The Erotic Consequences of Brexit

The Erotic Consequences of Brexit

AD 2022: Vivat Brexit Britanniae! 

Welcome Back Cane & Birch!

A Series of four short homoerotic  stories

by Jason Land

Foreword

My regular readers will all be well aware of the fact that my stories tend to be rather long, This, my latest offering is no exception and runs in total to some 43,000+ words. Set in the near future in post Brexit Britain, it explores how four different establishments react and adapt themselves to the latest law, which once again allows corporal punishment to be used.  Although all four stories address the same theme, they are each individual, stand-alone pieces and can be read quite independently; so readers do not need to wade through the whole lot at one sitting but can read one story at a time and at their leisure as and when they wish.  Each segment is clearly titled so that readers can find their way around. So just read the introductory remarks and then take your pick by scrolling to the appropriate title through the text.

The four segments are as follows:-

North London Magistrates Court

Grimthorpe Reformatory for Older Boys

Rigby School

HMS Clarion - Naval Cadet Training Ship

AD 2022 - WELCOME BACK CANE AND BIRCH

In spite of our diminished international status at the present time, we Brits can be justly proud of the legacy which we have, to date, left the world.  Our greatest achievement has been to make English, the language of a small island located just off the European mainland, the lingua franca of the entire world.  I often tell people that they should be grateful that we Brits had our moment of glory at the time the world was colonised by Europeans – and mainly by us Brits. Just imagine what the world would have been lumbered with if the Chinese had had their day of glory then and had diffused their language left right and centre.  It really does not bear thinking about what the world would have been lumbered with!

And then there is our vital contribution to gastronomy: free flowing table salt; you know it’s that stuff you fill the salt shaker with and which never clogs the hole.  You must all have experienced how infuriating things are on the continent, where this culinary miracle had not, until recently, been adopted, and where the benighted people have had to resort to putting grains of rice in the salt shaker to keep the stuff mobile. Of course they do not help themselves much either in that they mistakenly put the salt in a shaker with multiple small holes rather than with the one sensible central hole as in Britain. The shaker with one hole they misguidedly use for pepper, which ensures that you get great gobbets of that condiment on your food rather than the gentle waft which is all that is needed. And then they have the nerve to say that we Brits don’t understand food. Is there any wonder with such attitudes and practices that we Brits voted to leave the EU on June 23 2016?

But then we come to corporal punishment, originally a traditional British speciality at all levels of society and one which we introduced to the locals as we colonised the world in earlier times.  Alas as we allowed ourselves to be seduced into joining what is today called the European Union, we aligned ourselves with the rest of Europe and outlawed – not without vociferous protest from certain supporters I might add – our hitherto regular and vigorous use of the cane and birch. At first their use was abandoned in state schools; but by 1998 public schools were also obliged by law to stop using the cane and other such instruments of punishment. Although in fact most public schools had by then voluntarily stopped using the cane, mainly due to peer pressure, a few stalwart old style establishments persisted right until the last day when the law came into force.  So Britain had finally aligned itself with Europe; corporal punishment, once the ultimate act of discipline had become a no-no and was not to be used on anyone ever again, however much they deserved a good thrashing.

That is how things stood in the year 2016, when we the British people voted in a referendum to have done with the interference and left the European Union to steer our own ship; so now some years later, in the year 2022, we are completely free of outside meddling in our affairs.  Even as part of the EU, there had still been a strong lobby in the UK, mainly from the public schools, to allow corporal punishment still to be used. Not surprisingly, once more on our own and free from European strictures, that lobby’s voice became deafening. Crime had risen in the streets; there was little discipline in the schools anymore; the young generation had no respect either for people or property and even such keen disciplinarians as the army and navy training establishments were at a loss to know what to do to keep their delinquent cadets in line. And with no threat of physical pain hanging over their heads like a sword of Damocles, young tearaways, in all walks of life, simply did as they wished in the full knowledge that nothing much would happen to them.

And so in the year 2022 the government of the UK, by more or less universal acclaim from the general populace, reintroduced corporal punishment in an act of parliament entitled, most appropriately and with the imagination which one so often associates with the Government’s proclamations: The Reintroduction of Corporal Punishment Act 2022. The act was wordy and complicated, but essentially gave free rein to schools, magistrates, reform institutions, prisons, and the army and navy to employ corporal punishment to keep order and punish wrongdoers. It was hailed by all and sundry as a step in the right direction to put some order into what had become an increasingly lawless society. It should be noted that many of our erstwhile colonies, now independent, had never relinquished the use of the cane, introduced them by their British colonisers and wondered why on earth we had ever dropped its use. Add to this the initial begrudging acceptance that gay people also had the same rights as their heterosexual homologues, the scence was set for the sort of activities which the present four stories present.

So, here, with no further ado, the first of my four short stories based on what happened after Brexit.

North London Magistrates Young Persons Court

Colonel Benjamin. W. Wheatley (retired) 

Head Magistrate

What used to be known as Juvenile Courts had had their name modified by the latest legislation to take account of the fact such courts now deal with offenders up to twenty years of age. As you might well imagine, the North London Magistrates Young Persons Court was a busy place. Its catchment area covered several of London’s most depressed areas and as such was a rich source of young delinquents who took delight in any and all forms of antisocial behaviour; so it is not surprising that the Court had a regular throughput of misfits and delinquents of all sorts. The Court dealt with offences committed by young persons aged eleven to twenty; its main “clients” were males. The Head Magistrate, one Colonel Benjamin Wheatley, held a stipendiary position (he was paid a salary) whilst his two co-magistrates on the bench held unpaid positions; positions held by persons who thought it was “their duty” to do something “for the good of the community”. 

Colonel Wheatley had inherited his two co-workers when he was appointed to his present position in January 2021. Much to his eternal regret he was flanked left and right on the bench by two females; “two bloody interfering do-gooders” was how he thought of them, but, being a gentleman fully versed in the niceties of the hypocrisy of good manners, he never allowed his true feelings to show and so there was relative harmony on the bench when it came to making decisions. In fact, at the end of the day, by sheer force of personality, the Colonel usually got his own way and so decisions were pretty well always unanimous. However, there were times when his lady co-workers insisted on arguing the toss with him and on such occasions he heartily wished that they would take themselves off to the Women’s Institute and make jam or chutney or whatever it is that that organisation actually fostered.

It goes without saying that the two co-magistrates were both from the same social class as the Colonel himself and as such, none of them had any real understanding of the conditions under which people in the poorer areas lived and worked or of what motivated them to commit the crimes they did. And so, with the then regulations favouring leniency and rehabilitation and no corporal punishment of any kind allowed, the sort of sentences which the Court imposed were really very mild  and certainly not conducive to dissuading offenders to mend their ways, Occasionally a died-in-the-wool recidivist was sent off to an Approved School, essentially a junior prison, but the normal punishment was a fine and several  hours of  “community service” a concept dear to the hearts of the female magistrates but considered next to useless by the Colonel who was made of sterner stuff.

So it is not at all surprising that when in 2022 the government of the day finally took hold of its senses and decided that enough was enough and that the dissolute youth of the country had to be brought to heel, that the cane and the birch (but not the whip!) again found their place in English life. The Colonel was so overcome with joy at the news that he would at last have the means to teach the young tearaways who came before him a proper lesson, that he almost had an orgasm, so aroused had he become just at the homoerotic thought of seeing a lad’s naked arse being beaten. The Colonel had, in his earlier days, been in charge of discipline of his regiment and until the abolition of the cane had been an enthusiastic devotee and enforcer of corporal punishment among the eighteen-year-old cadets, many of whom found themselves having their naked arses flogged with a cane by some sadistic NCO whom the Major (as the Colonel then was) had nominated as punishment officer.

The Colonel was a bachelor, with all that that implied and in his earlier career in the army had never hesitated to indulge his sexual proclivities with like-minded fellow officers. He was also aware of the fact that the punishment officer often went far beyond his strict brief of administering the official beating and that buggery was quite a common sequel to a flogging. This, as a practising homosexual himself at that time, he fully understood; having beaten the enticing naked arse of some young, eighteen-year-old private, he could well see that the flagellator could not resist exercising his own cock on such a tempting prospect.

Buggery was forbidden by the army regulations, as were all homosexual practices; but rules were rules and the reality was often quite different; and so, as is so frequently the case, a blind eye was often turned on what was a strictly prohibited activity; often the poor recruit who had just been beaten, welcomed the unexpected and impromptu sequel; a little “anal stimulation” as it was generally known, proved great alleviator of the severe pain of which the poor sod had just suffered.  But there was, of course an additional factor which made illicit homosexual practices common in the army, especially among the young recruits.

More or less isolated from female company for much of the time, the young recruits released their sexual desires among themselves.  This was the only alternative to jerking oneself off and that, as we all know, is not the same as reaching orgasm by having sex with someone else; so lack of any females meant that anal sex among the cadets was a common, albeit forbidden, practice, on which a blind eye was turned. The only thing was not to get caught in the act by a commissioned officer, for that inevitably led to very painful consequences.

The Colonel, fully aware of all the ramifications that naked arse beatings in an all-male environment might bring with them, wondered how to arrange things for the best. Foremost to his thinking was the fact that he most fervently wanted to introduce the cane and the birch into his court and to be able to sentence young miscreants to formal beatings.  The new rules simply said that the cane and the birch could again be used at the discretion of the Senior Magistrate, but did not actually impose their use; there was no list of crimes and their appropriate punishment; everything was left to the discretion of the Magistrate.  The only restriction imposed by the new law was that no person could receive more than twenty-four cuts of either the cane or the birch on any one occasion. So the Colonel, along with countless other magistrates throughout the land, had more or less carte blanche to do as he pleased

The first thing that the Colonel saw he had to do was to overcome what he foresaw as the resistance of his two female colleagues on the bench.  In the event, it was much easier than he had envisaged.  Both ladies were of a certain age and from that social class that in earlier years had sent their sons to public schools where the cane and the birch had reigned supreme until their final prohibition in 1998; so beating of miscreants seemed perfectly acceptable to them. The Colonel heaved an internal sigh of relief that the first obstacle had been overcome; but at the same time he did wonder how much the two ladies knew about the sex-life of older boys at public schools.

The North London Magistrates’ Court was located in a detached building of the 1920s in a quiet street in North London. The Colonel had never explored the place other than the courtroom itself, the day-cells where defendants were held pending being called to the dock and the offices associated with the actual court itself. The place was staffed by a number of policemen and administrative staff who assured the smooth running of the operation.  Beneath the courtroom itself were a number of cells with beds and a shower room which could be used to hold young delinquents for a few days whilst awaiting transfer to an approved school. There was however also a large spacious punishment room with a waiting ante-room, neither of which had been used since the ban on corporal punishment over twenty years previously; and then there was a changing room with a shower room adjacent.

The Colonel found that the punishment room was equipped with a stout early twentieth century birching horse and two chairs with padded backs, top rails and retaining straps which were clearly intended for miscreants who were to be caned. The height of the back of each chair could be adjusted, thereby assuring that the naked arse presented by the unfortunate offender was always in the optimum position to receive the rod. The birching horse was also a seriously made professional piece of equipment. The unfortunate offender who had to submit his backside to the birch was bent cross a padded bar and his hands and feet were fastened with a set of restraining straps. The height of the bar over which he was bent could be adjusted by means of a simple screw mechanism so ensuring that the target arse was firmly presented in the correct position to be flogged. The front of the horse was also in padded leather and there was a space cut out to accommodate a prisoner’s genitalia to ensure that his sexual organs were not damaged in the beating process. 

The Colonel saw that all these bygone creations were in good condition and admired the attention to detail of the designers of the equipment; they had clearly intended to see that any offender received a proper thrashing. He opened a cupboard to find a large selection of rattan canes of all gauges and all in good condition. The only problem was where did the birches come from? He had every intention of sentencing miscreants to that most painful of punishments so a regular source had to be found as the birch has a short “shelf-life” – to use a modern term. So all in all in terms of equipment, the Court was practically ready to go.

In the event the problem with the supply of the birch resolved itself within the next few days; ever ready to exploit any new opportunity, several enterprising small companies, essentially in the school supplies business,  saw that the change in the law offered them a chance to re-enter the CP market and so they again began to offer the rattan cane, so beloved of English schools before the 1998 abolition and so detested by the thousands of English public schoolboys who had taken blows from that instrument across their naked  But there was now a new string to their bow; they could also supply long life birches: a miracle of human ingenuity made possible by the advent of plastics. From their promotional blurb, the long-life birch was the greatest breakthrough since sliced bread; and in many ways it was.

The problem with the birch, always considered at school level as being the ultimate punishment which could be inflicted on a boy, was that it had a very short useful life.  Made originally from twigs of the birch tree, hence its name, and then, as these proved too fragile, from hazel twigs before moving onto a variety of twiggy shoots from other species, the birch, to work its particular magic on some poor lad’s naked arse, needed to be used freshly made. Like a cut flower whose vase life even in water is limited, so it is too with the birch; the greenwood from which it is made starts drying out immediately after it has been cut and quickly and becomes brittle. For this reason, birches were usually kept in bucket of water to ensure that the twigs remained flexible; but in any establishment where the birch was in regular use, a new supply was needed on a weekly basis; with all the care in the world, the shelf life was very limited and the “use by” date came all too quickly. 

Most public schools had relied on one of their gardeners to fashion such instruments on a regular basis to ensure the freshness of supply. So feeble was the wood of many birches that when a boy was slated for twelve strokes, it was quite common to need two separate instruments due to their fragile nature; and when a twelve stroke birching was finished it was quite usual to find the floor around he birching stool littered with small fragments of twig which had broken off due to the force of he blows. And be under no illusion; when the birch was used, it was usually applied with as great a force as possible; a birching was not a simple swishing with a bundle of twigs, but a thorough flogging.

One might ask oneself why, when the birch was such a fickle instrument, it was so widely used. Well, it was generally agreed that a sound birching was just about the most painful experience one could visit on a school-boy without actually taking a whip to him. It was a traditional means of punishment in British public schools, where tradition counted for an awful lot; and so it hung there like a virtual Sword of Damocles, over the heads of the boys: the ultimate punishment which many of them, for their sins, experienced.

But because of the need for it to be freshly made, state schools, which seldom had the grounds and the staff to make birches themselves, rarely if ever used it. So use of the birch was essentially confined to public schools that had no objection at all to flogging their pupils to turn them into young gentlemen – or so the theory ran. Equally parents of public school boys were usually in favour of regular corporal punishment and had no objection at all to it being used on their offspring.

So the great breakthrough was the “synthetic birch” of which there were two competing versions. One was made of the sort of heavy grade semi-rigid plastic “wire” of the type commonly used in what we call garden strimmers.  I say wires because it really is too stiff to be a cord but it is still very flexible. Lengths of this wire were fixed into a handle and made a very useful alternative to the true birch.  The other version was made of sterner stuff.  There is available today, a series of flexible cables made of fine gauge steel wires spun together and covered in a polythene or some other plastic casing. Such cables are very flexible, do not kink. They are very strong and come in different calibres and are available by the meter in any do-it-yourself store today.  Usually to be found in the boats’ accessories section, these cables, with their metal cores, are considerably heavier than their plastic competitors and when fashioned into a “birch”, they are capable of imparting unbelievably excruciating pain to the receiver. At present “cable birches” as they are known, are available in varying lengths and in 2 and 4 mm calibres.

Both the plastic and cable birches have been tested for their efficacy at delivering pain and each different model, of which it goes without saying there are very many, is awarded a “pain index” on a scale of one to ten so that the purchaser can suit the rod to the purpose.  It has to be said that the cable birches even in their lighter 2mm version are devastatingly more effective than any birch made of freshly cut twigs. And so, the Colonel had simply to make his selection from a number of offers which came his way.  He finally selected two of each of the two calibres of cable birch available in the three-foot length. He chose the three-foot version as it was the longest available and it seemed to him that as the aim was to punish young offenders, the beating should be as thorough and painful as possible. With the longest length, he thought that when well applied, as he fully expected it to be, the free end of the cables would wrap themselves around the far flank of the supplicant’s buttocks and the wrongdoer would experience a truly “well beaten arse” at it was known in his early days.

The next problem was who would carry put the punishments and to this question the Colonel gave considerable thought. With his military background and having himself supervised canings of his young recruits in the now distant past, he wanted a very formal and judicial feel to the procedure. It was not enough to tell a young tearaway that he was to be thrashed; he should also have the experience of preparing himself for the awful event with strict formality. And then there was the question of who should actually wield the dreaded rod.

The Colonel wanted two young men of a muscular stature and physique and with a presence which struck the fear of God into their “clients”. He wanted two such persons to be present in the punishment room at the fatidic moment to take charge of the administration of the cane; both strong young men who would have no difficulty in controlling the lad they were to thrash.  There were enough regular policemen attached permanently to the Court to deal with all other aspects of handling the defendants, but the Colonel wanted the sentence to be carried out by a dedicated team of two young men, appointed specially for the purpose; he proposed to call them the Disciplinarians.  So the next task was to find and appoint two such young musclemen.

The Colonel learned that the local police force had a number of young officers who were dedicated body builders and regularly worked out in the police gymnasium. In fact, the Chief Superintendent and Head of that Precinct encouraged all his staff to take exercise seriously as he liked to think that he commanded one of the fittest groups in the country. So it was to the gym that the Colonel went to look over the present staff to see if there were any officers who might fit the profile he had in mind. He quickly focussed on two young policemen who were obviously close friends as they worked out together on their exercises, which they clearly enjoyed doing. 

The Colonel, who now as a non-practising closet homosexual, was secretly quite a connoisseur of the male physique and its associated accoutrements, followed the lads into the showers and saw that naked they were two most magnificent specimens of young manhood:  probably around twenty-five or twenty-six years old; but in the full flower early male maturity.   Both men had impressive muscles which they clearly liked showing off as he saw from the smartly cut casual clothes they wore when they dressed to leave. 

He also saw that the two young studs (for that was already how he thought of them, although it was not a word he would have uttered in polite company) were superbly equipped in that key department located between their legs, an area which had always been of tremendous attraction to him. The Colonel was in fact quite a keen observer of that part of the male anatomy and he saw, much to his approval, that both men had been cleanly circumcised and that their cocks were in each case well-proportioned and descended neatly over a pair of equally well-proportioned balls. 

It was the Colonel’s personal opinion that any man who was proud of and looked after his body, as these two clearly did, had a duty to make the very best of his crown jewels; so, in his eyes, nothing was so pleasing as a well-cut cock sitting above a well-defined pair of balls, held tight to the body in a neat scrotum. He just hated those long, dangly, uncut cocks, which hung limply there like a wet dishcloth accompanied by a pair of balls which dangled loosely beneath, in a scrotum resembling a wrinkled, deflated rubber balloon.

The Colonel, for all his outward appearance of belonging to the upper social establishment of British society, which of course he did, was, nevertheless, a very shrewd judge of men; and it was this ability to sniff out the facts of a situation, just by intuition, that led him to believe that this pair of young studs were probably a real pair of swingers who had much more going on between them than simply working out in the gym together; and as we shall see later, he was, of course right. But for now he felt confident that this pair would be ideal as his new Disciplinarians.  Was he right or wrong in his supposition and how did he find out if they were interested in the somewhat unique position he wanted to offer them?  Of course, in his position as a Magistrate, he was not a member of the police force and so the matter of getting this pair seconded to him had to be handle with some delicacy. All he could do was to suggest to the Chief Superintendent what he had in mind and hope that this latter would go along with his idea.

The Colonel arranged a meeting with the Chief Superintendent and somewhat delicately floated his idea.  He quickly discovered that the Superintendent was of much the same mind as he himself was.  He most vociferously made clear his view, that the change in the law was the most sensible act to be passed in recent years.

“The whole country is overrun with lawless young people, who have respect for neither persons nor property, whether private or public. How the government thought that we were supposed to keep these serial delinquents in order with the toothless weapons they gave us to do our job, only the lord above knows; community service, counselling, and so forth are next to useless. The convicted criminals, and let’s not mince words;  under age they may be, but they are nevertheless criminals, who have been laughing at us all these years., A good hiding is worth ten thousand words and I for one am heartily glad to welcome the reintroduction of corporal punishment with open arms.  Thank God that we voted for Brexit and freed ourselves from the suffocating molly-coddling ideas foisted upon us by our erstwhile European partners and can once again make our own laws as we see fit.”

“So as far as your ideas go I am totally with you. And if you ask me if the two young policemen whom you saw in the gym will be willing to take on the job of wielding the cane and the birch, well I can tell you here and now that the answer will be a resounding yes. Let me tell you that if I posted your job specification on the notice board, my entire staff would apply; they are all as fed up as are you and I with the situation.  So, I will put it to this pair, Vickers and Cromwell, I think you said were their names; and you are quite right; they are as thick as thieves, and I am sure that they will agree to the move. What I suggest is that they replace two of the police staff who are at present attached to the court; as they will not spend their entire time thrashing the arses of convicted delinquents, they can assume the standard duties associated with the running of that side of the Court department.”

“So there you have it Colonel; your wish is granted, subject to their acceptance which I am sure I shall get; all systems are go; as the saying has it. And let me wish you the very best of luck. Don’t allow yourself to get soft on the bench as we, the police, whose job it is to catch the offenders, will be looking to you from now on to see that they get their just deserts; by which I mean a sound thrashing in addition to whatever other sanctions the law allows you to impose.  You have a marvellous new tool in your hands sir; so use it generously to tan every hide that needs it.”

So the whole deal was more or less signed sealed and delivered.  The necessary equipment, in the form of canes and birches, was in place; the punishment room was ready to be put again into use and his two co-magistrates were much more willing than had he had ever thought possible at first sight, to adopt and enforce the new regulations concerning corporal punishment. The Colonel realised that although Vickers and Cromwell were to be transferred to the Court at his request, they would still report to the senior police constable of the Court.  And so he arranged an interview with him to outline his ideas and the reason for setting up a special two-man team called the Disciplinarians. Once again things went very smoothly; the Police Sergeant in charge of the court police contingent, was again one of the old school who was, like so many of his colleagues, totally fed up with the way things had deteriorated over the years and was happy to see some old fashioned discipline re-introduced.

He next had his first meeting with his two protégés, Vickers and Cromwell, who were, as the Chief Superintendent had predicted, more than happy to have been selected to wield the rods of justice.  But what did one call a person whose principal job was to beat the skin of young delinquents’ backsides?  The Colonel was such an admirer of the two young men he had selected that he already thought of them as his “studs”. Indeed, so great was his admiration for their physiques, that he felt himself hardening in his trousers just thinking about them. “Gentlemen, I admire your enthusiasm for that part of your duties where you will, how shall I put it, interface physically with the offenders; but neither of you has any experience either of being beaten yourself or of beating someone else. As someone who in his youth at public school was a frequent recipient of the cane and occasionally the birch, I can tell you, gentlemen, that it is a very painful and salutary experience, one which I hope when well administered here by this court will stop some of these young miscreants dead in their tracks.”

“I think, however, that before you actually apply your muscles to a real live offender, a little practice with both the cane and the birch is needed birch is needed; and in case you were wondering, all corporal punishment will be applied directly to the offender’s naked buttocks.  So in serious cases, it is customary to make the offender strip naked for his punishment to give him a sense of shame before he actually feels the bite of the rod on his naked flesh; however, for the majority younger offenders whose arses will doubtless frequently require a dose of your tender loving care, the normal practice is to make them step out of their trousers and underpants.  Meanwhile, I think it would be advisable if you could find some sort of dummy on which you could practise your techniques before actually moving on to a live offender. There is a certain art to applying the cane to a lad’s arse and a well beaten pair of buttocks shows a neat set of evenly spaced parallel cuts; that is the standard I expect from you two gentlemen as I wish this Court to have a reputation for the highest competence.”

The Court held its first session under which the new law on corporal punishment was in effect. There were six cases brought before the magistrates that day, of which five were done and dusted very quickly.  These cases involved a variety of first time offences such as vandalism, shop lifting and petty thievery; all involved young lads aged from fifteen to sixteen; all of whom pleaded guilty to the charges levelled against them. Before the new law, such young offenders would have been released on probation with a fine and a warning as there was really little more the Court could do. Now, however, with the ability to use the cane, a guilty plea or verdict could be coupled  to the fine and the probation with a sound thrashing. And so the three magistrates, led of course by the Colonel, imposed a twelve stroke caning on each of the five lads.  The Colonel had convinced his two colleagues on the bench that the standard tariff should be twelve cuts of the senior cane as a matter of course with the maximum number of cuts being limited to twenty-four at any one time.

Not surprisingly as each of the young lads was taken down from the dock to the holding cells, a look of terror and nervousness filled their faces.  None of them had any idea of the legal aspects ruling their cases and they were all shocked to hear that they were going to be beaten before being discharged. As the Colonel had every intention of observing the punishments himself, he had set a time table which held the offenders over into the afternoon, when after lunch, one after another, they would be taken to the punishment room and their sentences carried out. The lads were not informed that they would be caned on the bare buttocks or when; and so they were in a high state of apprehension and ignorance. Being left to stew in their own juice for several hours, not knowing exactly what was going to happen to them gave them food for thought and heightened the tension which they all felt.

The final case that day was much more serious. The defendant a young man of just eighteen called Thomas Makin, was a serial offender had been before the Court, for a variety of petty offences, no less than three times during the past twelve months; he was just one of those young men who could not keep himself out of trouble.  Judging by his known criminal activities to date, the lad was clearly intent of making crime his career and he had all the makings of what might be described as a “future old-lag”. Today he came face to face with the Colonel for the fourth time; but today he was for the first time accused of a truly serious offence. What he had done, and of this there was no doubt as there were a policeman and two independent witnesses to his act, was to seize the hand bag of a frail, eighty-year-old lady in a street market and in his haste to escape he had pushed her so hard, that she fell and broke her arm and had to be taken to hospital.  Makin was quickly caught, as one of the stall holders, a muscular young type, ran after him and brought him down with a rugby tackle.

Given the nature of his present misdemeanour, the magistrates all viewed his actions as very, very serious indeed.  Makin’s mother appeared in Court and had engaged a solicitor to defend him; but the facts, all substantiated by witnesses, spoke for themselves and the magistrates found him guilty as charged.  The Colonel summed up the case and passed sentence: “Young man, you have been before me four times in the last year and on this present occasion you have been found guilty of an extremely serious offence: theft with grievous bodily harm, which calls for the severest punishment. And to make matters worse young man, your victim was an old lady with no means of defending herself.  Even worse you have expressed absolutely no remorse whatsoever for your actions during the proceedings before this Court today.”

“In the past I have been lenient in the extreme with you, hoping that the shame of your court appearances would change your behaviour; but frankly your behaviour has become steadily worse. And so, Makin, I am today sentencing you to be remanded for twelve months in a state reformatory which caters only for senior offenders who have committed serious crimes.  Moreover, in view of the violent nature of your present crime, you will today before leaving this Court to be taken to a place of confinement, be given twelve strokes of the cable birch followed by six strokes of the senior cane.  Additionally, in an attempt to set you on the right road and to bring home to you in a very painful way that crime, and violent crime in particular, does not pay, you will after arrival at your place of confinement be given a further birching one month to the day after your arrival”

“Now Makin, do you have anything at all you wish to say before the bailiff takes you down to await your punishment?”

Makin looked contemptuously at the Colonel and said: “Fuck you judge; I don’t give a mother’s fuck for what you have just said so you can stuff it up your arsehole for all I care.”

The Colonel with his military background was no stranger to coarse language; but what Makin had just said, and in the presence of ladies, his own mother included, was totally outrageous. If anything had been calculated to raise the Colonel’s blood to the boiling point, then this was it. The bailiff’s hand was already on the boy’s shoulder to lead him down to the cells, but the Colonel motioned him to stop.

“Will the court recorder please note that the sentence which I have just passed on this delinquent is hereby withdrawn as I can see that I have been much too lenient with him.  Young man, you are without any doubt the most outrageous person I have ever had the misfortune to appear before me in my life.  In the light of your callous actions act which have brought you before us today, your total lack of any remorse for your actions and your latest utterly outrageous and vulgar outburst, you leave me with no alternative but to pass the most severe sentence on you which the law allows at present.”

“Therefore, before leaving this Court, you will be given fifteen strokes of the cable birch followed by nine strokes of the senior cane, for a total of twenty-four strokes in all, which is the maximum allowed under the present law. I wish it were more but it is not.  However, I shall instruct the Disciplinarians who will administer your punishment to lay on the strokes as severely as possible; you, young man, will learn what pain truly is before your transfer to the reformatory.  I have decided that you are such an intransigent, died-in-the-wool offender that you will now spend two full years in that institution, with no chance of remission for good behaviour: a concept which I suspect is anyway totally unknown to you.  Additionally, instead of one supplementary birching in the reformatory you will now receive three, each of fifteen strokes of the cable birch at monthly intervals. 

So young man, you are assured that your first few months in the reformatory will be unpleasant and painful, and allow me say that I cannot think of anyone more deserving than you. And let me just add one thing; if you continue with your truculent way at the reform school, you will spend a full two years with a perpetual sore bottom. Believe me boy, when I say that such places will not take any lip from the likes of you and the cane and the birch will be constant visitors to your backside, unless you mend your ways.  Take him down bailiff, and see that he is well controlled whilst he awaits his afternoon appointment.”

Makin’s mother looked horror stricken as she realised what was to happen to her son. She looked pleadingly towards the boy’s solicitor, her face begging for help; but the poor man could do nothing and simply raised his arms slightly and shrugged his shoulders in the classic gesture of defeat.  His client, whom he had unsuccessfully tried to defend, against overwhelming evidence of guilt, had chosen, by his actions to dig himself into a still deeper hole and there was now nothing anyone could do; the die was cast and Makin was for a very unpleasant and painful experience that very afternoon and the startt of a very uncomfortable two years in the reformatory.  The Colonel felt relieved that at the very least the young hooligan was off the street for two years; now armed with the return of corporal punishment, the reformatory might succeed in knocking some sense into the lad over the next two years.  What was sure was the fact that if he continued to use the sort of language he had just voiced, he would finish up with a very sore arse for the entire period of his incarceration. But having seen the boy’s record and heard his comments in Court, the Colonel was very sceptical that Makin was a soul to be saved. He saw the young man going from one petty crime to another and finishing up in a series of prison sentences most of his life.

Early that afternoon the Colonel went down to the lower level where the young offenders were all waiting to be punished, He found his two Disciplinarians ready and waiting in the punishment room. They were dressed for the occasion and looked muscularly frightening. Each of them wore a well cut, sleeveless, torso-hugging vest emblazoned with his name, Vickers or Cromwell; their splendid pectoral and stomach muscles were emphasised to perfection. Their trousers were moulded to the contours of their buttocks and the crotch was cut to emphasised the all-important genital package that each young man clearly had between his legs.  Finally, they each wearing a pair of those soft leather boots of the type that boxers wear in the rink.   All in all, the two young men looked stunningly sexy and the Colonel felt a stirring between his own legs just looking at the pair: Oh if only he were younger!  From the point of view of the young offenders whose arses they were about to thrash, they probably looked frighteningly menacing; as ever beauty was in the eyes of the beholder! The Colonel, however, was delighted with his choice for the two young studs (that was exactly how he thought of them: young studs) had every appearance of being exactly right for the job at hand; he could barely wait to see them in action.

The four young lads who were awaiting the cane, had been brought from the holding cells fully dressed and were seated on a bench in the in the corridor, supervised by two young policemen, but otherwise totally unrestrained. It was for all the world like a scene from earlier in the twentieth century, with public school boys lining up outside the headmaster’s study, waiting to have their backsides beaten for some offence or other.  But the difference was that those early public school boys were fully conversant, if that is the word, with the cane and the pain it produced; these boys in the early twenty-first century had no experience at all of corporal punishment as it had been abolished before they had been born.  This afternoon’s event was to be an eye-opener: a painful encounter with the new reality; it would be a horrible shock for all of them.  Unless someone has actually felt a well applied rod across one’s own naked arse, one has no idea: none at all, of just what a painful business a caning can be; but the first of the lads was just about to find out.

The bailiff arrived with the charge sheet and checked that the punishment room and its “staff” were ready.  Whilst he was in the room one of the two supervising officers asked the four lads if they would like to go and have a pee as the fatidic moment was arriving and he knew full well the effect that such an event could have on anyone awaiting punishment.  He told the lads to go and use the lavatory if they wished in order to avoid the embarrassment of wetting themselves when they were finally being beaten; all four took his advice and relieved the pressure on their bladders.

The bailiff returned, stood before the seated lads and reading from the charge sheet, said: “Arnold William Elliot, stand up. You have been sentenced to twelve strokes of the cane by this Court and the punishment will now be carried out. Step lively lad, and get into the room there.”  Elliott, the first of the four to go to his “execution” disappeared into the punishment room and the door was closed behind him. But the simple fact of the announcement that the first of the beatings was about to take place, had an electrifying effect on the other three lads waiting to be called. They had all been hoping against hope that something would happen and that they would escape; that the sentence had been just a bad dream. But now that the first of the four had gone into meet his fate, what had until then been their false hope, evaporated. Not surprisingly they were now all trembling and in a cold sweat with fear of the unknown; an unknown with which they were very soon to become painfully well acquainted.

The two Disciplinarians had decided between themselves how things would be arranged on this their maiden appearance wielding the rod of justice.  Vickers looked at Elliot and said: “Right lad, shoes, socks, trousers and underpants all off and bend across the back of the chair here.”

Now this was the first horrible shock for Elliott as he had had no idea until then that he was going to be beaten on his bare arse. “You don’t mean that you are going to cane me directly on my bare bum do you? I think that that is completely indecent and I refuse to accept it; there must be some mistake and there has to be a law against it. And besides I think it is totally wrong to me made to stand here showing “my private parts” (such delicate language from a young offender) to everyone; as I said it’s indecent.”

Vickers looked beadily at him and replied: “Look here young man, you are not here to negotiate terms; you will be beaten according to the rules laid down by this Court, which dictate that all punishments be applied to an offenders naked buttocks; so just resign yourself to the fact, young man, that you are going to get your naked arse beaten. And to set your mind at rest, we are not at all interested in your private parts as you call them, but merely in your backside.  So I repeat what I have just ordered you to do; take off your shoes, socks, pants and underwear and bend across the back of that chair. You now have ten seconds to comply after which, I you still insist in disobeying us, we shall strip you completely naked and put you across the chair ourselves. Is that clear enough lad?”

Poor Elliott; and who would not have some feeling for the lad, for it was truly a painfully horrible prospect which faced him, finally acquiesced and did as he had been told. Vickers fixed his wrists to the seat of the chair with the leather straps and cranked up the back so that Elliott’s feet were just about leaving the floor. As such Elliott was fully restrained in the perfect position to be caned. In spite of his complaints about exposing his private parts, his shirttails front and back had hidden pretty well everything from view until now. Vickers tucked the lad’s shirttail back under the back of his shirt to expose his buttocks; and well worth exposing and even admiring they were.  Elliott was a strong lad and had a very well-muscled and rounded pair of buttocks: virgin flesh hitherto untouched by a cane and presenting the most perfect target for Cromwell who was now brandishing a very flexible well knotted senior cane. In fact, Elliott was offering them, quite by chance a dream pair of buttocks to beat.  The Colonel had looked on approvingly at the proceedings so far and admired the firmness of Vicker’s in quashing Elliott’s complaint. Here was a marvellous opportunity for Cromwell to cut his teeth in his first attempt in the application of the cane; and was not to be disappointed.

“Relax your butt muscles and brace yourself, lad, as this is going to hurt.  You will now receive twelve stroke of the senior cane across your naked buttocks, as laid down by the court.”  With that, Cromwell laid the cane gently across the midpoint of the lad’s naked backside, tapped it gently on the unblemished skin a few times before raising it high above his head and bringing it down with extreme precision exactly in the middle of the lad’s arse.  The cane made a tremendous crack as it mated with its target: a crack audible to the three other lads seated outside awaiting their fate. Elliott took a deep breath and then, a split second later when he felt the excruciating pain of the cut, he let out a loud cry of agony. The cane which Cromwell had selected was long and flexible and its free end wrapped itself around Elliott’s far buttock, thereby imparting pain to the lad’s flanks, which ensured that he that he got full value from his tormentor. The Colonel saw that, beginner or not, Cromwell had delivered a stinging first blow and had raised an angry welt, which was already turning bright red.

Like a seasoned professional, Cromwell waited about ten seconds to allow Elliott fully to appreciate the excruciating pain the simple cane had delivered, before bringing it down again a second time in a cut exactly parallel to his maiden stroke; again perfectly judged and delivered, this second cut produced an even louder roar of pain from Elliott, pain which he could amply appreciate to the full as there was again a pause of ten seconds or so before Cromwell continued with his mission. And then at ten second intervals, Cromwell delivered a series of four parallel cuts, gradually progressing up the lad’s arse towards the bottom of his back.  By the time he had finished his six stroke delivery Elliott was howling loudly and begging him to stop, which in a way he did, as he now handed the cane over to his partner, Vickers. By this time with the energy Cromwell had put into his work he was sweating profusely and in one gesture, pulled off his sweat soaked vest exposing his magnificently bronzed, muscular torso. The Colonel was beside himself with delight at this act with its erotic overtones and had a hard time in controlling himself as he was sexually aroused by what he had witnessed.

As Cromwell handed over the cane, there was a few seconds pause in the proceedings and for a brief moment Elliott probably thought that his prayers had been answered and that the beating was to be curtailed to the initial six strokes. Alas he was soon to be disappointed, as Vickers now positioned himself on the other side of the young offender and applied the cane back-hand with just as much vigour and precision from that side as had Cromwell. From his opposing position, he saw the welts on the lad’s right flank and now placed six matching wrap-round cuts on the left flank of the lad’s buttocks. By a miracle of precision, which drew the Colonel’s admiration, the two young men between them had succeeded in applying all twelve cuts neatly parallel with no overlapping at all from top to bottom of Elliott’s arse.

By the time the beating was over, some five minutes had elapsed and Elliott was still stretched over the chair was in utter agony. The two young men had succeeded in giving him probably the most thorough beating possible with a cane, without actually drawing blood, although several of the cuts were on the edge.  Cromwell undid the straps on Elliott’s wrists and allowed him to stand up, which he did with great difficulty.  He was told to put back on his clothes and that he could then leave as he had discharged his punishment and there was no need to detain him any longer.  But the poor lad was so sore with the beating he had received that he asked if he could go back to the holding cell where he had waited and rest for a little while: a wish which was granted by the Colonel.

Elliott was so very sore that he could not bear to pull back on his underwear and trousers immediately; and so, all concern for the indignity of exposing his “private parts” to all and sundry now forgotten, he left the room carrying his clothes and made for the comfort of the cell, giving the three waiting lads a fine view of his backside. To put it crudely, but very graphically, when they saw Elliott’s arse which by now was colouring up in red and blue, with all twelve stripes clearly visible, the three of them were metaphorically shitting bricks; but more concretely one of them did wet himself with fear of what was to come.

The Bailiff read out the name of next defendant on the list, confirmed his sentence of twelve cuts of the cane and said: “In you go lad; be quick about it. We’ve still a lot to get through yet.”  So all three offenders were treated in exactly the same Elliott and all of them left the Court premises with agonisingly painful backsides and greatly humbled. By the time all four lads had been beaten, Vickers had also abandoned his vest and the two young disciplinarians stood there naked to the waist looking like two Greek Gods; at least that is what that connoisseur of the naked male figure, the Colonel thought.  In fact, in his heart of hearts, the Colonel would have been happy to see the two young studs strip completely naked to perform their duties; he would have been happy to heighten the erotic aspect which beating of naked arses arouses in so many.

But now was what the Colonel had labelled in his own mind “the main event of the day”: the exemplary (a word that the Colonel relished) punishment of Thomas Makin, prior to his transfer to a state reformatory for two years. As Makin, a serial offender, had been convicted of theft with grievous bodily harm and as he had grossly insulted the Colonel verbally, resulting in a large increase in the severity of his sentence, he had, until now been confined to a separate cell. He was now brought by the two supervisory police officers, each holding one of his arms, to the door of the punishment room, where the bailiff read out his punishment.  Cocky to the last, Makin let out another stream of filthy abuse aimed at anyone and everyone as he was led into the room.  He had not seen any of the four previous lads who had been beaten earlier and had no real idea of just what a horribly painful fate awaited him in just a few minutes. If he was surprised to see the two young Disciplinarians stripped to the waist waiting for him, his executioners so to speak, him he did not show it.

Following the Colonel’s verbal instructions, which were aimed at stripping any dignity from Makin, Vickers said: “Right lad, strip of and be quick about it, Put your clothes on the bench over there.”

This instruction was met by a torrent of verbal abuse from Makin, again peppered with swear words and filth, which concluded in his saying: “So you can fuck off the bloody lot of you; I am not stripping off for anyone and you won’t make me, so stuff that up your arseholes for a start.”

This was typical of the lad’s style but Vickers and Cromwell retained their calm whilst Vickers repeated the order and then added that either Makin strip off himself or they would do it for him.  Makin was spitting bricks by this time and in a torrent of vile invective, again flatly refused to obey. Now he was a well set up muscular lad, but had he given the matter the slightest thought, he would have seen that he was not a match for the two young studs who were about to thrash him. Vickers looked questioningly at the Colonel who simply gave a slight nod of approval.  Makin did not then realise what had hit him.  Cromwell went behind him and pulled his shirt off over his head then grabbed him around the waist allowing Cromwell to pull of the lad’s shoes and socks; in quick succession his belt was undone and his pants were off and the lad stood there naked apart from his briefs.

“Now,” said Vickers, “either you drop your briefs and show us your package, or we do it for you; the result is the same; it’s up to you.”

Defiant to that last, Makin said: “Fuck you; fuck this bloody court; fuck the police, fuck the lot of you.” This tirade would have gone on, but Vickers who was still behind Makin simply grabbed the lad’s briefs and wrenched them down, giving everyone present a fine view of what proved to be a massive package: Makin, though only eighteen years old was already hung like a horse with balls to match. As it was clear that Makin would cooperate on nothing, the two studs grabbed him by the arms, dragged him to the birching horse, where they strapped his ankles and wrists firmly in place; all this was accompanied by a continuous outburst of diarrhoeal verbal abuse from Makin. Finally, with the lad now totally immobilised, but not verbally, Cromwell cranked the mechanism to adjust Makin’s arse to the precise position and degree of tension for birching.

The Colonel spoke quietly to his two studs, and said: “This is unknown territory for all of us, with this new cable birch, which looks like a very potent instrument; so what I suggest is that you being with eight strokes of the 2mm calibre birch and that we then change to the 4mm calibre for the remaining seven cuts. And then with what, let us hope, is an evenly well birched backside, you can overlay with nine cuts of the cane to give the lad a well striped arse to show to the Warden of the reformatory where he is to spend the next two years of his life.  I intend this to be one of the most painful beatings ever and I can think of no one who is more deserving of it than this foulmouthed delinquent.  Perhaps after he has felt the pain of this first encounter with the birch he might mend his ways; but frankly I would not bet on it, from what I have seen to date.  So go to it and don’t hold back; if you break the skin so be it. Makin has got to be made to suffer for his actions and the new law has given us the means to achieve that objective for the first time in over twenty years.  Thank goodness that the government finally came to its senses and realised that this lawlessness had to be stopped.”

Cromwell picked up the 2mm birch swished it through the air which separated its six separate strands. Placing himself on Makin’s left, he raised the birch into the air and brought it down for the first stroke with all the force he could muster.  The birch strands separated into a broad fan as they mated with Makin’s arse and in one stroke covered about a quarter of the target area. The crack was frightening and Makin, in spite of his recalcitrance and braggadocio manner let out a sharp cry of pain. Then, with several seconds pause between each successive stroke, Cromwell went on systematically and methodically to cover the entire area of Makin’s buttocks with the birch. Makin’s protests became ever louder with each successive stroke until he was finally begging for mercy. By the time Cromwell’s ministrations were over, Makin’s backside and right flank were totally covered with the small cuts left by the birch; the cable birch was certainly a splendid instrument of punishment, but Makin’s ordeal was yet far from over.

There was a now a pause of a minute or so, after which Vickers took up the punishment with the 4mm cable birch, If the lighter instrument had been painful, this heavier grade version took pain to a totally different level and Makin sobbed and howled as stroke after stinging stroke landed on his already searing arse. When Vickers had finished, Makin’s backside was a reddened expanse of small welts, some of which were oozing a little blood where the skin had been broken as each strand of the birch had landed on his naked flesh. It was hard to imagine a more severe punishment, but the Colonel felt that this young tearaway deserved all he was getting. 

But it was not yet over, as Cromwell now picked up the cane and completed Makin’s penance by given him nine parallel cuts across his already throbbing backside.  When it was all over, Makin’s arse was what might be considered as a bench mark example of serious corporal punishment: an example by which all future beatings would be judged. The Colonel saw that his two young protégés, his two studs, had nothing at all to learn in the art of applying the cane and the birch, Makin’s arse was now deep red all over and lined with nine neat deep welts of the cane, already turning a purplish blue, with spots of blood punctuating the scene. As he looked with admiration at a job well done, the Colonel thought that if Makin did not now see that he had to mend his ways he was mad. 

By this time the Colonel need to relieve his own sexual feelings which had steadily built up to a climax over the past hour, so much so that the felt if he did not escape to the privacy of his own quarters, he would ejaculate into his trousers there and then. And so he discharged the bailiff and told his two studs to clear up, help Makin get dressed and when ready, hand the now sobbing lad over to the two officers to take him back to his cell.  “Do whatever you now deem necessary,” he said to the two, giving them a knowing look which said all.

Of course, the two young studs were as sexually aroused as had been the Colonel; and with his unspoken blessing, “Do whatever you now deem necessary” they did exactly what the Colonel had imagined they might do. Makin’s backside was a like a burning globe, but the lad had a meaty pair of buttocks which were still unbelievably inviting. And stretched as he was across the birching horse, there was little he could do the avoid what was the obvious sequel to the afternoon’s proceedings; so the young lad, not only experienced his first beating, but also lost his anal virginity to the two studs: each in turn gave Makin’s holes the benefit really good buggering; and both lads had the equipment to ensure that Makin’s first experience of anal sex was memorable.

Makin at first screamed blue murder but his voice fell on deaf ears. However, like so many young men who first experience anal sex in a somewhat brutal manner, after a few minutes Makin found that what was happening to him was really quite pleasant; it soothed the excruciating pain in his arse and the vigorous pounding as one cock after the other was thrust deep inside him was very stimulating. As each stud approached his climax and shot is cream all over Makin’s arse, his own considerable endowment became harder and harder until he too finally shot a huge stream of sperm over the birching horse. A little later, Makin emerged fully dressed and was handed over to the two waiting officers to be taken back to his cell; he spent the night there and the following morning was led to a minibus which was to take him to his unknown destination, the reformatory, where he was to spend the next two years of his life.  He shuddered as he reflected on the sentence that the Colonel had passed on him, for he now realised that the beating he had just taken was the first of several.  It was a very unhappy young man who climbed into the Black Maria that morning. 

Having relieved his own sexual tensions, the Colonel thought he would seek out his two studs, Vickers and Cromwell, to congratulate them on a first class, sterling, maiden performance. Presuming they would now be changing into their normal uniforms he made his way to the changing room. On entering he saw that two police uniforms were still hanging there and that the two studs were evidently in the showers washing away the sweat of their labours. Then he heard a certain number of grunts and muffled moans coming from the closed shower room so he opened the door very gently and looked in.

To his amazement and, it has to be added, to his infinite delight, he found Vickers and Cromwell totally naked in the unmistakable act of male copulation. Vickers was in the process of fucking his partner’s hole but with a vigour which took the Colonel’s breath away.  For a minute or so, the two young men did not see that they had a visitor. Vickers was giving an absolutely virtuoso performance of anal intercourse and as he watched, the Colonel saw how Vickers gradually increased both the amplitude and the force of his strokes as he rammed what had to be a nine-inch rock-hard shaft in and out of Cromwell’s anus. Suddenly as he watched, Vickers climaxed and withdrew his cock completely from Cromwell and, in a series of uncontrollable severe jerks, ejaculated a huge quantity of thick creamy sperm all over his partner’s buttocks. The Colonel saw that Cromwell had also arrived at orgasm more or less simultaneously and shot is load all over the floor.

Unsure for once of what to do, the Colonel finally took the bull by the horns and said “Bravo lads; that was one hell of a performance.”   The two young men suddenly surprised that they had an observer, swung around, giving the Colonel a full view of their magnificent sexual equipment, which as he had suspected, was generous: each lad was still sporting a nine-inch dead-straight erection from which some residual creamy cum was still oozing. Clearly totally embarrassed, the two of them did not know what to say; their first thought was that they were now going to be fired.  

But such a thought had never even crossed the Colonel’s mind. So he simply said: “Congratulations boys, on your stunning performance: it could not have been better. Now don’t let me interfere with you boys; just go on with what you were doing as you certainly deserve some play after your first brilliant performance in the punishment room. Let me just say that I truly admire your vigour; it quite takes me back to my early army day when I was your age.” 

The ambiguity of his remarks was not lost on the lads; to which performance and to what vigour was he referring exactly? The vigorous way they had thrashed the five lads? Or the equally vigorous way in which he had caught them fucking each other? Which was the brilliant performance alluded to? A hint came in his last comment before he left them to their own devices. He looked smilingly at the two of them and added: “It may be wishful thinking on my part, but I don’t suppose that there might be a possibility….” And as his words faded away, he left and it suddenly dawned upon the two lads what it was he wanted.

Grimthorpe Reformatory for Older Boys

John-Jacob Murdoch BSc: Warden:

No one welcomed the new law reinstating the use of corporal punishment in the United Kingdom more than Mr. John-Jacob Murdock the Warden of the Grimthorpe Reformatory for Older Boys. The attentive readers among you, will have noticed that the Warden’s parents had had him christened with hyphen joining together his two given names. Why? Well it was an affectation of his mother’s, who having heard the French address their male offspring by a double-barrelled first name such as Jean-Pierre, which was always used in full, decided that she would do the same. And so poor John, which he desperately wanted to be known as, or even as Jack, was always addressed, at least by his parents and close family, as John-Jacob.

Anyway, John-Jacob, in spite of an expensive public school education, had not managed to gain admission to Oxford or Cambridge; nor was he considered bright enough to apply for that other refuge of the upper classes: the civil service; and as he himself had no intention of settling for that other upper class refuge of last resort: the church; he finally had had to settle for a place at a minor provincial university, where he had read for a degree in physical education. As a totally non-academic person but one who was good at all physical disciplines and sport, he excelled at university and obtained a first class degree. As a boy, he had acquired a taste for corporal punishment when at school, where the crack of the cane landing on some poor lad’s naked arse was a sound familiar to everyone: some poor lad getting his arse beaten, whether justified or not, was more or less a daily event at his school and he had himself been on the receiving end of the cane more times than he cared to think many times; and, for his sins, on a few occasions, the birch.

However, even as a relatively mediocre student, he had nevertheless been elevated to the level of prefect in his final year and had exercised to the full the right of prefects to beat their fellow schoolmates.  Like pretty well all lads given such power, he exercised his right to the limit, so he became known by his rather unpleasant nickname, “The Murderer.” John-Jacob managed to find fault where none existed and many of his younger brethren were called to his study on some flimsy pretext or other and made to present their naked backsides for his attention; and make no mistake, John-Jacob was a dab-hand with the cane: six from him was not a laughing matter. But the main point of telling you all this is that John-Jacob really enjoyed beating a naked arse.

On leaving university as a new graduate he had had to find “gainful employment”; and his first post was a absolute plum, for as a young graduate he was appointed as sole master in charge of the physical education and sports department of the minor public school located in the North of England near the Scottish Border. It was here that he first encountered what quickly became his personal favourite instrument of punishment: the Scottish taws. Long favoured by our northern neighbours  where it was often applied to the hand of the recipient, the taws comes in a variety shapes and sizes , but the one common denominator is that it is always made from very thick leather: thick but nevertheless quite supple; supple enough so that when correctly applied to a naked arse as John-Jacob regularly did, it wraps itself around the buttocks marrying itself to the contours of the offender’s anatomy, ensuring not only a resounding and painful (the main objective of the exercise) crack on the offending posterior but simultaneously with the opposite flank.

The model preferred by John-Jacob, who used it exclusively on boys’ naked bottoms, was essentially rectangular in section, a generous three quarters of an inch thick and about two and a half inches wide, with an operative length, excluding the handle of some two feet, its four edges were chamfered to avoid cutting into the naked flesh. The taws left no welts, but in the hands of an experienced user such as John-Jacob, a dozen well applied cuts could turn a boy’s backside and flanks into a burningly painful globe redolent of a setting sun. And there was another advantage to the taws: it never broke the skin and left a very uniform field to which, in severe cases, an immediate supplementary dose of the cane could be applied.  An appointment with John-Jacob for a taste of the taws followed immediately by the cane, as it often was, was something to be avoided like the plague.  It quickly became so notorious that the lads called it a John-Jacob, even when this frighteningly painful combination was administered by some other master; such was the reputation of John-Jacob.

Those lads who had experienced it, were also, as serial offenders, regular visitors to the Headmaster’s study; but they considered that a John-Jacob was worse than a fifteen stroke birching by the Headmaster himself. In fact, the notoriety of the John-Jacob reached such a level that the Headmaster often referred many boys directly to his physical education master when he thought that the offender merited a truly excruciatingly painful thrashing.  Senior boys caught drinking in the local public house or smoking, both strictly forbidden activities, were usually referred to John-Jacob himself for a “John-Jacob”; and so over the course of the year the sports-master became intimately familiar with the naked backsides of many of the sixth formers, who, in spite of the painful penalty if caught drinking or smoking, often risked their luck and equally often were caught in the act. The one thing which truly irritated John-Jacob was the annoying habit, started first by the Headmaster and quickly adopted by the other staff, of referring to what he himself called his study as his office.   The words: “Report to Mr. Murdoch in his office,” drove John-Jacob up the wall: a tiny thing, but he felt it demeaning. Was it because he was in charge of a physical activity and did not teach an academic subject?

After six years in his first post and at the young age of only twenty-nine, he managed to obtain the post of Warden of the Grimthorpe Reformatory for Older Boys. He had seen the post advertised in the educational press and it underlined the need for a strict disciplinarian.  At the interview with the Board of Governors, he extolled his track record with the cane and taws and, supported by an excellent reference from his present Headmaster, managed to get the job.  In fact, the Governors were more interested in his ability to maintain order through a willingness to wield the cane and other such instruments of corporal punishment than in his academic qualifications. This, of course happened in the seventies of the last century before the benighted decision, by whatever government was in power, to prohibit corporal punishment completely.

Grimthorpe Reformatory was a gaunt and foreboding group of buildings, dating from the early part of the twentieth century, situated on a desolate moor in central Durham; and if you have any doubts about the meaning of the word desolate, central Durham moors.  The reformatory owed its name to the town of Grimthorpe, which, in spite of its unfortunate name, was itself not at all unpleasant and set in an attractive valley some five or six miles from the school. Whoever had conceived of building the school had clearly wanted to make the place remote and inaccessible to discourage the inmates from trying to escape, but at the same time had realised that a school, rather than a prison, which it in fact closely resembled, would need some teaching staff and that few would want to live stuck out in the bleak wilds of central Durham.  So the place had been built within what we today call, “commuting distance” of Grimthorpe; most of the teaching staff and their families lived there and came and went from the school on a daily basis.  The Warden himself and the warders, were expected to live on-site and so recruiting staff was not easy once prospective candidates saw where there place of work was situated.  So to make the place as attractive as possible as it had to be staffed, the accommodation was relatively comfortable and the Warden himself had a family house as well as a study bedroom and bathroom in the school itself.

So this was the place to which John-Jacob, aged twenty-nine, came as lord and master. The school had about two hundred inmates; I say inmates, rather than pupils, as most of them were petty serial offenders and had no interest in learning anything at all. But the academic staff went through the motions of trying to inculcate into them the rudiments of an elementary education, based on what is casually and quite erroneously referred to as “the three Rs”: reading, writing and arithmetic. What chance they had when half the lads could barely write their own names; and as for reading, well that was for the birds! 

So what did the inmates do with their time? Well they were made to work to run the place in which they lived; so all cleaning was done by them; the cooking was done by them under the supervision of one qualified chef: the laundry was run by them.  And then, in addition to the actual formal classes in the traditional way, there were various workshops where an attempt was made to teach the young delinquents a proper manual trade: joinery, metalwork, electrical work, plumbing etc.

The thing that made Grimthorpe School unique is that there were absolutely no female staff at all and as the inmates were not allowed, under any circumstances to go into town, there was no access whatsoever to the opposite sex. It does not require a genius to divine that under such circumstances, with some two hundred young lads, aged between eighteen and twenty, with hormones surging through their systems, that male sex was rife; as a consequence, buggery, strictly forbidden of course, was a daily feature of Grimthorpe life.  The sleeping arrangements were of six lads to a small dormitory, so arranged in small units to avoid the outbreak of any mutinous major disturbance which a larger dormitory might have engendered. So, not surprisingly, the dormitory became the surrogate home for most of the lads and after lights out at night, there was considerable anal sex which took place throughout the school. 

All in all, the lads were kept busy, from rising in the morning at seven to ten at night when they went to bed.  But there was still lots of opportunity for mischief and bad behaviour, a quality inherent in the character of many of the inmates; so not surprisingly, the cane, the birch and, with the advent of John-Jacob, the taws, were in regular use.  John-Jacob as Warden, with his penchant for and, dare I say it, pleasure in the beating of naked arses, was one of the main protagonists of corporal punishment; any boy whom he caught misbehaving soon found himself, arse naked over a chair in the Warden’s study, where his backside was treated, depending on the flavour of the day and the Warden’s humour of the moment, to a painful assault with one or other or even a combination of the instruments of retribution available: the taws, the cane and the birch. 

The warders, whose job it was to maintain order when the boys were not in some form of formal activity: class or a workshop, or cleaning, or cooking or whatever, each carried cane all times; so any lad who overstepped the mark was quickly brought to order with a few sharp cuts there and then across his, albeit, trouser clad backside; the crack of the cane landing against some unfortunate offender’s arse was an all too common daily sound at Grimthorpe.  But the main punishment session was held each Friday evening when the then gymnastics master, a muscular ex-marine called Commander Thomas Spencer, held what he called his “therapy” session, a name by which the Friday night beatings came to be known. 

The teaching staff did not administer corporal punishment themselves, but simply gave out punishment slips, which condemned the unlucky recipient to a Friday evening thrashing at the hand of the Commander.  Such thrashings were always conducted with the lad stripped totally naked and the cane or birch were laid on with ferocious severity.  A “ticket” as it was called by the lads, to a Friday night therapy session with the Commander as sole performer, struck fear into the bravest of delinquent hearts; and well it might, for the Commander was never one to shirk his duty and the lads emerging from their ordeal after a dose of what might be called “percussive therapy” could barely bear to dress themselves. Many of them slept on their stomachs with their arses naked as the pain was so great that even the touch of the bed-sheet was unbearable.

However, the retribution side of communal life, in which the cane, the birch and the taws figured very prominently, came to a shuddering halt in 1998 when the government finally forbade all forms of corporal punishment in the UK. The campaign for “protecting the young”  had, by that time,  reached such a pitch many parents became wary of giving their offspring a well-deserved clip behind the ears.  So the “do-gooders” had finally won out; they had got their way and the country started on its twenty-year descent into lawlessness, with the hand of the authorities more or less tied.  And so when in 2022, the post-Brexit government of the day finally came to its senses and decided that enough was enough – or even possibly too much – many institutions, including Grimthorpe Reformatory and many similar establishments around the country, heaved a collective sigh of relief that they could once again tan the backsides of any of their inmates who deserved it.

John-Jacob was by now sixty years old, having never sought another post beyond that of the Warden of Grimthorpe, which he had by then held for some thirty years.  He had mourned the “passing” (that is how he personally thought of it) of the cane some twenty year previously, so much so that he had worn a black tie for six months as a sort of silent protest against what he saw as a wrongheaded decision by the then government. His gesture, of course, achieved little more than to calm his own anger at the powerless situation into which corrective establishments had been thrown.  And so it is not surprising that in 2022, when the new law was passed, he jumped inwardly for joy at the prospect of once again being able to visit his favourite taws on the well deserving naked arse of one of the many serial tearaways under his care. Little did the inmates of Grimthorpe know that in the next few weeks they would be metaphorically thrown into a bath of ice cold water, from which, on emerging, they would undergo a baptism of fire.  At least, in his fanciful way, that his how John-Jacob pictured the situation. As you can see, he was raring to go and the sooner he had a naked arse presented to him for his earnest attention, the better.

 John-Jacob had never discarded his own taws; it had been put away in a cupboard in his study and from time to time when he felt despondent, he would take it out, thrash a cushion or the upholstered arm of an easy chair and think about “the good old days” in an attempt to cheer himself up. But thrashing an inert object was just not the same as cracking down the taws on the well-muscled, naked rump of some eighteen or nineteen-year-old young man and hear him groan, moan and cry out with pain, as he was taken to hell and back. The satisfaction John-Jacob got from the act was beyond price and even when in his forties he had finished thrashing some well deserving inmate, he usually had to rush to his bathroom to relieve himself.

So now, it was all going to be possible again. John-Jacob took out his taws from its enforced retirement in the cupboard where it has lain for more than twenty years and was ready to go on the first day the new act became law: quite the most joyous occasion of the past twenty years. So with some six or so years to go before retirement, he looked forward to making up for lost time. He had no intention of standing aside and letting others have the pleasure of whacking the arses of all delinquents; absolutely not; he would, until the day he retired, be an active participant in the beating stakes himself. To celebrate the return of what he (any many others too) saw as a return to sanity, he invited the man whom he saw as the future prime mover in the new corporal punishment scheme to celebrate with him, on which occasion he lashed out and opened a bottle of champagne.

Fergus McMurdo, a rather dour Scott (so many of them seem to be! Is it the weather up there, I wonder, that makes them the way they are?) was the youthful replacement of the now retired Commander Spencer. John-Jacob, an as ex-physical training instructor himself, thought that the best person to be the “lead performer”, for that was how he thought of him, in the new era of corporal punishment, was the physical training instructor. He wanted a young man, muscular and well-built who was not afraid to lay onto the offender’s arse whatever instrument was appropriate to the situation; the physical training instructor was in regular close contact with the inmates in a way his more sedentary colleagues were not, which gave him greater insight into what governed their individual behaviour. In fact, McMurdo was the only teacher to be allowed to thrash the inmates other than the Warden himself. 

McMurdo felt himself highly honoured to be asked alone by the Warden to celebrate the dawning of new regime but whether he appreciated the champagne, a beverage he had never before tasted, was doubtful.  In fact, strictly speaking McMurdo was a teetotaller and even as a true Scott from a Highland village, he never ever imbibed a drop of the Scottish sacred beverage. He was a fitness fanatic and his dedication showed when he was training the inmates, whom he pushed to the limit and beyond. In fairness to him, it had to be said that McMurdo could outdo any of his charges at any task he set them He had no time for slackers or those who bent the rules; as such John-Jacob saw him as the ideal man for the job.  The only problem, if problem it indeed was, was the fact the McMurdo and, for that matter pretty well the entire staff of warders, had no experience whatsoever of administering corporal punishment, as they had all been recruited in the time before of the re-introduction of caning after its twenty-odd year moratorium.

With McMurdo, whom he wanted to involve totally, heart and soul so to speak, in the project, John-Jacob discussed the need to order some new equipment. The old punishment room, now fancily thought of by John-Jacob as McMurdo’s “therapy room”, where he would carry out his Friday night sessions of “percussive therapy” on the naked arses of those lads unfortunate enough to have the appropriate entry “ticket” to join what the Warden called the “punishment parade”: a name had seen used in some army cadet training article and which he thought seemed highly approprate.

All the old equipment was still there: an old but very serviceable adjustable birching horse and a rather simpler but also adjustable padded frame over which the “patient” could be bent and the height adjusted to place his arse in exactly the right place to be beaten.  But of the indispensable accoutrements of corporal punishment, in the form of canes, birches and taws, nothing at all remained from the old days; everything had to be purchased afresh. John-Jacob explained to McMurdo whom he already thought of as his senior discipline officer, that what was needed was a full complement of various grade and lengths of rattan canes for the punishment room; two or three of the new cable birches of different gauges; these he had already seen in the “Corporal Punishment Special Supplement” in the school suppliers general catalogue, which had landed on his desk what seemed but five minutes after the publishing of the new law. If only the government were so prompt in doing its job!

It was finally decided that each warder would carry a rattan cane at all times to keep the lads in order with a few sharp strokes across their trousers when they were not in class. All formal punishment on a day to day basis would be carried out by John-Jacob himself (he was really looking forward to it again after twenty years in the wilderness) and Mr. McMurdo would hold a regular Friday night “therapy session” in the restored punishment room.   McMurdo, who was in regular contact with the lads in their various physical education activities, also decided, more or less unilaterally, that he himself would carry a taws in the gym and would mete out punishment immediately during the class to any miscreants if he thought it was merited.  McMurdo thought the taws an altogether better alternative to the old tradition plimsoll.

He selected a straight leather taws from the catalogue and fitted it with a leather strap so that he carried it round his right wrist all the time, ever ready to apply corrective action to any offender.  And as you might well imagine, it did not need much by way of an infraction for a lad suddenly to feel the crack of the taws against his lightly covered arse during the PE class. A good many lads found themselves with red hot arses in the showers after their gym class; McMurdo had a short fuse and when he exploded, which he regularly did, woe betide the target arse, for he laid on the taws with vigour. In a few weeks after the re-introduction of corporal punishment, McMurdo had established for himself the reputation among the inmates of being the most hated and feared member of staff.

It was at this “idyllically situated and caring place” that our “friend”, Thomas Makin, a key actor in the drama which follows, arrived in the Black Maria from the North London Magistrates Court.  On the long journey north, which seemed like a foreign country to an East-End Londoner born and bred, who had never even got as far as Potter’s Bar in his brief life, the vehicle had stopped on the way to pick up other detainees, who like him, had been sentenced to spells of detention at Grimthorpe Reformatory.  Makin had proved as recalcitrant as ever throughout the long journey north and had repulsed, with in his usual foul language, any attempt by the other two lads to make conversation with him.

The three young men were unloaded and brought one by before Warden Murdoch. The other two lads were soon dealt with as they had no such interesting sentence specifications attached to them.  After having been lectured by the Warden on the various punishments which they would incur if they misbehaved, they were taken to shower after which they were examined by the house doctor and pronounced fit for work and, if they misbehaved, punishment. They were the forced then walked stark naked to the commissary where they were provided with the regulation attire worn by all inmates at Grimthorpe and were then taken to their respective dormitories, where they would meet for the first time their roommates and learn first-hand what life at Grimthorpe was like. Their arrival had passed without incident.

This was not, however, the case with Thomas Makin. Before meeting Makin for the first time the Warden had read the details of the court sentence with great attention; and let us not pretend otherwise, he saw with considerable relish the part that the School had to play in the further execution of Makin’s sentence.  Occasionally in the old days, lads had arrived with the sentence of an additional dose of corporal punishment to be administered to them after arrival at Grimthorpe.  But here was an amazing case: a new inmate with a two-year sentence, freshly beaten by the court and with a sentence of no less than three additional beatings to be visited upon him in the coming months; and moreover, three very severe beatings, for each involving fifteen stroke of the heavy gauge cable birch.  This was an unbelievably severe sentence.

The Warden read the whole background to the case and saw how this young tearaway had had no thought at all for the old lady he had robbed; and then when apprehended and brought before court, had expressed no remorse for his actions before going on to provoke, by his vile language, the Magistrate into increasing his initial sentence to the most severe punishment allowed under the law. Having read and digested the facts, the Warden saw that he had a very dangerous and uncooperative young man on his hands: a young serial delinquent who certainly did not know “How to Win Friends and Influence People,” Yes, here was a lad who, by all appearances would need very careful, firm handling; Thomas Makin had indeed all the appearance of being a dangerous and uncontrollable young man.

Makin was brought by two burly warders before the Warden and as ever his insolent and insulting manner still persisted. He refused to stand to attention when told to do so by the Warden and in his habitual way mouthed off a few insults. It was quite clear that he had learned nothing either from his court appearance or the very severe beating he had already received or the prospect of three judicial birchings which awaited him over the coming months.

The Warden was appalled by the attitude shown by the young man, who clearly had no respect whatsoever for authority, in spite of his recent experience. The Warden, never slow to react, grasped the bull by the horns and said: “This new inmate clearly needs a cooling off period, which will begin with a ten-minute cold shower, after which he will be examined as usual by the doctor to see that he is fit to work and, equally importantly, is fit to attend this Friday evening’s “therapy” session held by the estimable Mr. McMurdo. When he has received his regulation clothing, he will then be taken to an isolation dormitory where he will sleep during his first two or three days with us; he needs to calm down before he meets his new room-mates.  I think he will ultimately fit in quite well into Dormitory 15, as there are at the moment three empty beds there according to the records.”

The two warders looked knowingly at each other as they heard to which dormitory Makin had been assigned. They knew, as did the Warden himself full well, that this particular dormitory was notorious for its brutality. Its self-appointed head, was a muscular nineteen-year-old named James “Ramrod” Norton: Jake to those very few who called themselves his friends, but Ramrod to the rest of the school’s inmates. Norton was a notorious bully, now pushing twenty and nearing the end of his sentence; as far as the Warden could tell, his two years in Grimthorpe had served no useful purpose other than to keep him off the streets.  In short, Grimthorpe had been, for him, nothing more than a juvenile prison; the idea of reforming an errant lad’s character which had been a fundamental original concept in the creation of reformatories, had had no effect at all on Norton: he was as unreformed and unrepentant today as the day he had arrived there nearly two years previously. Like Makin, he had been a teenage serial offender and had proved very difficult to control during his time at Grimthorpe as until now the cane and birch had been forbidden.

It was the Warden’s private view however, that on leaving Grimthorpe in a few months’ time he would revert to a life of crime, which was all he knew or for that matter, wanted; he would finish up as an adult serial offender in and out of prison. Norton had the perfect profile of the “future old lag” candidate, if ever there was one.

This prognosis depressed the Warden, for in his eyes it reflected on the shortcomings of Grimthorpe’ which in this case had failed in its mission The Warden saw, somewhat prophetically based on what he knew from his file and what he had now seen of Makin, that here was another lad of the same ilk as Norton. He saw no hope for him either unless his aggressiveness could be tamed; and the Warden had every intention of attempting to tame the young man. But if any of the inmates could deal with Makin on a day to day basis, Norton was the man: Norton could quash anyone who crossed his path if he wished. But having made this decision, the Warden, knowing Norton’s proclivities, shuddered inwardly to himself at what Norton might do to Makin.  But Makin had to adapt to life at Grimthorpe; and Grimthorpe was no bed of roses! Makin needed a roommate who would dominate him; a senior whom he would fear; otherwise, from what he had already seen of him, Makin would bring a reign of terror on the more acquiescent inmates.

The Warden consulted the school doctor about Makin’s general health and physical condition, which the physician declare to be absolutely in order and saw no reason at all why the lad should not be put to work in the daily running of the school .“Yes, I see,” said the Warden, “But in your professional opinion, will the lad be fit enough to take another beating this coming Friday evening, when Mr McMurdo conducts his next session with the cane on those lads who have been slated for punishment for offences committed during the week?  For instance, did you examine the lad’s backside to see what state it was in?  On Thursday he was both birched and then immediately caned by the order of the North London Magistrates. Now you conducted your medical on Saturday; so what do you think?” 

The Warden continued: “Look here doctor, this young man has already overstepped the bounds in his first meeting with me and I intend one way or another to see that his arse pays the penalty for his unwarranted insolence. So the lad is going to pay for his loud mouth and is going to take twelve across his naked arse; he doesn’t know it yet, but he is! So the only question is, can it be done this coming Friday at what will be the inaugural session of a regular Friday night punishment parade choreographed by Mr. McMurdo; or should it be put off to the following week.  Frankly, I am a great believer in nipping things in the bud before they get worse, so the sooner we get this young hoodlum strapped across the beating horse and let McMurdo loose on him, the better.”

“My dear Warden, Makin will be in perfect shape to offer his arse, as you call it, to Mr. McMurdo for his attention this coming Friday.  Of course I gave the lad a thorough examination, including the usual anal probe, and of course I saw the state of his buttocks. I have to say that whoever wielded the rod at the North London Court did a splendid job on him; it must have hurt like bloody hell. But that was on Thursday and by the time I saw him on Saturday, things were already settling down. So the lad was still sore but he had no skin broken and the welts were calming down.  So in my opinion, given another six days until the fatidic moment when he has to face the redoubtable Mr. McMurdo and his cane, he will be perfectly fit by then to take another twelve. I’m sure he won’t like it; but that is, of course not a consideration is it? Look here Warden, what I suggest is that you pronounce sentence on the lad immediately and let him stew in his own juice for the coming week; then on Friday afternoon I’ll look him over again and let you know if I see any reason to postpone the beating.”

The Warden sent for Makin and told him that he was to have the honour of joining the first of Mr. McMurdo’s Friday “therapy session” when he would have the very doubtful pleasure of allowing Mr. McMurdo to give him twelve cuts of the cane across his naked buttocks.  Not surprisingly, Makin was spitting bricks at the Warden by the time he had finished telling him what was to happen to him.

“What the fuck do you think you are playing at?” he yelled at the Warden. “The court said that I should be birched in this school three times and for the first time a month after my arrival here; and now you are telling me that you are going to beat me on Friday after only about ten days.  You are bloody-well out of your tiny mind if you think that I’m going to stand for such fucking nonsense. So you and the whole fucking lot of you can just piss off and go and fuck yourselves for all I care; stuff yourselves up your own arseholes if you want; but you’re not going to beat my arse again on Friday and that’s final; so put that in your pipe and smoke it.”

The Warden listened to this mouthful of invective before attempting to speak. “Makin, you are without doubt one of the foulest mouthed young men I have ever met.I have just listened to another torrent of verbal abuse from you, which taken together with what you said at our previous meeting, confirm that I am quite right in imposing another beating on you. Young man, this punishment is totally unrelated to that already imposed on you by the court for your violent street crime and I understand from your case file that you dug yourself more deeply into the hole in which you found yourself, so much so that by that same sort of foul language used by you on that occasion to the Magistrate, he upped our original sentence gave you the severest penalty allowed by the law; which is why you were first birched and then immediately caned  And I have to say, in the brief time I have known you, Makin, I have the greatest sympathy with the Magistrate and would have done that same”

“You cannot expect to stand in front of me and shoot of your cesspit of a mouth the way you did at our first meeting and have just again done right now and get away scot free. This is an institution set up to try to reform young hooligans like you and I can tell you, in your case, it looks as though it might be a long hard struggle.  But whilst you are here, and under our care, you will obey the rules and you will stop using foulmouthed language on me or any of my staff. Is that clear, young man?  So Makin, on Friday you will attend the regular weekly punishment session on Friday evening and Mr. McMurdo will give your naked buttocks twelve strokes of the cane. Eventually I hope that you will learn that your words have consequences: very painful consequences indeed, which your backside will have to bear. And just to make things quite clear; if you continue misbehaving, then Mr. McMurdo will be happy to welcome you to his Friday night gatherings on a regular basis. Make no mistake Makin; in this school, the cane is used regularly and it is applied as hard as possible to an offender’s buttocks.”

Did this calm Makin down? Of course not. “You are out of your fucking mind if you think that I’m going to let you thrash my arse again: it just ain’t going to happen; there is no way; no way at all: absolutely no fucking way that I am going to drop my pants for your bloody Mr. McMurdo.  You talk about being in your care; well it sounds more like you want to thrash the living daylights out of the inmates rather than care for them.”

And on and on ranted Makin, becoming ever more abusive until finally the Warden stood up, banged on his desk with his hand and said: “Young man, you will now shut up. I have heard enough from you to last a lifetime. You are here to be reformed, although I see little hope of ever achieving that objective; but if you disobey the rules whilst you are here, then you will be punished; and to be quite clear punishments include both the cane and the birch; and don’t think that we have any qualms about using either or indeed both on offenders. Moreover, you will also be punished if you address me or any of the staff in the way you have just now shot off your mouth at me.”

“Makin; I was being relatively lenient with you when I sentenced you to twelve cuts of the cane next Friday, but in view of your foulmouthed intransigence, I have decided to raise your quota to eighteen strokes of the cane. Now, if you take my advice, boy, you will now shut up otherwise I will increase your punishment to twenty-four cuts, which is, more’s the pity, the maximum that the law allows me to visit upon you.  So, boy if you have any sense at all, you should now shut up.”

Whether the Warden’s final words or the increase in Makin’s punishment counted for anything, is difficult to say; or was it perhaps that the lad had finally exhausted his gutter invective?  Anyway, he said nothing more and was led away to his solitary confinement by the two warders who had stood guard over him whilst he faced the Warden. There was little doubt at all in the Warden’s mind that in Makin, the school had just acquired a potentially violent inmate.

We next find Makin, a few days later, making the acquaintance of his three room-mates in dormitory 15. The odious Norton and his two room-mates were there as Makin arrived, brought there by a warder. In his own way Makin was as objectionable a character as was Norton. But Norton, in addition to being at least as nasty and vicious as the newcomer, had several obvious advantages over him:  he was bigger, heavier, and stronger than Makin, or for that matter than his two room-mates; and anyone with half an eye could see that the other two occupants went in fear of him. In a word, this evilly callous, young stud, for as we shall see, he was a stud, totally ruled the roost in dormitory 15 and had the tremendous advantage of knowing the ropes. But Makin had no choice but to enter into this place where he was to spend the next two years and where the atmosphere was totally menacing; even the air smelled evil. As Makin was putting his clothes in the locker provided for him, the bell rang summoning them all to the evening meal.

Taking a closer look at Norton; the lad was built like a tank; he was just over six feet in height and weighed about fifteen stone (210 lbs) but it was all solid muscle; Norton was proud of his body and worked out as often as he could in the gym. But to come back to his nickname: Ramrod; well it does not require much imagination to guess where that came from.  The “rod” was Norton’s most prize possession: his enormous sexual endowment. He had a penis which measured some seven inches when soft, which descended gracefully, like a well stuffed sausage, over a magnificent pair of well separated balls. Norton’s equipment when soft had none of that wet rag look with balls in a shrivelled looking scrotumch so many guys have: in its own way it was a work of art. Unusually for an Englishman, he had been circumcised and his cock had a magnificent knob; and I say knob rather than head, due to the sheer size of this terminal finial: a sphincter buster, if ever there was one, set off from the shaft by a splendidly defined rim.  In short, Norton’s cock and balls were admired and envied by all who saw them: few guys, if any, had their equal.

The source of the “ram” half of his nickname became quite obvious when his cock was hard and ready for action, as it so very frequently was; Norton had one of the most formidable of sexual weapons; erect, his cock lengthened to nearly ten inches and measured nearly three in diameter. His splendid cock knob, when rock hard was capable of forcing its way through the most recalcitrant of tight anal sphincters; an act which was dear to Norton’s heart and one which he practised on a very regular basis. 

One might have thought that Norton, with his magnificent physique and his unrivalled sexual equipment would have been a hero to his schoolmates: a guy who was looked up to; but nothing was farther from the truth; Norton was loathed and feared by the vast majority of the inmates for he was, in fact, a dyed-in-the-wool bully who was totally unable to curb his own sexual appetite; and so it is true say that in this all male establishment, where no women at all, not even a school secretary, were present and homosexual sex was rife, he was by far and away the biggest single bugger in the school; anyone whose arse he fancied – and there were plenty, as he was, in this respect, not very picky –  quickly found his anal sphincter being stretched to the limit by that awesome knob and then rammed by Norton’s rock-hard cock as if there were no tomorrow. It was difficult to refuse him or even to stop him and satisfying his sexual appetite had become, to him, at least, a sort of right; in brief: anyone he wanted, he got.

Arriving back in the room after supper, Norton’s character blossomed forth as he made his intentions abundantly clear: “In case you had not realised it, Makin, I own this dorm and I own the guys in it and their arses; and as of right now, that includes yours as well.  Now if we are going to get along together, we all need to get to know one another a little better. So I want you to do exactly as I tell you as you are going to share with me and my buddies here, that part of you which interests us the most. So just be a good lad and don’t make any fuss; strip off and let’s be seeing if what you have on offer is worth the effort”

Makin, who as we all know was a very aggressive lad, looked at Norton and said: “Fuck you Norton; there’s no way I let you push me around; neither you nor either of these two arseholes here whom you call your friends.  And as for fucking me, as that’s for sure as hell what you want: well it just ain’t going to happen; so just forget it. The whole fucking lot of you can just piss off.”

Of course, Makin with his uncontrollable temper had again made a cardinal mistake; had he had the slightest intelligence he would have known that in the present company he was about to be buggered whether he liked it or not; they outnumbered him three to one and there was no way he was going to escape.  so before he knew what was happening, had been jumped by the three of them and in a brace of shakes he found himself totally naked surrounded by all three. Norton did not waste words as he pushed Makin to his knees and, unzipping his own pants, fished out his rock hard tool already oozing pre-cum and thrust it straight into Makin’s mouth. Makin gagged, but there was nothing at all he could do other than suck Norton off. Suddenly his tormentor decided that he had enough, hauled his victim to his feet, pushed him face down onto the bed and proceeded to bugger the lad with considerable vigour

Watching Norton fuck was quite something, for once he got going, his cock went in and out of its target anus in much the same way as the piston on an old style steam locomotive reciprocates.  He fucked every arse with tremendous vigour and as he reached his climax he withdrew his tool completely from its target hole, paused a second with his magnificent erection visible to all, before thrusting it back again with even greater force, which is exactly what Makin was now experiencing. Curiously to relate, after the initial shock of being raped by Norton, Makin found that he could relax and he actually began to enjoy what was happening to him.  There was no doubt at all, in spite of his bullying ways, Norton was a brilliant cocks-man, second to none. Norton’s two buddies looked on whilst he pumped away, finally exploding into an enormous orgasm with what seemed like an endless stream of thick creamy cum which he ejaculated in a series of violent jerks all over Makin’s arse.

But it was not yet finished for Makin: as soon as Norton had climaxed the other two guys grabbed him and rolled him over onto his back; then while the one pushed his cock deep into Makin’s mouth. the other knelt between his legs, lifted them over his shoulders and gave Makin’s hole another working over with his cock. To round of this mini-marathon of anal intercourse, the two of them then switched places and repeated the sequence.  So by the end of the evening Makin had been forced to suck off each of the three guys and had been fucked by each them in turn.  For a young man whose first encounter with anal sex had been just a few days earlier in London when the two young policemen had fucked him after having thrashed his arse, Makin had had a very steep learning curve, which set him on the right track for his life at Grimthorpe, where sex between inmates was rife.

Friday evening arrived and the first of what were to become regular formal punishment sessions was about to begin. That first evening, four lads had been given a “ticket” to attend the “therapy session” and they sat bare-footed on a bench in the corridor, practically shivering with fear, as they were totally unaware of what precisely was going to happen to them. Other than their bare feet, they were all wearing their normal school clothes. A solitary warder stood guard over them. Precisely at eight, the Warden and McMurdo arrived and went into the room and closed the door behind themselves; there was a short pause and the door reopened. McMurdo emerged, a charge sheet in his hand; he looked at the four lads, who were by now all trembling visibly as the moment of no return arrived. 

Ogden; on your feet lad; you’re the first on the list tonight; in you come lad; quick about it; we’ve a lot to get through.” And as Ogden hesitated, he repeated: “Come on lad; on your feet and get a move on and get into the room.  And the rest of you; if you feel the urge to pee, go and do it now: I don’t want you wetting yourselves once you are inside.” Poor Ogden, for some reason did not receive this courtesy and one can but imagine how he might have felt as the door closed behind him and the fatidic moment arrived.

The show was now on the road and the other three lads sat there wondering exactly what would happen.  They did have long to wait; there was a pause of perhaps two minutes where there were muffled voices from within and then a couple of minutes of complete silence which was finally broken by a loud crack as McMurdo’s cane descended at lightning speed and landed on Ogden’s now naked arse.  Clearly audible in the corridor, there was no doubt at all what the sound was: rattan cane against naked flesh; a sound hitherto unknown but which was destined to become commonplace at Grimthorpe; the awful reality of the situation and what it promised for them suddenly became abundantly apparent to the three lads waiting outside. Ogden was in fact lucky to have been called first, for at least he was not being force to sit there in a state of frightened anticipation. For the other three lads, the long wait as crack followed crack at regular ten to twenty second intervals, accompanied by ever louder howls of pain from Ogden, left them ample time to contemplate their fate.

It was the Warden who had told McMurdo to take a long pause between each stroke to allow the offending lad time to appreciate fully the painful effect of what he had just received.  And so, with twelve strokes in all to be given and the long “appreciation pauses” between them, it was a good fifteen minutes later that an ashen faced and very chastened young man emerged from the room.  Ogden had already put back on his clothes and he limped out of the room, his eyes full of tears and clutching at his backside in a futile attempt to ease the severe pain he clearly felt. One look at their mate filled the other three with dread; but there was nothing, absolutely nothing at all, that they could do to avoid their punishments.

One after the other the three lads were called into the room and underwent the same twelve stroke beating. For all of them it was the very first time that they had ever felt the cane. And let us be clear, McMurdo laid on the strokes with a vigour which few could equal. So all four lads went off to bed with flaming sore arses, each of them richly welted with twelve thick stripes.  Each of them in their respective dormitories became the focus of attention and admiration, an admiration strongly tinged with fear, one has to add, as their room-mates examined McMurdo’s handiwork. That first session resonated around the entire school as the inmates suddenly woke up to the fact that the cane and the birch were real; they were there now, waiting to take the skin off any miscreant’s arse if he committed even the slightest offence.  The inmates shivered as it finally sank in that each and every one of them might find himself in the very same state as the “famous four” as they became to be known. If ever here was a case of teaching by example, then this was it.

But dramatic though the impact of the four beatings was, it paled into relative insignificance when it became generally known what had then happened to the new boy, Makin. He had not been put on the bench in the corridor outside the punishment room to await his fate, as the Warden had, quite rightly, seen that he was a dangerous young man capable of causing problems due to his uncontrollable temper. So, after the first four lads had been thrashed, Makin was brought straight to the punishment room, dressed, but bare footed, and flanked two muscular young warders, to face Mr. McMurdo and his cane.

“Right lad,” said McMurdo, “Pants and underwear off and get your naked arse across the beating stool there; come on lad, quick about it; I’ve not got all night.”

This order launched Makin once again into a torrent of abusive language: “If you bloody lot think I’m going to let you tan my arse again after what I’ve just been through in London, then you have got another fucking thing coming to you. There is no way that I’m going to drop my pants for a vindictive set of mother-fuckers like you lot; no way.” And so he ranted on and on gradually working himself into an ever greater rage.

McMurdo said: “I will repeat what I just said just once to make sure that you have understood. Get your pants and underwear off and let me see your naked arse across the beating stool there.”

But Makin still went on with his verbal tirade and flatly refused, yet again, to do as he had been ordered. McMurdo looked at the Warden, who smiled as he nodded to the two warders.  Before he could think, Makin found himself grabbed by the two men and being stripped; not only his pants and underwear came off, but also his entire clothing; now totally naked, he found himself thrust brutally across the beating stool, where his wrists and ankles were secured. In thirty seconds from start to finish, Makin, the “refusnik” found himself totally immobilised, his arse in the air ready to be beaten.

The Warden said: “Makin, I think that you are without any doubt, someone who learns nothing from experience.  Your foul language has already earned you an extra six strokes of the cane, which Mr. McMurdo here will be delighted to give you. But let me just remind you of what I said to you when I awarded you those six extra cuts. I told you quite clearly that unless you curbed your tongue, I would have no compunction at all in upping your punishment to the full twenty-four cuts of the cane which is the maximum that the law allows me to inflict on you.”

“And so, young man, in view of your continued bad language this evening, you will now receive the full maximum punishment of twenty-four cuts; let that be a lesson to you. By your own actions, you have, in fact, doubled your original punishment. Mr McMurdo, please do not hesitate to lay on the cane with maximum vigour to his young man’s backside, for he truly deserves it. I want you to give him the first eighteen cuts, all to be applied as parallel as you can; but you will have to double some the cuts, which will ensure maximum pain for this young miscreant as the cane lands in exactly the same place which has just received a stroke.”

“Then I myself will take over for the final six cuts, which I shall have the pleasure of applying diagonally, drawing the whole thing neatly together. I think, Mr. McMurdo, we shall be able to say, once we have finished today, that this lad will be the proud owner of an exceptionally a well beaten arse.”

McMurdo examined Makin’s backside and turning the adjusting wheel, raised it into the perfect position for beating.  He then began; and from the first cut, Makin was squealing like a stuck pig. As ever McMurdo waited about fifteen seconds between cuts to allow Makin fully to “enjoy the pleasure” of each individual stroke and it was not until some minutes later that he handed the cane to the Warden to complete the boy’s punishment.  By this time Makin’s arse was a mass of livid welts and in a few places where the cane had landed on a previous stripe, a little blood was oozing. It was many years since the Warden had caned a boy; but he had retained all his old skill. Although he would never have admitted it, he thoroughly enjoyed his part in the affair: it was sort of pay-back time: compensation for the invective he had endured from Makin.

As for Makin; well he was in a very sorry state when he was finally freed from his straps and allowed to dress and return to his dormitory.  Whether his three room-mates sympathised with him we shall never know; at a guess they probably did not, for they were a brutal triumvirate.  Makin spent a very uncomfortable night nursing his roasted arse, the extreme pain of which lingered on for nearly a week. Suddenly for the first time it hit him that he still had three birchings to suffer at monthly intervals; he shuddered at the thought, but there was nothing at all he could do to avoid them.  But this caning had taught him a useful lesson in spite of his braggadocio manner: he did not want to be caned on a regular basis by McMurdo; in fact, he never wanted to be caned by McMurdo ever again; such was the impression that the dour Scott had made him and on his arse – literally !) and so he curbed his tongue. He finally took on board that the Warden meant what he said and so, at the end of the day, this horribly painful experience did have an effect on his behaviour which improved noticeably.

And here we must leave Makin. We shall never know if after two years at Grimthorpe he emerged a changed man; but one thing was sure: the arrival of the cane, after an absence of some twenty years, certainly changed Grimthorpe.

Rigby School

Headmaster: Mr. C. D. Moulton-Danvers MA Cantab

As might well be imagined, there was a great deal of discussion in all establishments educating young lads from well-to-do families and Rigby School, an elite smallish public school located in Ditchfeild (pronounced DitchfEEld in spite of its peculiar spelling) was no exception.  Rigby School had been noted for its rigour in dealing with its pupils and the cane and birch had been in regular use until the rot set in and they were finally abandoned.  In fact, in the “good old days” Rigby was a much sought-after educational establishment, as parents were sure that their unruly offspring would literally be beaten into shape. Ask any old Rigbyan and he will tell you that in his day the cane and birch reigned supreme.

The present Headmaster, Mr. Cedric Montague Moulton-Danvers, was now aged some sixty years; he had first entered Rigby, as had his father and grandfather before him, from prep school as a boy aged thirteen in 1973. Apart from a four-year absence when he was at Cambridge University reading mathematics followed by a year at a teacher training college, he had spent his entire life at the school. Returning as a graduate (first class honours in both parts of the tripos, no less) in 1983 he was appointed junior mathematics master. He had not been a prefect when he was still a pupil at the school and as such he had always been on the receiving end of the cane; and on one or two occasions, the birch. However, in appointing him as junior master, the governors and the then Headmaster found in him an ardent beater of boys’ bottoms and thoroughly approved of their choice.  The fact that he was also an excellent and well-liked teacher did not seem to count as much in the eyes of the governors and the then Headmaster as did the fact that he was a strict disciplinarian.  And so over a period of years he progressed to become the Head of the Mathematics Department and ultimately to the post of Headmaster, to which he acceded to 1993 at the young age of only thirty-three, when the then Headmaster died of a stroke.

Although corporal punishment had been forbidden in state schools in the early 1980s, a diminishing number of public schools, among which Rigby was one of the most prominent, clung on to the use of the cane and the birch until 1998, when the law finally forbade is further use in all schools. It is worth noting however, that Mr. Moulton-Danvers, faithful to the concept of corporal punishment until the very end, thrashed the naked backsides belonging to two sixth formers, whom he had caught smoking the very day before all corporal punishment was finally forbidden by law. 

Moulton-Danvers remembered well that last occasion, when, having given each lad a very severe twelve cut thrashing with the birch, he had enlisted the help the then Head Boy, Jonathan Henshaw, to add a complement of punishment with the cane. So he, the Headmaster, with the two lads naked arsed across two chairs, had first given each of them twelve cuts with the birch which elicited howls of pain from the supplicants. This had then been followed by the Head Boy who had given each lad a further twelve cuts of the senior cane across what might be described as the “preconditioned” arses of the two miscreants. So it is true to say that corporal punishment went out with a bang at Rigby

Suffice it to say that when this monumental flogging was over, the two lads could barely walk back to their bedrooms, so great was their pain. And so after that, the cane and the birch were, perforce, retired from active service.  The birch, which as we all know has a very limited “shelf life” and quickly reaches its “use-by date”, was discarded. But the faithful canes, which had already made contact with hundreds of naked bottoms over the years, were put away in a cupboard: they became souvenirs of the “good old days.”  No one regretted more than Moulton-Danvers the retirement of the cane from school life, no one knew better than he how to lay on the cane with the panache and expertise acquired by years of diligent application and practice and no one mourned its passing more than he did. He wore a black, mourning tie for a month following that final beating after which all canes were retired from service.

The Headmaster looked back wistfully on that final occasion after which the cane had been retired from service. That last time was now over twenty years ago and in that period no boy had suffered any form of beating at Rigby, much to the regret of the Headmaster and many of his staff, who had seen the withdrawal of the right to cane as a retrograde step.

So today, we find the Headmaster and the Board of Governors of the school in their quarterly meeting.  On top of the agenda is not unnaturally the change in the law allowing the re-introduction of corporal punishment into, among other establishments, public schools. Mr Moulton-Danvers, as Headmaster, though not a member of the Board of Governors, was always, as a matter of courtesy, invited to attend these meetings, prior to which he had always submitted a quarterly report.  The Chairman of the Board an elderly military man, Colonel Peters, suggested that the Headmaster bring the Board up-to-date on the significance to the school of the newly enacted law on the reintroduction of corporal punishment. In Mr. Moulton-Danvers, the Board could not have had a better advocate for the case that the School re-adopt the practice.

The Headmaster began: “Well gentlemen, I am sure that many of you will agree with me when I say that I view this change in the law to be a step in the right direction. Since the abolition of corporal punishment in schools and other establishments around the United Kingdom over twenty years ago, the behaviour of young people has gone from bad to worse; and I must regretfully include here members of the upper classes, boys from well-to-do families who can afford a private education for their offspring and who are pupils at schools such as ours,. There is no longer any self-respect, let alone respect for other persons or property. The good manners for which we as a nation have long been noted, or perhaps I should say more accurately, had been noted, are now a concept of the past. Moreover, boys have become unconcerned about their personal appearance; I see it every day here at Rigby: shoes are not polished; socks are not pulled up properly, shirts are left partly unbuttoned; ties hang loose like a noose around boys’ necks.”

“In general there has been, over the last twenty years, a great deterioration in the manners and in the appearance of our boys; “slovenly” comes to mind as a word to describe them. And faced with this, what have we their teachers had as a means of correction? Well gentlemen; the short answer is nothing other than words; words whose effect is somewhat similar to water off a duck’s back.  In fact, the effect of words can well be summed up by the old rhyme: “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.” Well gentlemen, the change in the law now offers us something a little more potent than words, in that we may, as of now, re-introduce corporal punishment into the school, a move which I earnestly recommend you, the governing body, to consider.  Frankly gentlemen, there is nothing like a good bare-bottom beating to make a lad see sense; and it does him no harm either psychologically or physically, other than the transient discomfort as he nurses his aching backside. I was myself beaten as a pupil in this very school countless times and am none the worse for it. I am sure that many of you also have had the same experience.”

The Headmaster’s comments on the new law provoked quite a long discussion. A few of the younger members of the Board were somewhat reluctant to see the cane reintroduced after a twenty absence; but the older more traditional governors were all totally in favour.  The general feeling of the board was summed up by the Chairman: “Gentlemen, would it be fair to say that we are on the whole favourable to the Headmaster’s suggest that both the cane and the birch be reintroduced into regular use at Rigby.  I don’t say that we should go back completely to the old system in place for many decades until the abolition of the cane in 1998, where all the prefects were allowed to beat their classmates and there were prefects’ courts and that sort of thing: but I cannot but feel that with the knowledge that misdemeanours can be punished physically in the form of a good old-fashioned beating will make the boys look before they leap.”

“As the Headmaster has just said, the teaching staff has at present little recourse against the bad behaviour of the boys other than words.  Certainly serious misdemeanours can always be punished by expulsion, but I am sure that we all agree that expulsion should only be used as a last resort. My own personal view is that a good beaten arse from time to time is worth a thousand words. So might I suggest that we agree that that corporal punishment be reinstated as of the next school year which will commence some six weeks from today in September?  I think that we the Governors should again impose an absolute limit of twenty-four strokes of either the cane or the birch at any one time and leave it to the good sense of the Mr. Moulton-Danvers who has been both on the receiving and giving end of the rod in his long career at Rigby to decide exactly how the re-introduction should be carried out and who precisely should be authorised to beat the boys when necessary. The Headmaster has my total confidence in this matter so might I suggest that we put the matter to a vote?”

The proposal was seconded and carried unanimously, giving the Headmaster carte blanche to re-introduce the cane and the birch as he best saw fit into the modern-day Rigby school of 2022. The Headmaster thought it prudent to inform all parents that Rigby was proposing to readopt the use of corporal punishment in the form of the cane and the birch. And so a letter was sent out to each and every family with boys enrolled at the school. It suggested that if they did not wish to see their offspring beaten then perhaps they should consider withdrawing the boy and placing him in another school where the cane was still outlawed. 

To be absolutely clear, he said that as of the new school year any and all boys who were pupils at Rigby would be beaten if deemed necessary. He was gratified to find that he received not a single murmur of disapproval from any of the families; this he took to reflect the general view of the populace at large: the reintroduction of beating in schools was long overdue. In fact, he received quite a few letters from parents, usually from the father, lauding the decision to reintroduce the cane and the birch into daily life at Rigby.  Armed with such assurances he felt confident that the right decision had been taken and went ahead with his plans for the coming term. Whether the boys, those future recipients of painfully sore arses, would have agreed with their parents, is a moot point; happily, their view in the matter was of no consequence!

As he was starting from scratch, or better, with a clean slate to use a metaphor more appropriate to a school, the Headmaster, after some thought came up with the following proposition; it was in fact not a proposition as he had no need to obtain the approval of the Governors. So he simply formalised his intentions and informed the members of staff involved of the part they would play in the hierarchy of masters and prefects who would be authorised to beat their charges. Briefly put here is how the new system of corporal punishment would function.

The birch would only be used sparingly and only by the   Headmaster himself.

The cane could only be used by the Headmaster, the Head Boy, each Housemaster and each House Captain.

No teachers or prefects were to be allowed to use the cane.

For serious offences each teacher could send a boy to the Headmaster for punishment by means of a punishment slip.  Such slips would mean that the delinquent lad would be thrashed that same evening after supper at eight thirty. Whichever House he belonged to, he had to return to the Headmaster’s study in the main school building, suitably attired in gym shorts and vest at the fatidic hour to have the needs of his backside attended to.

Any prefect catching a boy breaking any rule at all, could issue a demerit slip. Such slips were placed in box and recorded by the school secretary in a register.  Five demerits condemned the miscreant to a beating administered by the Head Boy.  The Head Boy’s study was in the main school building and those boys destined for punishment were listed each morning on the general notice board outside the main Assembly Hall. The Head Boy wielded the cane in his study immediately after prep each day and before supper, which the boys took in their respective houses.

Unrelated to the demerit system, the Head Boy could summon boys for punishment if he thought they merited it

Any misdemeanours outside the school hours were dealt with by each Housemaster and the House-Captain of each house.  Prefects could only award demerit slips inside their house or could recommend a boy for a beating by his Housemaster or House Captain for a major infraction. So effectively, out of class time, each house functioned in exactly that same way as the main school; and again the House Captains could summon boys for punishment for individual misdemeanours outside the demerit lip system.

The prefects were now only chosen from the final year class, the upper sixth where all the boys were eighteen years of age.  Their job was to act as policemen and see that the rules were being obeyed by the boys during the day between classes and in the evenings in their respective houses.

Having settled in his own mind the new hierarchy: those who would be allowed to beat the boys, he ordered ten sets of the best quality rattan canes from the school’s supply company.  Each set was made up of five different canes, ranging from the lightest of junior canes to the most seriously painful of the senior models.  The Headmaster had already realised that none of his present staff had any experience of administering corporal punishment as all of them had been appointed as relatively young men, post the 1998 ban. He wondered if he should get them all together and give them some instruction as to how to proceed, for there were a number of tricks to ensure that the cane landed in the right place and with the right force; but that would surely come with some experience; which knowing how disobedient boys were in general, would be plentifully available.

The Headmaster felt sure that once the school was made aware of the reintroduction of the rod, the prefects would feel cheated that they were no longer allowed to beat their classmates themselves.  Mr. Moulton-Danvers was well aware that in the past, once elevated to the rank of prefect, boys usually became enthusiastic thrashers of the backsides of their fellows. This had been the norm at Rigby as in most public schools; but under the new regime the prefects would have to content themselves with giving out demerit slips and hoping that their classmates would accumulate enough demerits to merit a thrashing. 

In one respect Rigby maintained its traditional approach: all boys would be thrashed on their bare arses; no trousers or underpants were to be worn; the cane and the birch would both bite directly into the bare flesh of a miscreant’s buttocks. All this was as yet unknown to the pupils, all of whom had been born after the passing of benighted law abolishing corporal punishment. So as you can well imagine, a nasty shock awaited them on their return from the long summer vacation to start the new school year.

The first day of the autumn term arrived and the whole school was assembled as it did every morning in the main assembly for the traditional morning assembly. Things at Rigby had not really changed much over the years in spite of the changing face of the population due to the heavy immigration. But Rigby as a nominally Christian establishment had managed to retain its character due to the fact that it had did not have any immigrants in its intake.  Other more famous public schools had always had a certain parentage of rich foreigners, many from the British colonies, who came to England to be given an education and to learn the manners of English gentlemen. Rigby, however, was not in that league; its entire intake was basically from the upper middle classes who were still rich enough to pay the eye-watering fees which the school charged. 

So ostensibly Rigby paid lip service to the concept of a being a Christian School in what had become to all intents and purposes a secular society; in this context the morning assembly had a format which was more or less engraved in tablets of stone; nothing, absolutely nothing at all, had changed in the last hundred years.  So after roll call each morning the entire school trouped into the Assembly Hall, to sing a hymn, say a prayer, hear a text for the day and a few comments on its meaning and to listen to the announcements made by the Headmaster, who always presided at these gatherings.

Bu this first day of the new school year was unlike others as the Headmaster went to great lengths to tell his charges that as of now the cane and birch would be in daily use in the school. Gone were all the laissez-faire attitudes which had crept in unobserved as discipline had slipped from the hands of the teaching staff. So the Headmaster, having explained precisely how the new regime would work and who was empowered to use the dreaded cane, went on to remind the boys that all the school rules which hitherto had been broken with impunity would, if ignored henceforth lead to very painful sanctions. In a word, miscreants would be beaten and beaten hard.  The Headmaster closed his remarks by saying that the concept of Rigby Rigour would again rule the day. Most of the lads who were listening to this discourse had no idea what the expression “Rigby Rigour” meant; they would, however, soon find out as they went to bed for the first time nursing well-beaten arses.

The Assembly Hall had a balcony and the upper sixth formers always occupied the back row.  The Headmaster was about to dismiss the gathering when a voice from on high and clearly from the back row said: “Is this guy serious? Whose leg is he pulling?”  This was followed by a murmuring of the word “rhubarb” several times, followed by a sound in imitation of a fart.

“Stand up the boys in the back row of the balcony who have just made these remarks.”  There was no movement.  The Headmaster repeated his order and added “If the culprits do not make themselves known in the next five seconds then I shall punish all the members of the upper sixth on the back row.”  There was a pause and then three lads stood up and acknowledged that they were responsible for the remarks.

The entire school stood below waiting with baited breath wondering what was now about to happen. “You three gentlemen will come to my study this evening at eight thirty precisely, when I shall punish you for your rudeness; I will not tolerate such comments and vulgar sounds as you have just uttered in front of the entire school, especially as we have today an intake of first formers on their very first day.  There is no way in which I can let your remarks pass unpunished.  And as you three will be the first to benefit from the reintroduction of the cane, then let me tell you that the correct attire for the type of meeting you will be attending this evening is your gym shorts and singlets; no underwear or socks to be worn; just wear slippers and as you will be coming from your separate houses you may wear a dressing gown.  And the rest of you; I hope that you all heard and registered what I have just said; any boy summoned for punishment by me will wear the regulation kit I have just outlined.  Any boy turning up in other than the appropriate attire will receive three extra strokes of the cane. I trust that that is clear to all of you. Now if there is nothing more, the assembly is now over and you may go to your classes.”

The Headmaster was truly delighted that the three sixth formers, all three of them now eighteen years old and well-muscled members of the schools rugby fifteen with good meaty buttocks just perfect for beating, had, by their stupid actions, given him the opportunity to thrash themf that very evening: the very first day of the new term. What more could he have asked for? He knew he was alone among the entire teaching staff to have any experience of administering the cane, and he knew also that prior to 1998 when he had regularly thrashed arse, that he was generally considered as being the hardest caner in the school.

That distinction he had truly enjoyed for it seem to him right and proper that the Headmaster should be the person to be most feared by boys awaiting a thrashing. It was now twenty years since he had last addressed a boy’s backside with the cane; but he knew, that in spite of this age, he was still quite capable of taking any offender to hell and back. Beating a boy across his naked arse with a cane was akin to swimming or riding a bicycle; once you had learned the technique it was there forever; and that evening he fully intended to give the three delinquent young men, for they were young men and in their final year at school, an experience which they had never before had; one which, after they had realised just how excruciatingly painful a beating could be, they would never ever wish to repeat.

And so the Headmaster spent a pleasant half hour going through his stock of canes, which, as we know, in spite of the 1998 ban on their use, he had put away in a cupboard, hoping against hope that one day they would again be useful. And now, this very evening, his optimism was to be rewarded; the law had been changed and he was once again free to “correct” his pupils as he saw fit; and not to beat about the bush, He intended to deal with the three lads with the utmost severity.  He had every intention of sending them to bed with backsides which they could not bear to touch: backsides so sore that they would not be able to sleep on them or even bear the touch of a bed sheet on their freshly roasted flesh.  Yes indeed, the three lads would find themselves sleeping on their stomachs that evening, with their naked arses exposed for their classmates to observe., This was indeed going to be a most instructive re-introduction of the cane to Rigby and the Headmaster had every intention of making it a memorable occasion.

The Headmaster looked over his canes, some twenty in number, many of which date back to his early years as a new master at the school and had seen sterling service.  He finally selected an extra-long, some 36 inches, senior cane, which had seen more than twenty years’ service before its forced “retirement” in 1998. It had always been his favourite instrument for thrashing the oldest boys in the two sixth forms. In its years of faithful service, the Headmaster estimated that he had beaten roughly 500 boys with this very instrument; and here it was today, still superbly flexible and in perfect condition: the ideal instrument with which to inaugurate the new regime this evening.  He smiled contentedly to himself as he anticipated with considerable pleasure; a pleasure which he could never outwardly acknowledge, but which the evening’s proceedings would give him.

He almost salivated at the thought of seeing for the first time in twenty years, three, muscular, totally unblemished, virgin backsides, bent across the backs of three chairs, waiting with apprehension for the first stroke; their owners wondering what it would feel like. He felt a stirring in his trousers, just at the thought of what he was going to do to the three lads. Had any of them any idea of just how painful a beating could be? Just imagine it: three young men aged eighteen being forced to bare their arses to be caned for the very first time. For the Headmaster musing over the situation, it seemed like a gift from on high.

At the fatidic hour of eight thirty that evening the three rugby players were ushered by the Headmaster into his study.  The young men had no idea what to expect and were wondering if this were not all a joke.  A boy named Sutcliffe, evidently delegated to speak for the three of them began: “Headmaster, we are all extremely sorry for what happened this morning and we do most sincerely apologise to you for our unforgivable rudeness. You see sir, we none of us thought that you were serious about reintroducing the cane into the school. After all sir, it had been dropped more than twenty years ago, and we could not believe that you were intending to bring it back into use sir. But now that we realise that everything you said this morning was for real (such unfortunates modern English, but was how he put it) we do not think it appropriate that it should be used on the sixth formers.  After all sir, we in the upper sixth are all eighteen years old and are already young men in our own right and we do not think it proper that you that you should even think of beating any of us sir; and in the past sir, when the cane was in daily use over twenty years ago, it is our understanding that even the fifth formers were considered too old to be beaten.”

The Headmaster listened stony face to these words, which amounted to nothing more than a plea for clemency. Had the three lads taken notice of the three chairs set out in the centre of the room, with the wicked looking cane sitting across the seat of one of them, they would have realised that they were wasting their breath.

“Gentlemen, as your spokesman has just so rightly said your rudeness at assembly this morning was quite unforgivable and let me tell the three of you it is not going to be forgiven quite as easily as you would like. But first let me disabuse you of another point. Rigby in the old days was one of the foremost exponents of corporal punishment among English public schools and all boys, from the entry year through to the upper sixth, prefects, House Captains and Head-Boy included were subject, without exception, to the cane; and the birch too, if they merited it.  I can tell you that on two occasions I personally birched the then Head-Boys for offences they had committed. And as of now, that same all-inclusive regime still holds good; so gentleman, I am going to beat the three of you, whether you like it or not. Frankly it will a unique experience for the three of you to take your first beating in your final year at school; normally boys used to arrive here from their prep school aged thirteen, already well acquainted with the delights of the cane. So down to business, gentlemen; please step out of your gym shorts and each of you bend over the back of one of those three chairs there; any chair will do as you are all going to be beaten together.”

At this instruction the three lads looked at one another in horror. Sutcliffe began: “But sir; you don’t mean that you are intending to beat us on our bare buttocks sir, do you? Surely not sir; it’s not decent to ask us to bend half naked across a chair so that you can beat us; really sir, it’s totally indecent sir; indeed sir, it’s obscene; you cannot really be serious sir.”

“I have never been more serious in my life, my dear Sutcliffe. Were the three of you unaware that here at Rigby, all beating, for the past one hundred and fifty years has always been done on the bare, which is the polite way it is normally put? Rigby has always followed the code of practice adopted by other leading public schools, all of which beat on the bare. And in the future, now that the use of the cane and the birch is again allowed, they will always be applied to a boy’s naked buttocks.  I trust I make myself clear. So kindly now do as I told you; step out of your shorts and bend across the chairs.”

“Sir, I think that we, as sixth formers have the right to refuse to strip half naked in front of you, sir.  What you suggest sir, is totally obscene. So I for one totally refuse to do what you ask and I suspect I speak for the three of us sir.”

“Sutcliffe, in spite of your age, you are still pupils at this school until the end of this academic year. As such you will do as I say or be expelled from this establishment. I am not bluffing so do not test me; either you drop your shorts and bend across the chairs and take your well-deserved punishment on the bare, or you will be expelled. Think on it carefully; I mean what I say and if you are expelled, which I will do without hesitation if you defy me, then you will ruin your careers. Oh and one further point: your parents all approve of the re-introduction of the cane and the birch in this school. Did you know that? You have fifteen seconds to decide. Your future is in your own hands.”

This little essay in brinkmanship was of course won by the Headmaster and he now found himself looking at three superbly muscled and beefy arses which were just crying out to be beaten. It would be his first use of the cane in over twenty years and the prospect was erotically exciting; he could feel himself hardening inside his trousers as he as he surveyed the superb globes of virgin flesh he was about to introduce for the first time to the cane.  He wondered to himself if the three lads had any idea of just how painful an experience they were about to undergo.

He let the lads stew in their own juice for several minutes, bent uncomfortably across the chairs, their naked arses twitching with fear whilst he lectured them on the “delights” of what awaited them. He began by picking up the cane he intended to use and gave it a few swishes through the air to set the scene for what was to follow. “This cane, gentlemen, has been with me throughout my entire career as a master at Rigby. It is my very favourite senior cane which I selected from a dozen or so similar objects in 1983, now almost forty year ago, when I became junior mathematics master.  It served me well throughout my entire career until it was forced into retirement by the benighted 1998 law outlawing the use of corporal punishment in the UK.”

“As I took it out of store this afternoon, I estimated I had thrashed some 500 boys with this very instrument. And as you can see, it is just a supple and ready for use today as it was when I first acquired it. I suppose you could compare the ageing of a cane to that of a fine wine; both improve with age.  Why do I tell you lads all this? Well I would hate you to think that as the first boys to benefit from the new law, a law of the new age of enlightenment one might say, that you had received anything other than the very best that Rigby can offer. Allow me to assure you gentlemen that the beating you are about to experience will truly be in the best tradition of Rigby Rigour: the Rolls-Royce of corporal punishment.”

By this time the three terrified lads were just wishing the Headmaster would shut up and get on with it. They still did not know how many cuts they were to receive and not one of them had any idea of the utterly excruciating pain he was about to experience. But the Headmaster had not yet finished with his monologue.

“You will receive just the standard tariff of twelve cuts of the cane across your buttocks. As your offence was committed together. I propose to beat you together.  So I shall begin by giving one of you the first stroke. I shall then pause for about five seconds before passing to the second boy, where I shall then give him his first stroke. And then after a further five second pause the third boy will have the pleasure of feeling the cane bite into his backside.  Now this technique and timing will ensure that each of you has about fifteen to twenty seconds to enjoy the effects of the first cut. I shall them return to the first boy and the whole procedure will be repeated until all twelve strokes have been given.”

“Thus gentlemen you will all have the privilege of having some fifteen seconds between strokes which will allow you fully to appreciate the exceptional quality of your beating.  And believe me, gentlemen, you will all truly understand just now painful a caning in the Rigby tradition is.  You are privileged this evening to have the only master of the present staff – to wit myself –  who has experience in wielding the cane and believe me when I tell you that in spite of an interval of some twenty years, I am still a master with the cane. You will all leave my study sporting what is crudely put as a “well beaten arse”, a commodity which you will in future wish to avoid like the plague.”

The Headmaster finished his little homily and positioned himself first to the left side of Sutcliffe who was hunched over the first of the three chairs. Sutcliffe, like all rugby players had a beefy, well-muscled pair of buns, as yet totally undefiled by any cane.  The Headmaster stood looking at the boy’s arse feeling himself getting ever harder in his trousers as he placed the cane lightly on what one might call the equator of the two globes and gently tapped the naked flesh which was quivering with fear. The suddenly with no further warning, the cane rose high into the air and descended at lightning speed to mate precisely with the midpoint of the lad’s arse.  Sutcliffe took and enormous audible breath as the cane landed on his backside and then, a split second later, as the intense pain that the rod had delivered manifested itself, let out a resounding howl of pain. And so it was with the other two lads; there is always a split second as the cane mates with its target with that inimitable crack of rattan meeting naked flesh at high speed, before the excruciating pain is actually felt. All three lads let out howls of pain from the first stroke; howls which became ever louder as the beating proceeded.

The Headmaster, a past artist at beating boys’ naked arses, worked upwards from the first central stroke with neatly spaced intervals, laying each stroke on parallel to the other. four strokes were given addressing the boys’ arses from the left hand side and the long flexible cane wrapped itself over the further buttock so that the side of the buttocks were included in the beating, He then changed sides and addressed the boys’ backsides from the right, using a backhand stroke, at which was a true expert and descended with a further four excruciatingly painful strokes down to the very sensitive place where the buttocks join the legs.

By this time all three lads were in tears. They were not actually crying, but they could not stop tears coming to their eyes.  The Headmaster gave the severest strokes he could without actually breaking the flesh and the build-up of pain was indescribably awful. After eight cuts the boys begged the Headmaster to stop but to no avail. He now applied the four final strokes diagonally, two in one direction and two in the other.  He then stood back and admired his handiwork which was the testimony to a masterly piece of caning.  Each lad’s arse was now decorated with eight parallel strokes and four cross strokes all turning a rich reddish purple and neatly defined by the swelling. The Headmaster secretly congratulated himself on his artistic handiwork as he saw that even after twenty years he could still deliver a masterly artistic beating.

He finally told the boys to stand up and put on their shorts. Spokesman Sutcliffe said: “Sir, would it be alright if we just put on our dressing gowns and slippers to return to our respective houses.  You see sir, our arses – sorry sir, I mean our bottoms – are just so sore from the beating that we cannot bear even to pull on our shorts.”  The Headmaster smiled inwardly to himself. What could be greater praise than this? He had just thrashed the three lads for the first time in their lives and they now appreciated just how painful a beating could be. There was no doubt in any of their minds that the old boy still knew what he was doing.

And so a much humbled triumvirate left carrying their shorts and wearing just their dressing gowns and slippers. Each lad was from a different house as the school rugger fifteen was drawn from the best players across all houses to compete in the name of the school. So three different dormitories had the prurient pleasure of seeing the Headmaster’s handiwork.  In fact, the lads in the sixth form just showered together as each had his own study bedroom; all three lads slept that night on their stomachs with their backsides totally uncovered; even the weight of a bed sheet was just too much to bear.

The Headmaster closed and locked the door behind them and went immediately to his bathroom where he dropped his own trousers to allow the huge erection, which he had developed as he beat his way across the arses of the three lads, to spring forth.  Already in the precum stage due to the sheer homoeroticism of beating the naked backsides of three muscular young studs, he grasped his cock and did what men always do in such circumstances: he jerked himself off; and within half a minute shot a huge quantity of sperm all over his bathroom hand basin.

He smiled to himself; even at sixty he was still quite fit and well and extremely virile. Not that virility really mattered all that much with the Headmaster other than as a matter of personal pride. Cedric Moulton-Danvers was a confirmed bachelor; but unlike many single men in the teaching profession at public schools, he was not gay. So he assuaged his own sexual desires from time to time by the simple act of masturbating, an act which gave him as it did to most men, the greatest of pleasure. That evening he went to bed a very happy and contented man.

The first week of term passed very quickly and it was already Saturday; the first Saturday in September.  For the North of England, the weather was perfect; the mercury rose and it was to all intents and purposes a hot summer’s day.  The Headmaster had finished a leisurely breakfast and was standing holding a final cup of coffee in front of the window when he saw six young lads making for a small wooded area on the far side of the school property. His senses were immediately aroused as the wood concealed a small lake, which was strictly of limits to all boys.  In the distant past boys had often sneaked away in their free time to swim and splash around in the water, but some fifty years ago, tragedy had struck and a boy, a first former, who had gone there by himself, was found drowned in the water. Since that time the wood and the lake had been strictly out of bounds for all boys. And it was precisely to this forbidden area that the six lads were clearly heading.

The Headmaster saw that there were four young lads from the new intake, first formers, whom he did not yet know by name; but the other two were from the second year and were well known to him:  Simpson and Huntley, an inseparable and incorrigible pair of mischief makers: in a word; trouble looking for somewhere to take place!  He had in the past year, when Simpson and Huntley were in the first form, often wished that he could take the cane to the pair of them, for they were never out of trouble. Well, not wishing to prejudge matters, perhaps today was the day when this troublesome pair would meet their Waterloo.

Forewarned is forearmed, so the Headmaster hastily finished his coffee, put on his jacket and selected a lissom junior cane, which he took with him; if he caught the boys red-handed, then there was no time like the present, in his view; the lads would get preliminary taste of the cane there and then. As he approached the wood he saw that the sign forbidding Rigby schoolboys to enter was clearly visible, so there could be no excuse for lack of knowledge.  He picked his way through what had become an overgrown path through the wood to emerge on the banks of the lake, which was bathed in brilliant sunshine; it was the the perfect day for a swim; but not here!  As he had surmised, the six lads, totally naked were already in the water, splashing around, their clothes dumped higgledy-piggledy on the shore; not a towel in sight, he observed.  He watched them enjoying themselves for a few minutes before making his presence known by a loud command: “Out of the water the six of you, on the double!”  And with those few words the boys’ idyllic moment was shattered to pieces.

The six lads emerged from the water and stood dripping in front of their Headmaster, shivering, not from the temperature, which was approaching tropical levels on that exceptional September day, but by the fact that they had been caught “in flagrante”, breaking one of the most seriously enforced rules of the school. The cane in the Headmaster’s hand told them the whole story; their moment of pleasure was to be turned into a moment of pain.  None of the six had ever felt the cane before but they all knew from the first assembly that the dreaded instrument was to be re-introduced. Like the entire school, they all also knew that the three senior lads from the rugger fifteen, who had made rude comments at the assembly, had been beaten very soundly. Little wonder that a state of sever apprehension gripped all six young delinquents as they now contemplated their immediate future; things looked pretty bad for them, as they in fact were.

“You boys are aware, are you not, that in entering the wood you had already broken a rigid rule of the school; I presume that you can all read and as far as I can see the notice putting this area of limits to all boys, is quite clear; at least I was able to read it as I came here today so there is absolutely no excuse for your behaviour. But not only have you entered a forbidden area, but you have gone even further, in that you have gone bathing in the lake. There is a very good reason for the off-limits status of this area.  If one of you boys were to fall into difficulty in the water, what might happen? We could have a tragedy on our hands. And as a matter of interest, just how many of you know how swim?  Raise your hand if you do.”

Of the six boys, only the two second-formers knew how to swim.  All four new boys were still awaiting swimming lessons which were given in the school’s own covered swimming pool.

“Boys, I want the four of you first-formers to turn away from me, put your hands on your heads and arrange yourself from left to right in alphabetical order. The two second- formers, whom I know very well, remain facing me, but also with their hands on their heads.  Now the boy on the left turn around and look at me and tell me your name.” The boy was called Robinson.  “Well Robinson, now that we are acquainted, bend over and grasp your ankles with your hands and stick your bottom well out, for I am now going to give that part of your anatomy a rather arousing experience; in short boy, I am now going to give you six cuts with the cane. Remain perfectly still and keep hold of your ankles.  If you move, I shall begin again and things will be worse.”

Poor Robinson was shivering and shaking with fear as he waited in this uncomfortable position for the punishment to begin.  The Headmaster, in time honoured fashion, swished the cane through the air and then brought it down accurately with a tremendous crack, directly in the middle of the boy’s white buttocks. The lad let out a scream of pain to be followed successively by five other outbursts as the Headmaster administered the full six cuts to the upper part of the lad’s arse. He worked upwards from the first stroke to the bottom of the boy’s back, leaving him with six even spaced welts, which were already turning reddish blue.

By this time the lad was totally in tears, which was not surprising as the cuts had been laid on with maximum force. He was told to return to the line-up, still facing away from the Headmaster with his hands on his head but now displaying his beaten backside. The other three first-formers then took their punishment in the same way.  The two second-formers had not seen their classmates being beaten, but had simply heard the crack of the cane as it landed on naked flesh and the accompanying cries of agony from the recipients.

By this time all four first-formers had been reduced to tears and were crying profusely.  The two second-formers had become increasingly nervous and frightened as they witnessed their younger schoolmates being beaten.  They realised that the Headmaster did not hold back with the cane and that this was a very painful event for everyone.  The Headmaster looked at the two of them and said: “You first Simpson; step forward lad and adopt the position; you and your classmate, Huntley will receive nine cuts as you should have known better than to lead your younger classmates to this place.”

So Simpson and Huntley took their increased punishment and were in turn reduced to tears by the severity of the beating.

“Now boys, get dressed and go back to the school where, for the rest of the day you will remain in the junior common room. Now, this evening at eight thirty after supper, I wish to see the six of you in my study, wearing the appropriate attire for such meetings.”

Simpson said by way of a protest: “But sir, please sir, you are not going to beat us again this evening; are you sir?  You have just beaten us for what we did and we don’t deserve to be beaten a second time for the same offence sir; really we don’t sir.”

“Simpson, it is I and I alone who decide what you do or do not deserve; but for the record, no, I am not going to beat you again this evening for the same offence, I am simply going to complete the beating which I have just given you, which is only half the standard punishment for the offence you have committed. So you first-formers will get another six cuts and you, Simpson and Huntley, another nine for leading your classmate astray. I think can promise you that you will each go to bed this evening with what is vulgarly referred to by the boys as a “well beaten arse”. And believe me boys; I am a past master at creating “well beaten arses”; so you need not fear that you will in any way be robbed of this truly momentous experience. You all have something very special to look forward to this evening. Now get dressed and get back to the school as I have just told you.”

The Headmaster did not return directly to the school but went to the head-gardener’s cottage where he found the gardener, Mr. Patterson, at home. Mr Patterson was the same age as the Headmaster and had spent his entire life at the school; as such he was its oldest employee. His father had been head gardener before him and he had been born in the very cottage where he was now living. He had joined the staff as a young apprentice gardener, aged fifteen and on the death of his father had taken his place; so Mr. Patterson had been associated with the school for sixty odd years.

“Headmaster, what a surprise to see you here on a Saturday morning sir; what brings you my way sir?  Or shall I guess the purpose of your visit sir?”

The Headmaster was taken somewhat by surprise by this question as he had only just a few minutes earlier decided to pay this impromptu call on his head gardener.  So smilingly, he said: “Well, Patterson, if you would like to play at being a clairvoyant, please go ahead, but I doubt that you will guess why I have called on you this morning.”

“Well sir, I guess that you have come here to ask me to make you a new birch, sir. Am I right or wrong sir?”

The Headmaster was flabbergasted by the exactitude of Patterson’s comment. “Good lord Patterson, you really are quite a psychic, as that is precisely the reason I am here right now.  But how on earth did you make such a correct guess?”

“Well sir, it’s pretty obvious if you think about it.  You see I read the newspapers and listen to the TV news every day and a few days ago I saw that the cane and the birch were to be reintroduced into the UK; and not before time I say. And so, as my father before me and I myself till the ban of all forms of beating some twenty years ago, had always made the birches which you yourself then used, it seemed pretty obvious to me, seeing what a reputation the school had in general and you yourself, sir, in particular, for strict discipline, that the birch would be wanted again. So you see sir, it was not all that difficult, even or a simple soul such as me to add two to two and get four. And so, sir, I was expecting to see you sometime in the next few days, if not this very morning, which was a surprise: a very pleasant surprise sir. So you see sir, it’s not exactly rocket science as the young folks would say today.”

“Well Patterson you are of course quite right in your suppositions, and the reason that I am here on a Saturday morning of all days, without any warning, is that I just wondered if you might possibly have the time to put together one of your admirable confections today.  You see a group of six boys have seriously disobeyed a very strict rule, just this morning, and I have decided in my own mind that the senior boys among them deserve, and indeed might benefit from, a taste of the birch.  So you see my dilemma: canes I have in plenty, but a birch needs to be fresh, which is why I need your assistance.”

Mr. Patterson laughed: “Headmaster, I saw all this coming as soon as I read the news. I was certain, knowing what a strict disciplinarian you yourself were, I felt sure that you would want to reintroduce beating into the school. Please take a seat a moment sir, and I will go and fetch something for you.” Patterson disappeared and went to his workshop to emerge a few moments later with a ready-made birch in his hand.

“There you are sir; I was sure you would want one, so I took it upon myself to make up a new one just to be prepared.  So there you are sir; you have your birch for this evening. And if I might just say sir, this birch is made in exactly the same way as the senior birches have been made for over a hundred years in this school sir. You may remember the story that before our times, in the early 1900s, the then head gardener made a birch out of really springy young maple shoots, which were much superior to any other kind of twigs used hitherto. Well sir, I have made this of new shoots from a pollarded maple and I think you will see sir, that this instrument in experienced hands such as yours sir, will be capable of taking any boy to heaven and back; or perhaps I should say to the other place and back, sir.” he concluded laughing.

The Headmaster was impressed by the foresight of the gardener and thanked him profusely for his splendid handiwork: “Well thank you very much indeed, Patterson, for this superb looking instrument, which is exactly what I need for this evening’s proceedings. Can I assume that as of now, you will readopt the old custom of renewing the supply of birches in the punishment room every two weeks or so to ensure that I always have an adequate supply of this indispensable tool available?”

“You can indeed sir; nothing will give me greater pleasure than to ensure the continuity of supply.  You know sir I am myself a great believer in the old methods and it is my view that a well beaten backside does a mischievous boy a great deal of good; so I am as delighted as you sir, that the law has now allowed the reintroduction of the cane and the birch. Perhaps we shall see a decline in the number of delinquencies now that a lad knows he’ll get a sore arse if he oversteps the bounds.”

The Headmaster carried the birch back to his study under his arm.  It goes without saying that he was seen by several boys on his way back from the gardener’s cottage. And so the news flashed around the entire school that not only the cane but that the birch also was back. By lunchtime there wasn’t a boy in the school who was unaware of the new regime. The question was: “Who was to be the first to experience the joy of a birching?” It was the most frighteningly exciting news and stories abounded as to the pain that this dreaded instrument of punishment could inflict. The tension was palpable and by supper time the whole school was in the grip of excitement. Word had got around that six boys were to be beaten that evening and their classmates were agog at the thought of such a bloodbath so early in term. The Headmaster himself could not have orchestrated the reintroduction of the rod had he announced it publicly in assembly.

At eight-thirty promptly, the six young delinquents, correctly attired for what was about to happen to them, duly presented themselves at the Headmaster’s study. To say that they were in an extreme state of nervous anxiety would be an understatement; they were all absolutely terrified of yet another encounter with the cane, as their arses were still very painful from their “al fresco” thrashing earlier in the day.  But as the Headmaster had told them, that has been just half the standard penalty for their “crime” and now they were to receive the balance.

“Well boys, now that you are all here, drop your shorts and step out of them completely as we don’t want to be distracted by shorts around our ankles, do we? Now stand in a line against the wall, facing me, with your hands on your heads and line up in the same order as this morning.  I have decided in view of the seriousness of your infraction, that you shall all witness each other being beaten.  That way you can recount to your classmates exactly how things are now done under the new regime, where the cane will again reign supreme. So, Robinson and you other three first formers, please step into the centre of the room. Robinson you will again head the line-up head and you others stand in line directly behind him, but leave lots of space. Now boys, bend over and put your hands on the floor in front of you and stick your bottoms high up into the air so that I can see exactly what I am doing.”

“Let me now explain to you what is going to happen. You are each going to receive six more cuts of the cane, but I am going to beat the four of you in series.  So, Robinson I shall give you your first cut and then wait five seconds before moving on to your classmate directly behind to give him his first stroke; and so I shall continue to the end of the line. So boys, you will appreciate that by the time I get back to Robison, he will have had some fifteen or so seconds to enjoy the full effect of the first stroke he has received. And then I shall continue like that until each of you as had the additional six cuts, bringing up the total for the offence you committed to twelve strokes in all. As you can see, you will all have plenty of time to feel the pain of each stroke as it is delivered; and let us not delude ourselves boys; the whole purpose of this beating is to leave you all with very, very painful bottoms which you can take to bed with you this evening and reflect your stupidity in breaking such a fundamental rule.”

The Headmaster surveyed the four sets of young buttocks presented to him for further “correction” and noted with some satisfaction that his morning’s efforts had left well defined stripes one each boy’s arse, all of which were clearly still very painful and were ripening up into a very satisfying shade of bluish red.  He now did as he had outlined and gave the four lads an additional six cuts each, but this time descending from the centre to the top of the legs and he used a slightly heavier cane to make sure that the punishment was well felt. 

This time he gave four swingeing cuts parallel and then two final cuts diagonally, with the greatest force he could muster, which left all four lads screaming with pain. Sutcliffe and Huntley stood there, hands on their heads, quaking with fear as they saw what their younger classmates had just endured. They were acutely aware that that morning they had received a more severe beating then the younger lads and they were now terrified at the thought of what the Headmaster had in store for them.  It was not long before their fate was announced to them.

The Headmaster made the four young lads stand up in line against the wall, again with their hands on their heads.  He now moved two chairs into the centre of the room and motioned to Sutcliffe and Huntley each to bend across the back of one of them.  “Choose either chair you wish, boys,” he said, “There is no special position.  Now as to your complementary punishment, I have decided to make an example of you two boys. You are both older than the four new boys whom you knowingly led astray. You knew full well that the lake was strictly forbidden and so I am afraid that you will now suffer the most painful punishment that the school can visit upon you: nine strokes of the birch across your naked buttocks. And believe me boys when I tell you that this is something you will never ever wish to experience again; by the time I am finished with you, you will wish your posteriors belonged to someone else.”

“Now brace yourselves boys and I will begin. I shall give you the first stroke to you, Sutcliffe, and the second to your partner in crime. And then I shall continue giving each of you an alternate stroke with, of course with a pause of ten seconds between them in order to allow you two delinquents to “savour” the full “flavour” of the birch. As you are about to find out, it is quite unlike the cane. At first you will not find it terribly unpleasant; but as the strokes continue, the pain gradually builds until it reaches what you will find are unbearable levels; but unbearable or not I am afraid that you will have to bear the ever increasing pain until the full nine strokes have been given.  Let me just say boys, that I am being very lenient with you, for in all you will have had nine cuts of the cane and nine of the birch today.  The school regulations allow a boy to receive a maximum of twenty-four strokes for any one offence; so you see that I am being very lenient with you as your punishment is well below the maximum limit.”

The Headmaster paused for a moment and went into his bathroom where he had left the newly prepared birch soaking in a bucket of water in the traditional way.  The two second formers were already in tears now that they realised what was about to happen to them. They both were shacking with fear as the Headmaster approached them, swished the birch a few times through the air, and said, “Nine strokes of the birch for each of you young men; so kindly brace yourselves and keep perfectly still and take your punishment as young gentlemen should.  This is going to be the most painful experience of your young lives to date; but I have to tell you that whole purpose of the exercise is to teach you through pain to be better boys. It has been my experience to note that a well beaten bottom does wonders to improve a boy’s behaviour.”

The dreaded birch rose and fell eighteen times and the two boys howled and screamed with pain and begged the Headmaster to stop, but the rod rose and fell inexorably and they just had to bear the pain it inflicted. The four new-boys who were watching their classmates’ punishment were equally terrified by what was happening.  If ever an example had been made of two young delinquents, this was it. The Headmaster realised that by allowing the younger boys to witness a thorough birching would have a damping effect on the mischievous enthusiasm of other would-be miscreants.

A well-birched arse looks quite different from one which has been caned. The cane leaves discrete ridges whereas the birch, by virtue of its twiggy structure, fans out and leaves small marks.  Three well applied cuts of the cane are much more painful than three cuts of the birch, but by the time a boy has had his arse well and truly birched there is no comparison as the pain builds up and up with each successive stroke and he knows that he has had an exemplary punishment: one to be avoided like the plague in future.

Sutcliffe and Huntley exhibited their very picturesque arses to their roommates that night in the showers, as they had the distinction of owning richly inflamed backsides left by the birch, overlaid by nine clean cuts of the cane they had received earlier the same day.  If ever two lads had well beaten arses, it was this pair and they knew it. The Headmaster knew it too and took a great deal of satisfaction from his handiwork.

And here we leave The Headmaster, Mr Moulton- Danvers MA Cantab and Rigby School, settling to the agreeable idea that as of now, things were back to “normal”. The cane and the birch again occupied their rightful place and would, henceforth, be in regular use: Rigby Rigour would again become the byword for excellently enforced discipline and the bench-mark against which other public schools would judge themselves.  The Headmaster felt very contented with what he had achieved in the first week after the reintroduction of the cane and the birch: his contentment was even greater when he reflected that in the last few years of his career before retirement, he would once again be able to exercise his undoubted talents with the rod. There was a great deal of satisfaction to be got from thrashing a boy and he intended to see that any deserving naked arse received its just deserts; the crack of a well-applied cane mating with a boy’s naked arse, was music to his ears. After all those years in the wilderness things had finally come right again.

HMS Clarion – Naval Cadet Training Ship

Captain Mark Donovan

The Admiral was spitting bricks! The Admiralty had just received notification from the government of the day that they wished it to reinstate the long abandoned practice of running a cadet training ship which would cater only for young delinquent lads aged from eighteen to twenty: lads who had appeared before a Young Offenders Court and who, the magistrates had thought, might be candidates for rehabilitation. The thinking was that such young offenders could be turned into useful members of society by serving a strict two-year training stint under conditions of harsh naval discipline on a specialised training ship. Then, on their discharge, pushing twenty-one years of age, they would be fully equipped to re-enter civilised society; or so the theory went.

“These bloody people in Whitehall; they have no idea what they are asking,” said Admiral, as he ranted on to his ADC about the incompetence of politicians in general “Do any of these clowns ever think of consulting with us before they pass another of their hare-brained schemes through parliament?  Where the hell are we supposed to get this new training ship from? Talk about Britannia ruling the waves; thanks to successive government cuts the country hardly has a navy anymore; and we don’t in fact have a bloody vessel available at present” 

Now that was a great exaggeration; but the point had been made: the British Navy was no longer what it had been and Britain certainly no longer ruled the seas. And it was true that the Navy would need to find a ship somewhere or other to use for the desired purpose.  But in its wisdom H.M. Treasury had had the good sense to make a considerable financial provision for this new venture. So things were not as bad as they seemed; at the end of the day it was not a revolutionary new idea; in the 1920’s a similar scheme had been in operation to rehabilitate young offenders; it had worked well until the outbreak of the war in 1939 when it had, perforce, been abandoned.  But now, some eighty or so years later, the proposal was to resuscitate an old idea.

In fact, things turned out not to be as bad as the Admiral had foreseen.  A suitable ship was found “second hand” in South Korea and the Koreans were so glad finally to get rid of it that they agreed to fit it out as a training ship to the British Navy’s specification at a knock-down price.  So in 2024, some two years later, the Navy became the proud possessor of a ship which could cope with about one hundred “cadets”. I say cadets for want of a better word and in fact they were officially called cadets; but the lads who were to live and work aboard the HMS Clarion as she was newly christened on her arrival in Plymouth, were, in fact, prisoners. The Courts had sentenced them there for two years in the hope of turning them into useful citizens, rather than condemning them to an approved school a juvenile detention centre.

But before things actually got underway, came another “coup de grace” from Whitehall, who wanted the Navy to occupy itself with not one but two hundred lads.  The Admiral went through the roof when he received the news: “Who the hell do they think they are they are over there,” he said, “Suddenly to tell us that we have to take twice the number of boys than we had budgeted for. How on earth are we supposed to fit two hundred lads into a ship designed for half that number?”

His ADC was somewhat calmer, having had warning on the grape vine of what was to come he had had a chance to think about things and was his usual calm, cool and collected, constructive self: “Well sir, we don’t actually have to send all the cadets to sea at the same time. I see no objection to their two years of training being a split fifty-fifty between land and sea. After all sir, the Navy does have ample empty facilities at Plymouth, what with all the cutbacks left right and centre we have had over the past few years.  In fact sir, on might say that we are rattling around in our Plymouth facility; you are aware, I am sure sir, that it’s half empty at present.  And I might add, sir, that what I am suggesting is precisely what we do both with training naval rating cadets and commission cadets; half their time is spent on land and the other half at sea: so I see no objections at all being raised. In fact sir, I think that now we have the ship and the budget we should get on with things and stop worrying about Whitehall.  At the end of the day sir, taken in the overall context of the UK’s naval activity, it is only a very minor thing we are to be involved in. After all sir, nothing we do will affect the country much, either one way or the other.”

“But I foresee another problem,” said the Admiral. “It is all well and good to call these lads cadets like the others; but there is a very important difference.  In our normal training activities, whether for ratings or officers, the men we are training have chosen to join up; they are there of their own free will and want to make a career in the Navy.  Now you cannot compare that with the sort of riff-raff we are going to be landed with. I don’t want to be a snobbish, (which of course he did), but there is a world of difference in working with a group which is willing and one which has been, how shall I put it, more or less press-ganged into it.” 

“Now I can tell you that even with the officer training division, we have a hell of a time keeping even those young men on the straight and narrow, especially as for the last several years we have not been allowed to use any form of corporal punishment on them. So how on earth are we going to keep order with some two hundred petty criminals: and I say “petty” lightly, because some of these lads are downright dangerous; how the hell are we supposed to keep them in order if we can’t thrash their hides? Just let me tell you from long experience, the thought of getting one’s arse roasted can be a great deterrent.”

“But sir, of course we can use corporal punishment on these lads. The law was changed about two years ago.”  The Admiral’s ADC was quietly flabbergasted that his boss did not seem to be aware of this astounding piece of “volte face” – about turn – legislation on the part of the then government. But perhaps the old boy lived too much in the past. “Yes sir, both the cane and the birch are alive and well throughout the country;  I can tell you sir, that it was a group of  public school masters,  including my own brother, who teaches at Rigby School in Lincolnshire, which was one of the most persistent lobbyers of the government to persuade it to re-introduce corporal punishment as a means of combating the rising lawlessness among young people throughout country; and so sir, the post-Brexit government,  finally gave into the general clamour of voices from all sides and the act of parliament was passed some two years ago.”

If the Admiral was embarrassed by his lack of knowledge, he did not show it; in the great tradition of the armed forces of the UK, he ploughed ahead regardless: “So if I understand things correctly, you are telling me that we can flog these young ruffians who are being foisted on to us; well that certainly is good news. Thank God that the powers that be finally came to their senses, saw the light and took a sensible decision for once.”

“Well sir, it’s not quite like that. I did say the cane and the birch, but not the whip. So we shall have to content ourselves, when the need arises, as it surely will, with applying the cane and the birch to the backsides of our young charges; so we cannot actually flog them.  But I am sure I don’t need to tell you sir, as an ex-public schoolboy yourself of one of the most prestigious educational establishment in the country, that both the cane and the birch, when well applied, can be very dissuasive of bad behaviour.  But sir, as you surely know, the Navy re-introduced corporal punishment into its training establishments almost two years ago; both cane and birch are in regular use in both rating and officer training posts as well as on our ships, where they keep the younger crew members in order.”

The Admiral huffed and puffed: “So typical of Whitehall to do things by half; if we’re going to reintroduce corporal punishment, why the hell didn’t they re-introduce the lot; whips included?”  The Admiral seemed blissfully unaware that the whip in the form of the infamous cat-o-nine-tails had not been in use in the Navy for almost eighty years. “And let me just tell you something, the birch is utterly useless for a sea-going ship.  My housemaster at school maintained that to be truly effective, a birch needed to be freshly cut that day if the receiver was to get the full benefit of a proper birching. He told me that as he was preparing to birch me for illicit smoking; and by God, he was right: did it hurt! I can still remember the sting of those twelve strokes to this day. But where the hell are we supposed get any form of serviceable birch on a ship underway at sea?”

“Well sir, things are not quite a bleak as you think. The old concept of the birch made from a bundle of twigs has now been completely superseded by what is known as the cable birch. If I might explain sir: the cable birch is made of a number of strands of a plastic covered cable, itself formed from a number of fine steel wires, twisted like a rope into a cable. The result is a very flexible cable, lengths of which are then fixed to a handle.  There are several calibres and lengths of this instrument available from the suppliers, but he most common are the 2mm and the 4mm versions, both of which when correctly applied to the naked buttocks of the offender are very painful; very painful indeed sir.  So you see sir, under the latest rules, we are allowed to use the standard rattan cane in various thicknesses and these two birches. And if I might just add sir, my brother who as you know teaches at Rigby School tells me that they have adopted the cable birch and use it regularly for all serious misdemeanours. According to him one has to be very careful when applying the cable birch to the naked posterior of some deserving offender, not to lay it on to heavily as one can easily take the skin of a lad’s backside.”

The Admiral cheered up at the thought and said: “Sounds exactly what we need; I’ve no objection at all to seeing a little blood run when a lad is punished; after all that’s the way it was in the old days and they all survived.”

At the end of the day, things calmed down, and the new project took form exactly as the Admiral’s ADC had suggested. So a hundred lads were onboard ship and the other hundred on land. The programme was that each group would spend six months either at sea or on land and then switch over so that after the two years envisaged, each lad would have sent a year on land training and a year at sea. 

The operation was controlled and coordinated from the Dartmouth facility. An elderly Commodore, John Creighton, was the titular head of the entire enterprise; beneath him and totally responsible for day to day operations on land was a certain Commander William Grey, known for his strict adherence to rules and capable of maintaining order.  On board and in command of HMS Clarion was Captain Rufus Whittaker, again selected for his ability to enforce discipline with an iron hand.  So, all in all, the two main protagonists in this new venture were both equally rigid men from whom the cadets and indeed the non-commissioned officers and ratings also could expect no quarter. Obey the rules and all will be well: but disobedience and laxness will be severely punished.  So the newly introduced instruments of corporal punishment were in good firm hands and a very receptive atmosphere and would certainly see service whenever needed, both on land and at sea.

The first contingent of the cadets arrived, not quite a hundred strong and were all assigned immediately to the HMS Clarion. It had to be remembered that these working-class lads, young men really as they were aged between eighteen and twenty, were from all parts of the country and had been convicted of a variety of offences by the local courts. None of them had ever before had to live in a closed community, which was in itself a shock; and to be obliged to sleep and wash with others and generally to obey a set of strictly enforced rules was not easy.  Also as most of them had never actually done anything at all useful in their lives, knuckling down to the exacting daily work schedule was like being thrown into a bath of ice cold water.  They were kept occupied from roll-call in the morning at six, to supper in the evenings at seven.  They had little free time to get into trouble; but where there’s a will there’s a way and inevitably many of them did, with very painful consequences; consequences which none of them had ever envisaged when they were assigned to HMS Clarion.

On their arrival, Captain Whittaker addressed the group. He made it quite clear that absolute obedience was required from them at all times and that any offences, even minor ones, would be severely punished. He told them of the arrangements by which punishments would be carried out on board ship by introducing them to the concept of that Friday night ritual, the Punishment Parade: Any cadet committing an offence will be placed on the charge sheet for the next PP, as it came to be known. Both commissioned and non-commissioned officers down to the level of Petty Officer rank, could slate any cadet whom he felt needed to be punished and that lad’s name would be entered onto the charge sheet for the Friday night PP. The list of cadets to report for punishment was posted on the notice board at six o’clock each Friday evening and every cadet on the list must to report to the punishment room at eight the same evening

The captain went on to say that all candidates for the Friday PP would arrive on time outside the punishment room and would be correctly dressed for the occasion. The correct dress, he went on, with considerable relish, to add, was bare foot, with a gym singlet and shorts, the latter to be worn with strictly no underwear. Whether all this made any immediate impression on the majority of the cadets was difficult to say. Did they, in fact, understand the significance of what might happen to them if they had the misfortune to find themselves on the PP list? To judge from their reaction, which was practically non-existent, not a word of what had been said had sunk in: the message had heard but not registered!

This was born out when the list of the “lucky” lads who were to participate in the very first of the weekly Punishment Parades was posted; no less than six cadets were slated to be thrashed that Friday evening; but the great surprise was that there were an additional three names on the list; names of regular naval ratings, crew members, who were also, for some unspecified reason, to be punished. So the first PP was “well subscribed” with no less than nine participants.

Like the cadets, none whom had previously known one another, members of the ship’s crew were, for the most part, on their first posting together; a few of the ratings had served on other ships together and the second in command, with the rank of Lieutenant Commander, had served with Captain Whittaker on his previous posting; but beyond that, all the commissioned and non-commissioned officers were new to their posts, had never before crewed together and had to get to know one another and learn to work together. So there were no established cliques aboard HMS Clarion.

A young sub-lieutenant, aged twenty-three years, called William Alexander Curtis (Alex to his friends) had been placed in charge of all discipline and it was he who finalised the Friday list and prepared the charge sheet which would be read out to each individual who had the misfortune to figure on it. WAC, as he quickly became most appropriately known, thanks to that chance configuration of his initials, was the latest in a long line of naval personnel from the Curtis family.  One of his direct forebears, his exact namesake, a William Alexander Curtis, had served as Commander of one of the ships in Admiral Lord Nelson’s fleet at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805. He had not been aboard the Flag Ship, Victory, but he had been at the battle. And from then on, every generation of the Curtis family had supplied at least one commissioned officer to the Royal Navy, of which the latest, and probably also the last member, given his sexual persuasion was the present William Alexander.

Naturally a commissioned officer never actually wielded the rod of justice himself. That distinction had fallen upon a young Leading Hand called Sean O’Connor. The same age as his immediate master, Sean was from Northern Ireland and had started his naval career when aged sixteen he had been accepted as a cadet trainee seaman. He had then gone on and signed on for twelve years as a Rating and now, after seven years or so, mainly at sea, he had achieved the rank of Leading Hand.  In view of his strong physique he had been nominated by the Captain as the person most suited to the job of wielding the cane and the birch; as such he was took on the given the non-official title of “The Beater”; so once his official duties had commenced and the crew realised the here was the man who would become the scourge of the ship he was always referred to as “Beater O’Connor”.

Belying his ethnic background, Sean O’Connor was the exception which proves the rule: he was a blond Irishman. Just over six feet in height and with a strong muscular physique, it was not difficult to see why he had been chosen by the Captain for his present special post.

So, the implementation of the Punishment Parade was in the hands of two young men, who until they met on board ship, did not know one another.  And had the Captain not designated Sub-lieutenant Curtis as Chief Disciplinarian and had he not selected Leading Hand, Sean O’Connor, to administer the cane and the birch, chances are that the two young men might never have really got to know one another in the way they did and of course, this story would then have been quite different. But apart from the professional relationship which linked them, unbeknown to each of them they did have another thing in common: they were both gay; moreover, they were both gay, unattached and sexually very active.

Sexually both men had been very active in their previous posts, but having been moved around from posting to posting, neither young man had developed a lasting relationship with any of his previous partners: and so, here we have two young gays brought together quite by chance, each of whom was footloose and fancy free.  What was quite clear was that had they not been thrown together, the sex drive being what it is, both of them would have sought out new partners from among the crew and, dare one say it, from among the older cadets on board.  Whether this pair would have found each other whilst on board is difficult to say, but that is not the way things happened.

The first close contact that the two men had together was when Curtis summoned O’Connor to the punishment room early on the Friday afternoon, to check that everything was in order for that evening’s “inaugural performance”; that the correct canes and birches were available for the first Friday Punishment Parade and that the beating horse, which had just been delivered on board prior to sailing, was fully equipped with the necessary retraining straps. So we have here the first meeting between a commissioned officer, albeit a junior one, and a rating; but rank, as ever in the Navy, played its usual role.

“O’Connor,” began Curtis formally, “You and I have to work together regularly on this Friday night punishment business and I think it my duty as your senior officer, to tell you exactly how things will happen. I just want to get it right from the word go, and as we shall not have a rehearsal, it is vital that everyone know the part he has to play as I want no slip-ups.  The cadets and ratings to be punished will be brought under guard to wait to be called in the corridor outside this room.  All the men will be barefooted and wearing only a pair of gym shorts with no underwear and a gym vest. In this room, apart from the two of us, will be two other ratings whose job it will be to settle the offender on the horse and to see that he is properly strapped at the ankles and wrists to render him immobile. We do not want the offender to thrash around and disrupt the punishment once you have started laying on the strokes.”

“I will read out each name on the charge sheet and that man will be will be brought into this room by our two assistant ratings. I will than read out the punishment he is to suffer. Please remember that neither you nor I have any influence in what you are going to do; you will use in each case the type of instrument punishment and apply the number of strokes as are set out on the charge sheet. Our job, or rather yours alone, as it is you who will be wielding the cane or the birch, is just to carry out the punishment; ours is not to reason why; we are there to carry out the sentence as prescribed: no more, and certainly, no less; any pleas the offender makes for mercy, however loudly, during the punishment will go unheeded.  I should tell you that all the offenders on the list will have been passed by the ship’s doctor as fit to receive the punishment prescribed.”

“I shall then order the offender to remove his shorts completely, step across to the horse, which he will mount, if necessary assisted by the two ratings, who will see that he is firmly strapped into place. At that stage we are ready to begin the actual punishment.  I will call out each stroke in turn and you will then administer the blow to the naked buttocks of the offender. I shall pause for some ten to fifteen seconds between each stroke to ensure that the offender fully appreciates the intensity of the pain of each successive stroke. And so we shall continue until the requisite number of strokes have been delivered. The offender will then be released from the horse and we shall pass to the next man on the charge sheet and so on. I trust O’Connor that all that all that is perfectly clear. If you have any questions please feel free to ask me now, as I want no slip-ups this evening; and remember O’Connor, all cadets and non-commissioned ranks on this ship may be sentenced to corporal punishment, and that includes you as well!”

“Now, O’Connor, having had this job thrust upon you, how do you feel about being able to carry it out to the full?  Frankly O’Connor, neither you nor I have any previous experience of beating men’s arses and equally our first “clients” will be never have been subjected to a formal beating with the cane or the birch; so it’s a new experience for all of us: the supervisor, the beater and the beaten! Do you think that you will be able to cope?  You know I would like the cane applied neatly across the buttocks of each man to leave him with a neatly striped well beaten arse; something that will look good when he shows it off to his mates, as he surely will be forced to.”

“I would like everyone to see that you have done a really professional job, with nice parallel cuts of the cane from top to bottom of a man’s buttocks or with every square inch of his backside scoured by the birch.  You know, O’Connor, I get the impression that the Captain’s words to the men and cadets as we set sail were not taken very seriously; so it is up to us to show just how seriously they need to be taken. I very much doubt that anyone at all really appreciates just how painful these Friday night sessions are going to be: so it’s up to you and me to show them.  You, O’Conner, cannot afford to be squeamish; you have to lay on the strokes with vigour and you cannot allow yourself to become moved or influenced in any way by what will surely be pleas for mercy from the offender. The punishment must be administered thoroughly and dispassionately to the letter.  And as I am sure you will appreciate, O’Connor, tonight’s inaugural performance is very, very important; we cannot afford to muff it.”

O’Connor had listened silently and attentively to his superior before speaking: “Sir, I see no problem at all in administering the cane or the birch as required, as I myself have no qualms or reservations at all about corporal punishment. And as for laying of the strokes, have no fear sir, that I will shirk my responsibility; I assure you sir, there will be no soft pedalling from me; the receivers will know when I am through with them, that they have had a thorough thrashing.  The only thing sir, is that I have no actual experience of handling either the cane or the birch and I fear I might not be able to land the cane as accurately as you would really like, to produce a neat set of cuts across an offender’s arse, sir. I am sure sir, that it is just a question of a little practice. So sir, with your permission, if I might stay here in this room this afternoon for an hour or so and practise my caning swings on the leather of the beating horse, I think could learn exactly how to swing the cane to achieve the sort of seamless look you are wanting. And as for the birch sir, well I can already see that due to its wide spread, precision is less important than with the cane. I just need to be sure that I cover the entire area of an offender’s backside with the strokes sir, which I do not see as a problem.”

“Permission granted, O’Connor; take a full hour of practice here by yourself with no one to distract you.”

Now while Curtis had been addressing O’Connor, whom he had not previously known, he had been automatically assessing the physical qualities of the young man with whom he was to work regularly. He was very, very impressed by what he saw: a tall handsome young man, with blondish hair, well-muscled and, like a piece of ripe fruit, sexually lusciously appealing. Seen through the lieutenant’s own gay eyes, which viewed every attractive new male as a potential sex partner, he had already tabbed O’Connor as a top level prospect; he had, of course, no idea that the young sailor’s sexual orientation was the same as his own. And the converse was true; for O’Connor, looking at his superior officer with similarly appreciative eyes, saw in him a very appealing partner, albeit one well beyond his reach. But thought was cheap and cost nothing; neither did it reveal anything; so one could dream of what might never be; which is what both young men, each unbeknown to the other, were doing.

The fatidic hour approached. The punishment list had been posted: nine men in all; there were six cadets and three ratings slated to attend the inaugural Punishment Parade that evening. Each of the cadets, all juniors aged sixteen to seventeen, was to be caned: twelve cuts each. The fate for the three ratings, all recently enrolled young sailors aged about twenty, was worse, for they were each to receive, for their offence, twelve cuts of the cable birch. In fact, being realistic, what O’Connor was about to do was no more than had been visited on the naked backsides of countless public school boys in England for well over a century until the ban on the cane in the late twentieth century. The thing that rendered it unique was the fact that no one had any experience of corporal punishment: neither the beaters nor the beaten.

Lieutenant Curtis arrived some fifteen minutes before the fatidic hour at the punishment room to find Beater O’Connor, already waiting there. His eyes almost popped out of his head when he saw that O’Connor was wearing only a pair of tight fitting shorts, which hugged his magnificently rounded bubble buttocks and were cut in the crotch to make the most of the wearer’s package, which to judge from the attractive bulge was considerable. Curtis knew immediately, that given half a chance, he wanted to explore everything which those deliciously tight shorts, with the come-hither look which they so blatantly seemed to be advertising, were hiding. Apart from the shorts the young man was wearing only a pair of those soft leather boots beloved by boxers. But he now noticed for the first time that O’Connor was wearing a small gold earring in his right ear and that his right nipple was also pierced and was sporting a small gold ring. 

Curtis knew that several years ago, when earrings for men had first become popular, that a right hand side piercing indicated that the wearer was gay; as for the nipple piercing, he had no idea if there was any sexual innuendo implied or not. But he also knew that in the intervening years the significance of the ear piercing, left or right had largely lost its earlier clear message; but the fact that O’Connor had two right hand piercings was enough to set him wondering; that the young man had any piercings at all was an indication of his preoccupation with his appearance. Couple that with the clothes, or rather the lack of them, that he was wearing, O’Connor’s appearance led Curtis to believe that the young man was very probably gay and he seriously began to wonder if O’Connor was trying to send him a message.

The moment of truth had arrived; the nine men were brought, under guard into the corridor. The lieutenant opened the door and read out the first name on the charge sheet: a cadet called Sinclair. The young man stood up and entered the room very nervously; he stood there trembling visibly with fear of the unknown. The charge against him was read out by Curtis and he was informed that he was to receive twelve cuts of the cane; but it was only now that he learned that he was going to take the cuts on his bare buttocks as O’Connor ordered him to drop and then to step out of his of his shorts.  For a brief moment it looked as though the lad was going to refuse but then, seeing the two ratings who were waiting there to strap him to the horse, he realised that he could do nothing but comply; fifteen seconds later the lad was strapped firmly in place over the horse with his naked arse awaiting the tender ministrations the rattan cane, already being swished ominously through the air by O’Connor.

The lieutenant glance nervously at O’Connor who was also, judging by his face, somewhat nervous; both men knew that this was the all-important moment when the first stroke of the cane would be applied to the arse of the very first victim at the very first Punishment Parade: in its own way it was a sort of historic occasion. O’Connor knew he had to get it right; to get off to a good start; to show that he was a true professional in the post to which he had been assigned.  Curtis called “one” and O’Connor approached the waiting arse of the young cadet who was now visibly trembling with fear at what was about to happen him.

O’Connor’s earlier practice now paid dividends as he took his time in deciding where to place his maiden stroke before raising the rattan well above his head and bringing it down with a resounding crack on the exact midpoint of Sinclair’s awaiting globes. The characteristic crack of the cane mating with its target flesh, resounded around the room and was clearly audible to the other men waiting in the corridor, thus resolving any remaining question they might still have had in their minds about what was going to happen to them. One of their guards leered at his unhappy charges and told them that if any of them felt the need to go and take a pee, now was the time to do it.

But if the sound of that first stroke had awakened the waiting lads to the reality of their situation, its effect on Sinclair was dramatic to say the very least.  As the cane landed on his naked flesh, there was an audible intake of breath, followed a second or so later by a scream of pain as the effect of the cane made itself manifest; it was as if a red bot poker had been laid across the lad’s arse.  The lieutenant waited for about ten or so seconds before calling the next stroke: ten seconds which seemed like an age to Sinclair as he lay there in agony over the horse totally immobilised by the straps. Stroke then followed stroke, applied by O’Connor with admirable precision; he first landed each successive stroke exactly parallel to the one preceding it, working his way up the lad’s buttocks from his first centrally applied cut to the bottom of his back; he then commenced his descent towards his upper thighs.

 O’Connor applied ten strictly parallel strokes, each producing a livid red weal, before placing the last two cuts diagonally in the form of a cross. By the time he had finished, Sinclair was in tears. With each successive stroke, his cries became louder until he was screaming for the punishment to stop. As the beating continued, the lads awaiting their turn in the corridor, realised that they were in for an excruciatingly painful experience: an experience they would willingly forgo, but one which they knew was inevitable.

The lieutenant was filled with admiration of his assistant as he watched him carrying out his task. To say that this was his first “performance”, O’Connor had acquitted himself like a seasoned professional. Clearly there was no problem: none at all: O’Connor was the perfect choice for the job! O’Connor was dripping with sweat by the time he had finished; such was the effort he had expended in laying on the cane. The lieutenant, who had already become quite hard in his trousers just watching O’Connor perform, could scarcely control himself as he gazed on the young man’s superb, glisteningly-wet torso. He had a hard time restraining himself from grabbing him there and then, so erotic had been the experience.  O’Connor had had the good sense to bring a towel with him and he dried himself off as the two ratings let Sinclair down from the horse and helped him with the excruciatingly painful task of putting back on his shorts over his flamingly painful buttocks.

As Sinclair hobbled out, the lieutenant called in the next cadet on the charge sheet. And so it went on and on as cadet after cadet in turn, stepped out of his shorts and was strapped to the horse, where his naked arse had the doubtful pleasure of being treated to its first encounter with the rattan cane wielded by the ever more confident Beater O’Connor. As might well be imagined, the diminishing band of young men awaiting their fate in the corridor grew ever more tense and apprehensive as the crack after crack of the well placed rattan cane mating with the naked flesh of the supplicant’s arse accompanied by his cries of pain resounded through the air. 

By the time the last of the six cadets had been caned, the three waiting ratings had been forced to listen to the dreaded cane descend with its inimitable crack no less than seventy-two times on the naked arses of six young cadets. If ever a group of men had been left to contemplate their fate it was these three young sailors who were by now in an unbelievably nervous state. But their moment had still not come and they were left to stew in their own juice for another fifteen minutes, whilst O’Connor, now utterly drenched in sweat, dried himself off and took a well-earned breather.

The admiration of the lieutenant for O’Connor had grown with each passing moment, as the young man applied himself with dedication to his task and it is safe to say that each of the six cadets left the punishment room with a ragingly painful arse, which I am sure they wished belonged to someone else. There was no doubt at all that O’Connor had, on his first occasion as official beater, established a bench mark by which all future beatings would be measured.  One might have thought that once the other cadets had seen the state of their mates’ backsides that there would be no repeat performance of the Friday night Punishment Parade, but human nature being what it is and young lads being unable to keep themselves in check, there was a regular flow of cadets to the Friday night proceedings and O’Connor’s prowess with the cane quickly became legendary.

As the lieutenant had watched O’Connor apply the cane he had become ever more taken by the young man’s extraordinary physique and stamina. He now found himself lusting over the young man; he tried to imagine what it would be like to grab him, pull those tight shorts off and have sex with him; those beautifully rounded buttocks were just so very enticing. And as time passed and cadet followed cadet, so his lust and desire for O’Connor continued to grow.  He found himself hard-pushed to contain his own sexual arousal, so utterly erotic had become the whole business.  But the “show had got to go on” and so he prepared to call in the first of the three ratings to his fate. By now O’Connor had composed himself and was ready to wield the birch for the first time.

Looking at the charge sheet he saw that the first two ratings had been sentenced to twelve cuts of the birch but that the calibre of the instrument to use had not been specified. And then he saw to his amazement that the third rating had been given a truly ghastly punishment: twelve cuts of the birch complemented by six cuts of the cane to be applied immediately after the birching.  He shuddered inwardly as he wondered how on earth the young sailor would stand the pain. But as he had pointed out to O’Connor: “Ours not to reason why.”

He turned to O’Connor and pointed out that the charge sheet gave only the number of strokes of the birch and not the calibre, 2mm or 4mm, to be used. So as he was in charge and someone had to decide he told O’Connor that they would begin with six cuts of the 2mm birch to see how that performed and then move on to the next six with the 4mm gauge. Thinking about it, he thought that Admiralty had been quite remiss in not trying out each model to see what the effects on the recipient would be; the birch moved the level of pain to a totally different level as any public schoolboy of the old days would tell you; the birch is truly and implement of punishment to be feared; but feared or not, this is what O’Connor was now required to apply to the naked backsides of three of his fellow ratings.

For O’Connor, there was that horrible moment as he saw himself one of the men being punished. There was the act of punishment itself;  but then there was the fact that he would be beating three of his shipmates: lads with whom he himself at any moment would pull together to work as a team; he was one of them. He had to tell himself that there was nothing personal in what he was doing, which was of course true; he was just performing a function; a function which he had not elected to perform but which had been thrust upon him by order of the captain. But in spite of his soul searching, O’Connor found it difficult to convince himself that he would not become an outcast, a pariah among his own kind.  The only consolation, and it was a very small one, was that as the ship’s crew was newly assembled, he did not, thank God, know, not even by sight, any of the three men he was about to thrash.

The lieutenant called in the first man on the list a young sailor called Turner; but what he had done to merit a twelve stroke birching was not specified. The young man was about twenty years old and was, quite understandably, in a highly nervous state, with all that he had just witnessed; first audibly at the sound of the cane cracking down time and time again on naked flesh and then visually as each cadet made his doleful exit, massaging his arse to relieve the obvious pain he was in. Like the cadets, Turner had no idea exactly what was going to happen and he was so unnerved by the whole situation that when told to remove his shorts he wet himself; the poor lad simply could not stop himself and was red with embarrassment as the two rating strapped him in place on the horse.

O’Connor now approached Turner with the 2mm birch in hand; the lieutenant called out the first stroke and O’Connor raised the birch high above his head and brought it crashing down at lightning speed on to Turner’s waiting backside.  There was that pause of a split second and then the sailor let out the most agonising cry of pain. The six strands of the birch had spread out fanwise across the centre of Turner’s’ buttocks and there was already a series of marks which had been left; but the skin was not broken and so stroke after stroke descended on the lad so that by the sixth stroke, his entire arse was and angry red colour. By this time the young sailor was sobbing uncontrollably with pain and begging O’Connor to stop.

The lieutenant nodded to O’Connor to pause whilst he examined the state of the lad’s arse and as all seemed well he motioned to O’Connor to use the 4mm birch for the rest of the punishment. Now superficially it might appear that in passing from the 2mm to the 4mm birch one has doubled the power of the implement. However, those of my readers who are mathematically minded will realise that passing from 2mm to 4mm cylindrical strands, the effective mass of this fearful implement is quadrupled. Whether the lieutenant was aware of this fact as he ordered O’Connor to use the 4mm birch is doubtful; what is certain is that O’Connor had no idea of the lethal implement with which he was now to about to visit on Turner’s arse.

O’Connor raised the 4mm birch and brought it down sharply on Turner’s unsuspecting arse causing him promptly to let out a scream of extreme agony, which took the customary howls of pain to a totally new level. The lieutenant stepped forward to examine the effects of the first stroke and saw that the six individual strands of the birch had cut deeply into the flesh of the lad’s backside; the skin was now broken and a few spots of blood were visible. Now although he in no way objected to the use of corporal punishment, he was not in any way a sadist and saw that the 4mm birch would have the same effect as the old cat-o-nine-tails: it would reduce the recipient’s arse to a bleeding mess; so he immediately stopped it use and reverted to the lighter version. But by the time O’Connor had finished with him, Turner’s arse was right red and well and truly roasted.

As he was unstrapped and got down from the horse, Turner was a trembling wreck; his backside was raw, so much so that he left the room without putting back on his shorts: the pain was just too great. So the other two ratings, who were still awaiting their call as he went by them to return to his berth, both got a good view of his arse and I can tell you that what they saw filled them with fear. But there was no reprieve for either of them and one after the other they were strapped across the horse and the prescribed punishment was vigorously applied by O’Connor.

Why the third rating had been given an additional six strokes of the cane applied on top of the twelve cuts of the birch, the lieutenant and O’Connor never knew; as the lieutenant had said: “Ours not to reason why.” And so the third sailor left the punishment room that evening with an arse which seemed to be in hell, so great was the burning and the pain; if anyone had told him that a beating could be so bloody awful he would never have believed them.

But his fate was a warning to all his shipmates who shivered with fear when they saw what he had received and prayed that they themselves would never ever have to suffer what he had just undergone. So with nine exemplary beaten arses around the ship, all of which had achieved “top viewing” among the crew and the cadets like a new blockbuster movie, there was a clear warning to everyone that rules were there to be obeyed; step out of line and there was now no doubt at all as to the consequences; no one was immune; no one’s arse was sacred; the cane and the birch were both here to stay and would be used; Beater O’Connor was ever ready to impart a little tender loving care to any miscreant at the regular Friday night gathering.

The lieutenant and O’Connor now found themselves alone in the punishment room; the other ratings had gone, as had all the cadets and crew who had been punished.  The lieutenant stood there looking at O’Connor who was still drying himself off from the exertions of the final caning he had given Turner. He knew exactly what he wanted to do as he was filled with admiration not only of the way the young sailor had risen to the task but even more so by the man himself. He found himself wondering how he could come to the subject nearest to his heart at that moment: sex. 

He had been rock-hard in his trousers from the first moment he saw O’Connor wield the cane on the first cadet and had not managed to calm his raging cock since then. And by now he could feel the precum inside his underpants which had become soaking wet with his uncontrollable emissions.

He then observed that O’Connor himself also had a hard on and his cock was clearly constrained in his shorts at an angle across to his thigh where a tell-tale damp patch was showing.  The two young men looked at each other and each saw that the other was in a state of arousal, but the question was how much of this was due to the erotic nature of the beatings and how was much due to the sexual desire of the one man for the other.

The lieutenant knew exactly where he stood; he wanted desperately to have sex with the young sailor, but was the desire reciprocated? Of course what the lieutenant did not know was that O’Connor was exactly like him: a confirmed gay and moreover had had the hots for his superior officer at first sight; so reciprocal feelings of lust reigned. But the question of rank separated them; they were not equals; the one was a commissioned officer in charge of the punishment detail and the other was a rating whose job had been to execute the orders given to him by his superior.

Clearly it was not for the rating to take the initiative, even though by now they could each see that the other was in an extreme state of arousal. So, pulling his courage together, the lieutenant said: “Very good O’Connor; that was, by any standards, a bench mark performance you just gave. I am amazed at the sheer professionalism you showed at this the very first punishment parade. You certainly sent all those lads away with something to think about.”

But having made his remarks in praise of O’Connor’s performance, his courage suddenly evaporated and he was lost for words; he started to say what he wanted to say; that he really wanted to strip the young sailor naked and fuck him as hard as he could, but he could not find the words to convey such a direct meaning; in fact, he could not think of any way at all to convey what he wanted to do to the young man standing in front of him: he found himself totally tongue-tied.

 O’Connor, however, was no dope and by now had realised that the lieutenant and he were destined for one another so he said: “Permission to speak sir.” A nod from the lieutenant and he continued, very diplomatically: “I think sir that you were wanting to say something else, but you possibly lost your train of thought sir; I think might be better and easier for you sir, if I were to lock the door.”

Without waiting for any form of agreement from the lieutenant, O’Connor turned on his heel, went to the door and turned the key in the lock. In so doing he exposed his alluring arse, still clothed in his tight-fitting shorts to the lieutenant, who was so overcome with desire that he could not contain himself. He went over to O’Connor, unbuckled the light belt holding up the meagre item of clothing and in one movement pulled the shorts down to the floor. He saw that the sailor was wearing a thong, which was clearly fighting a losing battle to contain his enormous erection. So down came the thong, freeing O’Connor’s magnificently erect penis allowing it to stand at stand proudly to attention.

As he had thought, O’Connor was super well-endowed and the lieutenant found himself looking at a dead-straight rigid shaft some nine inches in length, surmounted by a magnificently wrought cock head, itself put into alluring relief from the shaft by a well-defined rim. He was surprised to see that O’Connor had, at some stage in his life been very cleanly circumcised, a practice still by no means common in England but one which showed off the young man’s endowment to perfection.

But then the lieutenant saw that O’Connor was sporting one of those amazing trianguloid cock rings, a piece of genital jewellery he had hitherto known only through pornographic magazine photographs of nude studs showing off their kit.  The heavy gold base ring, which sat neatly against his pelvis, encompassed the root of the young man’s genitals, embracing both his scrotum and his cock; his balls, which were fetchingly beautiful separated, had been passed through the lower ring and his cock through the upper one.

The lieutenant, who considered himself a connoisseur of the male sex organ, thought that he had never seen anything so entrancingly desirable in his life; so much so that he could not stop himself as he dropped to his knees and took that deliciously attractive cock head into his mouth.  If O’Connor was surprised, he certainly did not show it as his superior officer sucked him off which ended in a spray of thick creamy cum, emitted by the young sailor, covering the lieutenant’s face.

The die was now cast and there was clearly no going back, here he was: a commissioned officer, having sex with a rating: something unheard of!  But what the hell; both young men were clearly at ease with the situation and hot for each other, so why stop?  And it would have been very difficult for either of them to stop now that the ice had been broken; and broken it was with a vengeance by that unstoppable force which sexual desire engenders; come what may, the two young men were doomed to take things to the ultimate conclusion whatever that might be.

The lieutenant stood up, his face bathed in O’Connor’s sperm; he grabbed O’Connor’s towel and wiped off his face, telling the sailor to step out of the shorts and thong which had been sitting around his ankles during what we have to consider as the overture to the main performance.  The lieutenant stripped off his own uniform and stood there stark naked, totally unashamed and unembarrassed, in front of the young sailor. Apart from his order to O’Connor to rid himself of all his clothes, not another word had passed between the two of them.

If O’Connor had been surprised by what had happened he certainly did not show it, as he gazed with unconcealed admiration at the naked figure which now stood in front of him. With the lieutenant shorn of his naval uniform, the two of them seemed as equals.  And rank apart, as two gay young men, they were in every way equal.  O’Connor saw that in the lieutenant, whom as we know already he had been secretly admiring, he had equal a partner; a young stud just as well equipped as he himself was; he could not imagine a more desirable sex partner.

But naked as they were, it was the lieutenant who called the next shot without uttering a single word.  Glancing around him there he saw that there was little by way of furniture in the punishment room to enable them to “commune” together comfortably. So he led the young sailor by the arm to the dreaded beating horse where he gently forced him to mount the horse with his legs straddling the rather narrow structure. Designed for thrashing backsides, the horse was also perfectly suited to the much more agreeable pastime of anal sex. The horse being quite narrow, O’Connor was able to straddle it with his legs and lean comfortably against the soft leather in which it was covered. With his feet firmly on the floor and his legs spread each side of the horse, the lieutenant saw that he now had perfect access to that most vital part of his partner’s anatomy: his anus.

The lieutenant was beside himself as he surveyed the prospect which the young man’s open legs now offered him. O’Connor had not a single hair anywhere on his backside and the skin was smooth and totally unblemished.  The lieutenant looked deep between the two beautiful round globes presented to him to see that vital point where he would shortly enter the young man. O’Connor had a very tight little anal pucker promising a tight anal sphincter, which was precisely what the lieutenant loved the most. He was trembling just thinking about the pleasure that this young man’s arse was going to bring him as he forced his way past the resistant muscle with his own sizeable cockhead and slid his long firm shaft deep inside the young man.  He was almost climaxing at the thought of what he was about to do to O’Connor as he advanced his erect cock to the entry spot.

Normally the Lieutenant was a somewhat fastidious man in his sexual activities; he always used a condom and lubricants whenever he had sex; but the circumstances right now were so extraordinary and unexpected that he threw caution to the wind; with no lubricant to hand, he rubbed a little of his own precum onto the young man’s anus by way of a lubricant prior to penetrating his anus and giving him the full benefit of his considerable cock length.

O’Connor let out slight gasp as he felt the lieutenant thrust his cock deep inside him. Any doubt about the lieutenant’s sexual orientation vanished from O’Connor’s mind as the lieutenant began steadily but powerfully to fuck his arse. He recognised that here was an experienced man at work on him; a man who knew exactly what he was doing; with each successive stroke he increased both the amplitude and the force as he successively bottomed himself repeatedly against O’Connor’s anus. Suddenly it all ended in a monumental climax as the lieutenant withdrew his cock completely and in a series of uncontrollable orgasmic jerks, sprayed his sperm all over O’Connor’s arse. Simultaneously O’Connor himself ejaculated his own load which landed on the leather covering of the beating horse.

Now somewhat bushed by his strenuous activity, the lieutenant fell across O’Connor’s back pulled his head around and kissed the young man firmly on the lips; and there they remained, glued together by their sperm for five or more minutes, whist they each recovered from the intensity of the act they had just committed together. Still not a word had been spoken by either of them. 

Finally, the lieutenant broke the silence and asked O’Connor what is first name was, to learn that it was Sean. “Well Sean, I’m Alex to my friends and I think that under the present circumstances we might drop the formalities of rank and call each other by our first names.”

O’Connor replied: “If you say so sir – I mean Alex.” The lieutenant laughed out loud at the automatic way in which the young sailor had deferred to his rank. It was such an ingrained response; but it was now a response which did not at all fit the present situation in which they found themselves.

“Sean; what on earth possessed you to suggest that you lock the door?”

“Well, I could see from your manner that you clearly had the hots for me; it’s not the first time for either of us, I guess, to have sex with another guy. I’ve been in many a situation similar in which another stud wanted to fuck me but had no idea how to begin. With no false modesty on my part, I know that I am good looking with a nice body and an attractive arse and I get solicited all the time by some guy or other. Just looking at you there, tongue-tied, I could read your face like a book; I knew exactly what you wanted.”

“But what you did not know then, was that I also wanted you; in fact, Alex, I have wanted you since the first time I saw you. And so I took the initiative, which I suppose was a bit of a risk if I had misread the situation and suggested that I lock the door as a way of indicating to you that I was ready and willing, which did give you the courage to act. But I guess that neither of us realised that we were each gay. Anyway as you see things worked out just fine; so the question now is: where do we go from here?”

The lieutenant was astounded by perceptiveness of his latest conquest and went on to tell him just how much he had hopes that things would develop the way they develop the way they had: “I’m sorry I sort of jumped you after you had locked the door Sean, but I just could not help myself. I simply wanted you so badly that my only thought was to get your pants down and get my cock inside of your delicious arse. Frankly, just looking at you stripped, apart from your shorts, had been driving me mad.  Believe me, it was not a question of rank or anything like that: it was just sheer lust and I couldn’t stop myself. Anyway listen, Sean: that was just about the best fuck I’ve ever had and I cannot tell you how relieved I am now that you let me do it. So if you would like a return round – I’m equally at home as a top or a bottom, by the way – I’m all yours. And let me tell you, having seen your tool, I am really looking forward to taking it up my own arse. So as I say, I’m all yours.”

And that is what the two young studs did. Sean proved to be at least as professional as Alex with his own sizeable endowment, as he reamed out Alex’s hole. Alex was beside himself with erotic pleasure as Sean pressed on with ever greater force and finally exploded with his orgasm inside him, filling him with his thick creamy cum. Alex by this time was hovering at the pinnacle of sexual pleasure and at the same time shot out another huge load of his cream all over the horse.  It seems that the two young were meant for one another.

After another longish pause to enable the two protagonists to catch breath, they wiped each other off with the only towel available.  Alex thought that they should think about leaving, when Sean made a request which caused him to blink and wonder if he had correctly understood what he was being asked to do.

“Listen Alex:  I don’t want you to think me a masochist or anything like that, but I would really like you to give me six cuts of the cane across my naked arse, in much the same way as I have just done with those unfortunate lads whom we have punished this evening.  You see, the thing is, I have never ever been caned in my life and as I am doomed to wield the cane and, and even worse, the birch, on the backsides of those unlucky lads who get sent to the Friday parade, I would like to know how they feel as I thrash their arses black and blue. So please could you steel yourself before we leave here, put me arse-naked across that damned horse and give me a taste of my own medicine?  I truly would appreciate it: truly I would.”

Alex’s immediate reaction was to be appalled at what he was being asked to do. Who in his right mind would voluntarily offer up his own naked arse to be caned? But then as he thought a little more about it, he could see the sense of Sean’s request. The young man wanted to know exactly how his “victims” felt as a result of his ministrations. And then, thinking still further, he asked himself whether he too, the person in charge, should not also feel the same way: share the same sense of responsibility. Ought he not also to know exactly what it felt like to experience the same punishment as he was dishing out? And then by way of rationalisation, Alex said to himself six cuts across the naked arse were nothing more that public schoolboys across the land were again experiencing as a result of the new law.

“Sean; I can see the sense in your request; but I can also see that I too ought to know what it is we are inflicting on the lads who are assigned to the Friday night sessions. So yes, I will give you six across your naked arse; but in return, you will do the same for me. So if you are agreed, shall be get to it.” And then laughingly he said: “Come on; jump to it sailor, get your naked arse across that horse over there. I don’t have all night you know.”

Alex picked up the cane and advanced on the waiting Sean, who said: “Let’s get one thing straight, Alex, this is a real beating and I don’t want you to soft pedal on it; I need to know exactly how it feels to take a really severe caning across my arse.”

With that Alex gave his lover – for that was how he already thought of him – six resounding strokes of the cane raising six parallel welts evenly placed across Sean’s. Sean never let out a sound as the beating proceeded. Then the roles were reversed and Alex, the lieutenant, allowed Sean, the rating to thrash him.

As they finally left the punishment room feeling both elated and sore, Alex said to Sean: “After all is quiet around eleven, just slip away from your berth and come to my cabin.”

Later that night as they lay entwined in each other’s arms having made passionate love to each other, Alex said to Sean: “I don’t know how we found each other, but I never want to let you go; so we have to remain together in spite of our different ranks on board ship.”

After that first Friday Parade, week after week, a nervous group of cadets and ratings presented themselves for punishment each Friday evening. This was always followed by an intense bout of sex between Alex and Sean. But where there’s a will there’s a way and the two young men found many more opportunities during the week, to enjoy their sex life together.  And there we leave the Navy to its unwanted cadet training activities, which for two young men did have a very positive outcome.

THE END