which he was forced to kneel by Headmaster, who was already almost salivating at the sight of the naked, muscular, pristine, unmarked, buttocks, which he was shortly to have the extreme pleasure of shredding.

Babcock’s eyes meanwhile were glued permanently on the Churton maple birch, which was standing there, patiently waiting to be taken into the Headmaster’s very capable hands, when it would assume centre stage, and show off its paces, unleashing all its legendary, painful misery on his bare arse. Babcox could scarcely believe what was about to happen to him, as it would be the first time he had ever had the disagreeably painful experience of feeling the reputed, venomous qualities of the Churton maple birch across his bare arse.

However, the reality of his situation was brought home to him, with a vengeance, when the first stroke landed on his bare buttocks, taking his breath away. His first encounter, with the Churton birch, which when it was over, he hoped would also be his last, comprised six stroke, in total, after which he was told to resume his former position, with his nose pressed to the wall, ceding his place at the birching frame for its next victim.

And so it went on, until a total aggregate of 36 strokes of the birch had been given to the six lads, who were standing there, half-naked, with their noses once again pushed firmly against the wall, suffering the pain emanating from what, by any normal standards they already considered to be their well-punished arses. But these were not normal times; in view of the fact that the Headmaster had left them in suspense as to what the full extent of their punishment would be, they were asking themselves what the immediate future had in store for them. The facts that they were still standing there and that the Headmaster had announced ounce a fifteen minute pause, indicated that there was still more to come; but what exactly?

The Headmaster, inveterate flogger that he was, had barely been able to hold back his own climax, so sexually aroused had he become by the act of birching six well-muscled arses, one after the other; a unique experience for him, after 20 years of flogging boys’ arses as a schoolmaster. If he had not rushed off to his study, that huge, tumescent cup between his legs would have taken matters into its own hands and exploded into his trousers, with an emission of sperm enough to float a battleship. As it was, his immediate escape enabled him to save himself from an embarrassing situation and enjoy himself with a 15 minute pause in the beatings and massage his cock into a controlled orgasm; inasmuch as any orgasm can ever be said to be controlled; contrived and delayed, most definitely yes; but controlled never.

Feeling at again ease after his private masturbation session, the Headmaster returned to the birching room to break the bad news to the six lads, who were now hyper-nervous and whom he had kept waiting in agony, whilst he gratified himself for fifteen minutes. He told Babcock to resume his position over the birching frame, in words, which, for the first time revealed, obliquely, to all of them that their punishment was far from over. Layng thr hyperbole. o wth a shovel, and lying through his teeth he said:

“Babcock, if you would be good enough to resume your position over the birching frame, I will undertake the unpleasant task, which falls to me as your Headmaster, of completing your birching, which will conclude the first part of the severe punishment which, you and your classmates richly deserve for your monstrous misbehaviour earlier today. I can assure you, Babcock, that I take no pleasure at all, in beating you for your bad behaviour. However, as your Headmaster, I would be failing in my duty if I allowed such as incidents as occurred today to pass without correction. You have to learn, Babcock, that actions have consequences; in this case painful – indeed, I dare say, very painful consequences – for you; and when I say you, I mean all of you.”

This instruction, addressed to Babcock, was heard by his peer group, standing against the wall. It struck fear of the unknown into the hearts of all who heard it. They were all to receive an additional six swingeng cuts of the birch, to add to the intense pain, still raging in their backsides from their first encounter with the birch. Their only consolation was that the school rules specifically limited to a maximum twelve cuts of the cane, whatever the offence. Surely this applied to the birch too; or did it?

Then there was the fact that they had ignored the Headmaster’s specific instructions and had present themselves at his study, wearing their normal school outfits, inappropriate attire for a beating. Did this count as a second offence, for which they could justifiably be given a further twelve strokes of the birch? Little by little by little, their confidence that the school rules would protect them from further assaults on their naked arses, gradually ebbed way like a retreating tide, obeying its orders from the moon.

What was certain, after all six lads had received twelve cuts of, the birch was that the Headmaster was out for their blood and would, figuratively take no prisoners. He had laid on the birch with maximum vigour possible, almost ferociously, giving credence to the widely held belief that the birch was the undoubtedly the king, unrivalled, among all other punishment implements then used in schools. As the six lads were shortly to find out, the rattan cane, in the right hands – and the Headmaster had the right hands – was capable of imparting much more immediate damage than the birch and additionally, leaving the recipient with a longer term, excruciatingly painful souvenir of its passage.

The Headmaster’s cock behaved itself impeccably for the rest of the birching session, in which he delivered the balance of six cuts to each of the lads, leaving each of them with a very painful, twelve cut, well-birched arse, the likes of which none of them had experienced before today. As his cock was not stridently demanding a second masturbation break, the Headmaster pressed straight on with his twelve-cut caning session, on the principle: strike whilst the iron is hot.

Babcock, could not believe his ears and his heart sank to the soles of his feet, as the Headmaster told him, for the third time that afternoon, to resume his former position across the birching frame, with which he had become only too familiar. The Headmaster did not need to tell Babcock what was about to happen to him, as with a ghoulish sense of the macabre, he was already swishing a long and lissom rattan cane through the air, which said it all. Without being told. Babcock realised that his freshly birched, bare arse, which was already throbbing with a level of unimaginably excruciating pain, was about to be subjected to an unthinkable, further assault with the cane.

Babcock had never been a particularly obedient boy and as result of his frequent offences he had been a somewhat reluctant, but nevertheless, regular visitor to the old Headmaster’s, Mr. Augustus Caesar’s study, from which he knew the power of the cane to deliver pain, especially as beatings at Churton were always on the bare. He was therefore tremendously nervous as he took up again, his position over the birching frame and waited for the first stroke of the cane to deliver its ever painful message, to what he felt, quite justifiably, as his already exquisitely painful, well-birched arse. His would be the first time that he would experience the bite of the cane on his arse, which was continuously reminding him by releasing short stabs of extreme pain that it had been well and truly flogged just a few minutes ago.

When the first stroke fell, he was transported immediately to a level of pain, which relegated the old Headmaster’s beatings to an insignificant footnote of history. He could hardly believe that the rattan cane could deliver so much pain in one single stroke. The new Headmaster was evidently a devout believer in the apothegm that when it came to retribution for one’s sins: pain is the name of the game; and moreover, to judge from that first stroke, he practised what he believed in. Babcock could do nothing to stop the assault on his bare arse and had to attempt to grin and bear it, an expression, which he found practically impossible. Five more swingeing strokes followed, each worse than the previous one, before he was told to resume his place against wall and the next man in line took his place across the birching frame.

I was of some mental consolation to Babcock as he was standing there against the wall, nursing his massacred arse, that he was sharing his misery with his schoolmates, although it did nothing to ease the excruciating pain he was feeling as result of the Headmaster’s professionally efficient handiwork with the cane on his buttocks. H even went so far as to delude himself that the worst was over when, in fact, the worst was yet to come. Babcock almost fainted, as he heard the Headmaster order him, for the fourth time, within an hour, to resume his position over the birching frame.

This time the Headmaster addressed all six young men, on whom he had had inflicted, so far, the most exemplary of severe punishments ever handed out in the annals of Churton: “Gentlemen, you may think you may think you have been badly done by today. But before I conclude you punishment by giving each of you a final six strokes of the cane, allow me to say that in my twenty years as a school master, never have I seen a group of senior boys, young men in fact treat the rules of thge school, to which the belong, with such contempt.”

“You will each have received twelve strokes of the birch, followed by twelve strokes of of the senior cane, which is the maximum that the present rules of this school allow. I have to tell you, that I personally consider the punishment totally inadequate for your outrageous behaviour in Hereford today. You cut school and went into town without an exeat. You went went into a public house, which is also forbidden to any boy still at this school, even over the legal age of 18, which you all are, from which you were subsequently unceremoniously throw out, .due to your bad behaviour, when I found all six of you on the pavement. Heaven alone knows what might have happened, if I had not been passing by and brought you back to here to school.”

“Gentlemen, and I use the term reluctantly and with considerable circumspection, asking myself if it really applies to the six of you, you have together brought the name of this school into disrepute, by your bad behaviour in the centre of Hereford today, for which, as you are currently finding out, to your cost, you must suffer the painful consequences. Given your age, I find your actions in Hereford, earlier today, completely indefensible. Therefore, as your Headmaster, I consider it my duty to make these last six strokes, which I now intend to give each of you, as painful as possible, in order that now every time you sit down for the next fortnight, you will be reminded that bad behaviour has serious and painful consequences for its perpetrators.”

The six lads all uttered an inward sigh of relief. Although they were not looking forward to the last six strokes, at least the end to their suffering was in sight. Babcock, as ever, was the first in line, for what might best be defined, as the opening aria of the last act of a drama, which at least in the recipients’ minds, had taken on Wagnerian proportions. He resumed his place across the birching frame, trembling visibly like a leaf, at the thought of what was to come; and he was not to be disappointed in his gloomy pessimism,

There is a well-known idiomatic expression: hell hath no fury like woman scorned. Well, the Headmaster ran a close second to that woman, who was scorned, in his laying on of those final strokes of the cane to the six pair of buttocks. In its own way it was an event, comparable to the last act of Wagner’s opera, Götterdämmerung – The Twilight of the Gods. Although the Headmaster had expressed himself dissatisfied at the breadth of the beating allowed to him by the school rules, to which he strictly adhered, he did not stint himself on the vigour with which he delivered those final strokes, to the sixth-formers.

Finally it was all over and the six lads were allowed to put back on their shorts, a somewhat painful operation, as the Headmaster had spared neither them nor himself – nor, for that matter, the cane – in his effort to leave each of them with a truly well-beaten arse, to teach them of error of their ways and to remind them, for a good two weeks to come that the wages of sin were very, very painful at Churton and are best to be avoided. Before he dismissed the six of them, as tradition demanded, he offered each lad his hand, the very hand which had brought them all their painful woes. They all had the good grace to accept it firmly and verbally to thank him for having corrected them. In view of the devastated state of their arses, what they actually thought of him and his handiwork that day is not fit to be heard by the sensitive ears of readers of this story.

When dismissed by the Headmaster, they limped – all they could manage, after the recent assault with the birch and the cane on their bare buttocks – ostensibly to change back into their normal school outfits. In fact, what they did was to go into the adjacent lavatory, as had countless Churtonians, suffering from the same malady in the past, and, no doubt would continue to do for the same purpose in future, in an attempt to ease the pain raging in their buttocks, with cold water. This was the first opportunity each boy had had to examine the damage the Headmaster had done to his classmates. They had all been present for the entire birchings and canings, but with their noses pushed firmly against the wall, they had heard, rather than seen the beatings.

They all had to admit, which they did rather grudgingly, that when it came to handling both the birch and the cane, the Headmaster could barely be faulted. Each of six pairs of buttocks, already lividly inflamed as a result of a thorough twelve cut birching, the Headmaster had overlaid twelve with twelve strokes the cane, each strictly parallel, the one to the other, ranging from the bottom of each victim’s back to the top of his legs; and, make no mistake; they were all true victims the Headmaster’s uncontrolled wrath, induced by his disgust at their behaviour, which by any standards had been inexcusably outrageous.

By the time the boys got to lavatory, each stripe, well defined by two raised tramlines, was already turning a livid, purplish, blue-black colour, punctuated, here and there, by flecks of blood, where the force of the cane had broken the skin. The six boys realised that each of their arses had been subjected to an act of fustigation at the severest and most sophisticated of artistic levels; an act, in which, given searing quality of the extreme pain to which they had been subjected and from which they were now still suffering, they would rather not have participated. To sum up their situation, they were each the-not-so-proud-possessor of that painfully unwelcome hallmark of an English public school flogging: a well birched and beaten arse.

It remained for Babcock to sum up the appearance of their backsides, by saying: “You know, my friends, our arses look for all the world like bloodstained, corrugated cardboard.” An image, which was to be endorsed by their un-flogged peer group, in the traditional post-beating viewing later that same evening. However, the post-flogging viewers all felt a frisson of fear run down their spines as they all were individually gripped by the depressing feeling that there, but for the grace of God, go I.

That post-beating viewing of the damage he had wrought on the arses of a group of senior boys enhanced tenfold the new Headmaster’s image as an unrelenting martinet, from whose depredations, no boy, however senior, was safe. Gone were the good-old-days, when even lower sixth formers were considered too old to be beaten and the cane was used only on younger boys to encourage them to behave correctly, as all young gentlemen should. Henceforth, given what had just happened to six upper-sixth formers, permanent open season, at least during term time, had evidently been declared by the Headmaster on all boys, no matter what their age. As the Latin proverb succinctly puts it: nunc caveant omnes pueri – let all boys beware, from now on,

But what of the Headmaster when he finally withdrew to his own private quarters, having sexually aroused himself to fever pitch by the flogging of six lusciously attractive arses sported by senior boys? Earlier that same day, he had been fortunate enough to light on the group in Hereford,, whose behaviour had been so outrageous as to justify the severest of punishments. He had thoroughly enjoyed flogging the six of them, as the the idiom hyperbolically puts it, within an inch of their lives, which had allowed him to indulge his greatest sexual pleasure: flogging the naked, muscular arses of young men, a secret perversion which he divulged to no one, although though he knew in his heart of hearts that he was a sadist, who enjoyed inflicting physical pain on his charges, as did many did many other of his colleagues in the teaching profession in public schools.

He had planned to make the punishments today as painful and as long drawn out as possible, which is why he had delivered two sets of six strokes to each boy with the birch, followed a similar two phased approach with a senior cane. The entire 24 strokes to each boy had been delivered on the bare, as was the traditional custom at Churton. However he had reckoned without the insurrection of that well-named piece of uncontrollable flesh between his legs, casually known as his cock. He was personally so sexually aroused by the prospect of a 144 total stroke flogging, which he would have the unique pleasure of sharing with no one, but administering himself. However, after the first round of six cuts of the birch to each of the boys, he realised that he would have to yield to the urgent demands of his cock, which was which was threatening to explode into orgasm there and then. He had, therefore had to call a halt to the proceedings and had been forced to take himself off to his private quarters, in an attempt to palliate his own sexual arousal, leaving the boys half naked, with their noses pushed firmly against the wall, in a state of suspended animation, wondering what was to come next. Luckily his own hand induced orgasm calmed his libido adequately and he was able to complete the rest of the beating without any further interruption.

Now alone in his private apartment, in the aftermath of what should have been the most satisfying experience of his career, given his proclivity for whacking boys’ arses, he felt unusually lonely, with only his five fingered lover to bring him the sexual relief, which he now so desperately craved. One could almost have forgiven him – but not quite – if had caved in to his innermost, basic demands and buggered one of the delectable arses which he had so thoroughly thrashed. But he had not; and now alone, as he was, and as he had been, on numerous similar occasions during his life, he had to rely on solitary masturbation for his own relief,

The only bright side to this affair was that as the prime-mover in this record-setting marathon of severe beatings, he emerged, in the eyes of the present complement of boys enrolled at Churton, as one of the world’s worst persons; a man feared by one and all, including the boys in the sixth form, who realised that their own arses were no longer safe from the depredations of the cane. Certainly, a negative image, but one, which was, nevertheless, cherished by him, the person, on whom it was bestowed.

EPILOGUE

Whether or not the exceptional number of the beating of 30 boys that took place at Churton on Friday 13th June 1924 were linked by fate to the irrefutable fact that they did occur on a Friday, which just happened to fall on the thirteenth day of the month. The only thing that is sure I that three groups ten boys each were beaten, respectively, by the Headmaster, the head-boy, and the Court of Prefects. That day, an all-time record was set; 30 boys were beaten, a record which still stands unbroken today.

Readers of this somewhat apocryphal story must ask themselves if they believe that it was a higher power or just happenstance, which took the Headmaster to Hereford that day, thereby augmenting the number of arses, from its level of four to ten, requiring his attention that very afternoon.

And was it also fate or happenstance ,when the head-boy opened his door to see what the wind had blown in by way of demerit boys, whose arses demanded his immediate attention, to find, instead of the usual two or three demerit boys, standing nervously there waiting to be beaten, he was surprised to find no less than eight victims of the demerit system. With two boys, whom he had himself caught running in the corridor, whom he had already ordered to see him that afternoon to be beaten for their misdeeds, he had the pleasant anticipative certainty of seeing his beating load rise to ten boys that afternoon.

Like the Headmaster, he was looking forward enormously to being able to vent his own slightly sadistic spleen, on the arses of ten boys, all of whom deserved to be beaten. That fact appeased his ever-present, nagging conscience, which reminded him each time he addressed some boy’s arse with the cane, for an offence which did not merit a beating, as he often did, that he was, deep down, a closet sadist.

Did he believe that fate had had anything to do with the increase in the number of boys requiring is attention that afternoon? No, not at all! He was a great believer that it was chance which had provided him with so many supplementary demerit arses to beat that particular Friday and had nothing to do with the fact that it was Friday the 13th of June. After all, on every Friday afternoon, it was part of his standard duty to beat those boys, who had accumulated a total of ten demerit marks during the week, and who were honour-bound to present themselves voluntarily to him for punishment; for which gift he was ever grateful. I was just the luck of the draw that he was so favoured this particular Friday. The head-boy, was not one to look a gift horse in the mouth; and so as he surveyed the nervous group of boys at is door he looked forward to a pleasant hour, wielding the cane.

Was it by chance or did fate have a hand in the restrained group of ten boys summoned to appear before the Court of Prefects that day? As the prefects were allowed to beat only once a week on Friday afternoons, there was normally a greater number of boys, each waiting to meet his own individual Waterloo at the combined hands of the prefects who as public schoolboys boys often do, when given power to punish their classmates, exercised it to excess. It was for that reason the Headmaster had severely limited their power to beat, restricting it to the Court of Prefects which met, to dispense what passed for justice once a week only, each Friday afternoon.

The restrictive measure had been a mitigated success, in the sense that it had diminished slightly the number of beatings by each individual prefect, regrouping them into what had become the weekly occasion of mass slaughter at the Court of Prefects each Friday afternoon. Given that there were 18 prefects, all looking out for the slightest excuse to beat one of their schoolfellows, in a school numbering 480 boys in total, they had no trouble at all in condemning between 15 and 20 defendants each week to appear before the Court of Prefects each Friday afternoon, which acted as judge, jury and executioner.

Any boy, condemned to appear before the Court of Prefects, never left without his arse having been well-beaten, in the best English public school tradition. There was, however an important difference between a beating by the Headmaster or the head-boy and a beating delivered by the Court of Prefects. The Court of Prefects, in the interest of fairness to its 18 members, had adopted what might best be described as a compare and contrast mode of administering what, as the school rules defined as up to twelve parallel cuts of the cane on the bare, for anyone offence, which had become twelve parallel cuts any time a boy was beaten no matter who wielded the cane.

The approach of the Court of Prefects was unique. The prefect who had assigned the defendant to appear before the Court, was awarded first six strokes of the cane; then each of six prefects, selected, by a somewhat complicated formula, from the remaining group of 17 prefects, was permitted to give the defendant one stroke, bringing his the total beating up to twelve strokes, the statutory maximum allowed by the then school rules. There was some grumbling among the defendants that the system encouraged the prefects giving one stroke each, to exceed their mandate, by increasing fury, with which they delivered their one stroke, in order to ensure that they were not outdone by their immediate predecessor.

Reader will, by now have realised that the term, defendant, was used rather loosely, as there was no defence. It was a done deal that each boy to appear before the Court of Prefects was assured of having his arse well and truly beaten, before he was allowed to rejoin his schoolfellows to show off his stripes. In view of the competitive spirit inevitably existing among the prefects, not to be the one who was considered the weakest in his handling of the cane, the Court of Prefects rapidly became the most feared place to visit on Friday afternoons, as each prefect strove to outdo the others. The system also added to the mental anguish of those boys assigned to attend the Court earlier in the week; they had wait until Friday afternoon to receive the painful comeuppance for their sins.

All of this does not explain the fact that in the week ending on Friday afternoon of the 13th of June 1924, the 18 prefects had managed to find only ten boys to beat at The Court of Prefects meeting. Readers must make of this what they will; but the author of this story, a firm realist, knows what he thinks. The only concrete fact is that the three principal dispensers of justice that fatal day – the Headmaster, the head-boy, and The Court of Prefects – each contributed ten boys to the all time record of a total of 30 boys beaten on a single day at Churton; a record, which stood unbroken, almost eighty years after it was established, through three more Headmasters, until corporal punishment was abolished by law in 1999,.

Before the make up their own minds, readers of this story might like to reflect on the fact that the 30 boys, whose arses were subjected to the onslaught described in this story, all became devout paraskevideketriaphobians, a belief they held for the rest of their lives; but then most people believe in a some sort of God or Gods, of whom there is no concrete proof of their existence.

AFTERNOTE

Britain’s definitive departure from the EEC, almost exactly a century after the events in this story occurred, has given rise to a lobby, supported by, leading public schools, led, by the present Headmaster of Churton, to reinstate corporal punishment by law in the UK, if not generally, then at least in public schools, where it was long considered an indispensible adjunct to the British system of public school education. If this petition is successful, there is some possibility that the record of 30 boys beaten in one day at Churton, might, on day, well be overturned.

THE END