The Ingram-Lewis Chronicles

THE INGRAM-LEWIS CHRONICLES- PART 1

OLIVER’S FIRST SCHOOL DAYS

A Homoerotic Story

by

Jason Land

This is the first of a series of, stand-alone, short stories set in the early part of the twentieth century, concerning the life and times of members of an English upper class family, the Ingram-Lewis’s. Each story can be read separately, but they are best read as a series: Parts 1 – 6.

CHAPTER 1 

The cane was tapping gently across a splendid pair of naked buttocks in perfect condition for their first, how shall I put it, encounter with the realities of life in the English Public School system? The Headmaster who was wielding the cane looked admiringly at the quality of the buttocks he was about to beat. Two beautiful, well rounded globes, virgin territory, hitherto totally untouched by any cane, or any other implement of corporal punishment for that matter. They were a sight for sore eyes, eyes which had not looked upon any boy’s backside since the end of the school year in July. So, the Headmaster, who like many of his kind was an inveterate beater of boy’s arses, was suffering from severe withdrawal symptoms, not having had the opportunity to administer what he euphemistically referred to as corrective percussive therapy to anybody for the last two months.

It was now September, the beginning of the new school year, with an intake of new boys who had to be taught the manners of young gentlemen, which throughout the British upper class education system usually involved liberal use of the cane and the birch. So things would soon look up and the Headmaster could look forward again to setting his young flock on the right road, which inevitably would involve liberal application of the cane to naked buttocks. In fact the Headmaster enjoyed nothing more than applying the cane to a boy’s naked arse and watching their owner squirm with pain.

The Headmaster was relishing the tension he was allowing to build up in the owner of those two delightful globes whose pristine beauty he was about to defile. He continued tapping gently, getting the feel of where he proposed to lay the first real stroke of the cane and trying to decide what sort of pattern he should imprint on the boy’s backside, a backside which in a few minutes time would be changed forever with the baptism of fire it was about to suffer. But there was no rush as he was truly savouring the moment as he prepared himself for the delicious moment when the cane would crack down for the very first time on the naked rump and the owner would enter the real world of the English public school system. I doubt, however, that the same could be said for the owner of the arse about to be roasted; he was certainly not savouring the moment, bent as he was across the beating stool, trembling with fear at what was to be his first thrashing ever.

The above scene was being enacted – a good word to describe the situation – in the Headmaster’s study of  Rigby Court Preparatory School for Boys, where the pupils were given a rigorous preparation for the entry a few years later into Rigby School, a small but nevertheless academically acclaimed Public School. For those of my readers who are unfamiliar with the English school system, a Public School is, in fact, a private fee (high!) paying establishment where members of the great and the good of British society send their offspring to be educated. What commonsense would define as a public school anywhere else, are called state schools in England. But of course, commonsense does not always triumph over tradition. So public schools are anything but public.

The cane-tapping Headmaster of Rigby Court was one, Gerald Gordon Inkpen, some 30 years old and a strict disciplinarian. In fact, not to mince matters, Gee-Gee, as he was nicknamed by the boys, was a real martinet, whose favourite pastime, which, if questioned about, he would have vehemently denied, was thrashing the arses of his charges. Had he been in charge of an older group of boys, he might well have done more than just thrash the arses of the older boys, but as he wasn’t he didn’t. Like many unmarried school masters, the Headmaster was a closet homosexual.

The Headmaster rejoiced in possessing what had to be one of the rarest and most extraordinary surnames in the country. Inkpen was a name going back to 1200 AD. But in spite of his extraordinary name, Gerald Cordon Inkp’n, as he wrote it, dropping the E, was in fact a very ordinary man: very very ordinary indeed. And in spite of his high-flown name, some witty boy had coined the nickname Gee-Gee, which had stuck.

Rigby Court took boys as boarders from aged eight and tended to their educational and bodily needs until they left, aged thirteen, to move on to Rigby School. Serious preparation for the rigours of a public school education did not really being until the boys were aged eleven and a number of boys were admitted to the school at this age. The unblemished buttocks being presented to the doubtful pleasures of Gee-Gee’s cane were the property of just such a boy: Cedric Oliver Ingram-Lewis. Called Cedric, by his father, Patrick Ingram-Lewis and always Cedric Oliver, by his mother, Beryl and paternal grandmother, he was known as Oliver to all his friends.

Prior to his entry aged eleven into Rigby Court, Oliver had not had a particularly pleasant life. The Ingram-Lewis’s were an old family from Northumberland and had originally been owners of several coal mines just north of Newcastle. As such, they had become very rich and their main pit, Ingram Deep, was one of the most profitable in England. It produced some of the finest steam-raising coal in the country. The family had more or less handed the management of their business to a professional managing director and simply sat back and collected the proceeds, which were considerable.
Oliver’s father, Patrick Ingram-Lewis, was in the Regular Navy where he had attained the rank of Commander. As the navy was his fulltime occupation, he was rarely at home and Oliver was brought up by his mother and grandmother in the family pile, Ingram House, located near Hexham in Northumberland.

CHAPTER 2

Commander Ingram-Lewis had himself been left without a father, who had died when his son was still at school and had been brought up by his mother. He had trodden much the same path as his son was now embarking on and had run the gauntlet of life at both Rigby Court and Rigby School, where he had been introduced at the age of eighteen to the forbidden pleasures of male sex. Boys at Rigby had no contact at all with girls. Remember that in talking about Oliver’s father, these were late Victorian times and buggery, to give it its official name, was rife in such places as Rigby. Although strictly forbidden and leading to horrendous birchings for any boy caught in the act, the practice was unofficially tolerated. Even in those long gone days, the powers that be, governors and teachers alike, realised that they were wasting their time in trying to stop boys experimenting with sex. It should also be added that the teaching profession was a refuge for what we today would call closet homosexuals. It was not unknown for certain staff members to give certain senior boys what was referred to as anal stimulation. More crudely put, the boys in question got their arses fucked. On the whole, most of them enjoyed the experience; but even those who did not, never complained. So at Rigby, as elsewhere in similar establishments throughout the country, a culture of hypocrisy reigned supreme. Everyone knew what was going on, but eyes were closed and nothing was said.

Of course you have also to remember that under the benighted laws of the UK, buggery and homosexuality were punishable by imprisonment; so everyone kept mum. And it has to be said that on the whole things worked out all right. The public schools turned out outstanding young men, the proportion of confirmed homosexuals in which was much the same as the national average. Many of the boys were what might well be called frustration buggers, boys who fucked their school mates out of frustration at being separated from the female sex; but who, on leaving school and finding themselves in mixed company, reverted to regular heterosexual relationships with members of the opposite sex.

Patrick Ingram Lewis was first introduced to the delights of buggery when he was sixteen. He had committed a slight misdemeanour, for which one of the senior prefects decided to cane him. Summoned by Creighton, the senior prefect in question, to answer for his piffling faux-pas, he was offered six on-the-bare or three bare and.... Six on-the -bare implied that he would be given six strokes of the cane across is naked arse and the other option of three bare and.... Well, the meaning was left to his imagination. Knowing full well just how brutal the prefects were in wielding the cane across their schoolmates naked arses, Patrick had taken the second option in the spirit of nothing ventured, nothing gained; he had had no clear idea of what was about to happen, but he thought that it could not be worse than the pain from the cane; a pain with which he was already intimately familiar; At Rigby, as in most public schools, the cane,  wielded by both the Headmaster and the prefects, reigned supreme.

After three stingingly awful cuts across his naked arse, Creighton told him to stay bent over the chair over which he had been caned. He was pleasantly surprised when he felt a hand massage some oil into the cleavage between his buns and into his anus, to be followed by the insertion of Crieghton’s long, smooth cock into his fundamental orifice. Patrick found the experience quite pleasant, although when Creighton finally shot his load, Patrick had no idea what he was supposed to do with the spunk which had just been injected into his rectum. Anyway, all’s well that ends well. Ashton shook his hand, told him not to mention what had happened to anyone and sent Patrick on his way. So that was how Patrick Ingram-Lewis was introduced to the homosexual sex-act. He had, in the official verbiage of the day, been buggered and had, like many before him, enjoyed it. And in the great tradition of the English public school ethic, it never even crossed his mind to report Creighton for gross indecency, as it was officially called; it just was not done!

We do not need to go into details as to where this new knowledge led the young man. Suffice it to say that in the remaining two years he spent at Rigby School, anal copulation became one of the key elements in his life. Initially confined to his school mates, where fucking was rife, Patrick allowed his curiosity to take him into the forbidden pastures of the town. He was an attractive young man, very well endowed where it mattered most and, as such, had no problem in finding willing female company. What the school authorities would have said about that and what they would have done had they known, remains a matter of conjecture, as they never did find out about Patrick’s extramural sexual escapades.

CHAPTER 3

Much to his surprise in his final year at Rigby, Patrick was made a prefect. Patrick had not been a bad pupil but even his kindest judges would not have rated his performance as stellar. He had not been particularly rebellious in his time at Rigby, but he had, nevertheless, for one reason or another been a regular visitor to the Headmaster’s study. There his bare bum, to use the vulgar expression common among the boys, had suffered regular roasting; all of which he had taken with a shrug as being part and parcel of public school life.

But even worse had been the beatings dished out by the prefects whose job it was to maintain rule and order outside the classroom. Limited by the school rules to a maximum of six strokes of the cane across the recipient’s naked arse, the prefects managed, by dint of constant practice, to deliver excruciatingly exemplary pain to the supplicant. It goes without saying that they much enjoyed making their schoolmates suffer and the word maximum might just have well not have been there, for not one prefect ever gave less than the six strokes. Indeed, a prefect’s beating, even with fewer strokes of the cane, was quite often much worse than any that the Headmaster himself ever delivered. The prefects were great practitioners of the “more from less philosophy”; they all assiduously studied methods of applying the cane to the arses which came their way, to ensure that every stroke delivered maximum pain.; so with practice a prefect could achieve in six strokes what the Headmaster did in twelve; they were just very, very efficient.

But now, like a gift from heaven, Patrick was a prefect himself so that he too could now apply the cane to the naked arses of any miscreants. He thought of it as poetic justice; the ability to give to others what he had so often received him. He smiled inwardly to himself, as he composed what he thought was an apposite pseudo-biblical quotation on the matter, which ran:

To him who hath so often received, so shall he in the fullness of time experience the joy of giving!

And let us be quite clear, in his final year, Patrick Ingram-Lewis really experienced the joy of giving; to excess; he never hesitated to dispensed his percussive generosity on every possible occasion; not even the smallest infringement of the school rules escaped his attention. If he caught the miscreant in the act, six stinging cuts of the senior cane the bare arse were automatic. But the ability to administer corporal punishment opened up another joyous pastime to Patrick. As a sexual athlete, Patrick rapidly was recognised by his classmates as being one hell of a shafter. If the occasion presented itself and conditions looked propitious, Patrick indulged in what was to become his greatest pleasure: fucking the arse of the boy he had just beaten. He found it unbelievably erotic, once his victim’s arse was flaming with the weals of the cane, to provide the hapless lad with what he referred to as anal stimulation , which for Patrick  was the height of sexual pleasure. He was a past master at consensual buggery with many of his schoolmates; but for sheer eroticism, nothing compared with fucking an arse he had just beaten. But he was careful in his actions and limited them to the boys in the last year at school all of whom were aged eighteen and were young men rather than boys. Of course, what he did was strictly forbidden; but then so were all sexual activities; forbidden but tolerated. And if no one complained, which no one ever did, then where was the harm. Let’s be frank; no boy was ever raped and once initiated into the joys of sex, no one ever complained, for the truth of the matter was that for those who indulged in it, anal sex rapidly became a pleasure, which few could forego.

CHAPTER 4

A prime case of what could happen was the following incident. Passing the lavatories one day, Patrick smelled smoke, entered and found a sixth former, Roderick Pennington, quite alone, leaning against one of the wash basins, smoking a cigarette. Now smoking was on the strictly forbidden list, but, nevertheless, many boys took every chance they had to have a drag as it was commonly called. But having caught Pennington red-handed, Patrick had no option as a prefect but to follow through with the inevitably painful consequences for the miscreant.

“My study, at eight this evening, straight after supper, Pennington and don’t be late, I hate to be kept waiting to correct someone.”

“Oh, come on Ingram-Lewis; have a heart, I was only having a drag. No one saw me so couldn’t you close a blind eye for once and let the matter go. Come on, Ingram Lewis, you have a drag yourself sometimes, I know.”

“My dear Pennington; that fact that I myself smoke a cigarette from time to time is immaterial to the present situation. You have had the misfortune to be caught smoking by me: a prefect, sworn to uphold the school rules, which I am sorry to say I have to do. Your mistake, Pennington, was to be caught at it by me. If you wish to smoke, then you should take precautions to be more discreet and let no one see you. I know, as do the masters, that many boys smoke on the quiet. It is just your bad luck to be caught at it, for which I am afraid you have to pay the price: a rather painful price, I regret to say.”

“It’s all so fucking hypocritical and you know it, Ingram-Lewis. There is no reason at all why you cannot turn a blind eye just this once and let it go.”

“I suggest, Pennington, that you cool your language when talking to me in my capacity as prefect. You are so very wrong about thinking that I could, if I wished, forget this little incident. If I turn a blind eye, as you put it, and let you off scot-free, then the next thing I know is that you will have related our little encounter here to your pals, telling them how you sweet-talked your way out of an awkward situation; my standing and authority as a prefect would be undermined completely. So, Pennington, as I said before: my study at eight his evening and don’t be late.”

“Fuck you.” said Pennington, under his breath. But of course, had he reflected on the reputation of Ingram Lewis as probably the school’s greatest sexual athlete, he would have realised that any fucking which was to be done would be by Ingram-Lewis and not by himself. So, he reluctantly admitted to himself that he had been stupid to smoke somewhere where he could so easily be caught. It was entirely his own fault; he had made his bed and now was going to have to lie in it; although being realistic he knew that he was not going to have a very comfortable night in bed; Ingram-Lewis’s prowess with the cane was already legendary; as also was his sexual prowess.

Patrick went by the prefects’ common room and picked up a senior cane. The Headmaster had just that week issued the prefects with both junior and senior canes of a new model he had himself chosen. They were both very flexible; much more so than the conventional rattan canes used in most schools. In the right hands – and Patrick Ingram-Lewis did have the right hands – the new cane was capable of giving the recipient arse a very painful experience: very painful indeed. Patrick had not yet had the pleasure of testing out the cane on warm naked flesh; but he spent some time in the privacy of his study, flexing and testing the cane on a cushion from a chair to make sure that he had the feel of this new, improved, implement. He wanted to be sure that he knew how to deliver its full potential on the arse whose arrival he was now awaiting.

The appointed hour arrived and Pennington entered Patrick’s study. The chair, over which the unfortunate Pennington was destined to bend, was already in the middle of the room. The new cane, bright and shiny in its pristine glory, lay on Patrick’s desk. The observant Pennington also noticed that there was a bottle of baby oil standing on the desk, alongside the cane.

“Ah, Pennington, delighted that you agreed to join me this evening. Make yourself comfortable. Drop our trousers and underpants and bend across the back of that chair, if you please. No! On second thoughts I think it might be better if you shed your trousers and underwear completely and put them neatly folded on that other chair over there. We wouldn’t want them interfering with our little transaction; would  we?”

“Oh, come off it, Ingram-Lewis, you don’t mean to go through with this do you? Come on, I’m eighteen years old and one does not beat boys in their final year at school; all that’s only for the younger boys.”

“I am afraid I have to disabuse you of that notion, Pennington. At this school, all boys, from the day they enter to the day the leave are subject to the same rules, which are there to be obeyed. If they are broken, sanctions become automatic and boys are caned; In this case, it is you who will be caned; there is no negotiation; all miscreants get their arses beaten bare. That also includes us, the prefects, who are in a position of trust. If we break that trust then we too are subject to the same punishment as any other boy. The difference is that in our case the Headmaster would birch us rather than beat us with the cane; and that, believe me is much, much worse than the cane; I know as I have experienced it myself twice in my time at Rigby; It is definitely something to be avoided. So, Pennington, jump to it; I want your bare arse over the back of that chair.

But Pennington still showed signs of resistance: “Come off it, Ingram-Lewis, you could just overlook......”

“Pennington, I shall count to three; and if I don’t see your naked arse over the back of that chair waiting to be beaten by then, I shall take you to the Headmaster forthwith. Believe me, Pennington if that occurs, you will certainly get a birching. So, it’s up to you. Decide!”

And that was how Patrick found himself gazing at a finely muscled rump, totally naked and just asking to be beaten and possibly fucked. He also noted that Pennington had a splendid cock which, freed from the encumbering underwear, and was hanging loosely between his legs.

He picked up the cane from his desk, bent it practically completely double under Pennington’s nose and said: “You know Pennington; you are a lucky lad tonight. You see this cane. It’s brand new and of a special flexible quality reputed to be much more painful than the old rattan. The Headmaster has ordered several of them specially and has just today handed them out to the prefects. So, Pennington, as you can see, everyone has your best interests at heart. We all want to assure you that you are been give the very best available treatment. And in your case, it’s a double first: look upon it as equivalent to being awarded the top Cambridge degree: the double first! I shall have the honour to be the first prefect to apply this cane to a deserving arse and yours the first arse to feel its magic; so, Pennington, you should feel very privileged, very privileged indeed.”

Pennington, of course, couldn’t give a fuck about the uniqueness of the occasion. All that worried him right then was just now painful the beating was going to be. He soon found out; Patrick tapped Pennington’s rump a few times, more or less on its equator as he tried to judge where to place the six strokes to maximum effect; the places to deliver the greatest pain to the awaiting arse. He delivered the first resounding cut more or less across the middle of Pennington’s arse and was delighted to see that the new cane, with its enhanced flexibility, wrapped itself effectively right around the further of Pennington’s two splendid buns, where a wicked red welt rapidly appeared. It has to be remembered that prefects seldom moderated their strokes in the way a master often did, but went ahead and thrashed their target with the maximum force: a force carefully judged to be just below the blood-drawing threshold. Yes, it was true; a prefect’s beating was usually an awesome and painful occasion and one to be avoided.

Pennington let out a howl of pain; but then, who wouldn’t have done the same? Patrick fished in his pocket and found an old cork which he had forgotten to give to Pennington to bite on to help him bear the pain.

“Fucking hell, Ingram Lewis that was bloody painful. Couldn’t you just moderate it a bit?”

“Pennington, when I beat a boy, I aim to leave him with an excruciatingly painful arse;  I frankly see no reason at all for half measures. If a boy deserves beating, as you undoubtedly do, then maximum pain is the order of the day; and that is exactly what I intend to treat your backside to. So, just bite on that cork , keep calm and it will soon be over.”

With that, Patrick proceeded to give Pennington’s arse arse another five cuts; placing two towards the lower back and three on the lower buttocks near the top of the legs. This, the so-called sit-upon-spot , was a favourite target of experienced wielders of the cane; it ensured that the recipient had difficulty in sitting down comfortably for quite some time. When he had finished, Pennington, eighteen years old or not, could not control his tears. His arse was absolutely incandescent with pain and one had to admit that Patrick was an ace with the cane.

“Fucking hell, Ingram Lewis, that was the most painful experience I have ever had in my entire school career. It was twice as bad as anything I have ever had from the Headmaster, who always gives twelve cuts bare. But Jesus Christ man, you have really roasted my buns. How the hell am I ever going to sit down again? I don’t think you have any idea of the pain: it’s bloody awful.” Pennington had not yet pulled himself upright from the chair; he could hardly bear move his arse: it was just so painful.

“Well Pennington, I just did my duty. Whenever I cane a boy, I make him appreciate what punishment is all about. I see no point at all in giving just a few light taps. So, now you know: it’s always full steam ahead with me. Anyway, Pennington, you’ll soon recover and I hope there are no hard feelings; I’ve nothing against you personally, and you took your beating very well.”

Patrick now noticed an encouraging sign” Pennington’s cock had hardened during the beating and was already dripping drops of pre-cum onto the floor. His own large cock, meanwhile,  was already fighting to get out of his trousers, for all beatings always aroused Patrick.

CHAPTER 5

Now that the punishment was over, changing both the tone of his voice and his mode of address, he said: “Listen Roderick, I know you’re in absolute agony. But you have to understand that pain is the name of the game; there is no point in beating a guy unless it really hurts; he has to realise that the pain is the retribution he has to suffer. I know exactly how you feel as I’ve lived through it countless times myself. So listen, if you like, I’ll I could try and help you ease the pain, with little light massage.”

“So that’s what that bottle of oil is for: to help me ease my pain; light massage you call it; well OK Patrick; if you think it will help, go ahead. How do you want me? Should I stay where I am?”

And that was how the first step was taken, to what was to become not only a very pleasant evening of copulation, but also the first step in what was to develop into a profound sexual liaison between the two young men. Neither of them actually put it into words; not yet in any case. Patrick opened the oil and poured a liberal quantity into the chasm separating Roderick’s two flaming buns. He then began very gently massaging the soothing oil into the raw flesh, his fingers probing ever more deeply until they reached that all important point: Roderick’s anus. He paused and waited a few moments until Roderick told him to go on.

“Listen, Patrick, if you’re going to do it, for Christ’s sake get on with it. Go on; shaft me, for that’s what you want to do isn’t it?”

“I don’t want to do anything which you do not want to do, Roderick.” Said Patrick as he stepped out of his own trousers and underwear, freeing is rock-hard tool, already dripping with pre-cum from its confinement.

“Oh for crying out loud, Patrick; stop acting like an old woman; Get on with it and sick it to me and give my hole a good pounding, for that’s what we both want. Just let’s stop pussy-footing about. Just give me a real good fuck.”

So Patrick, who was as proficient at fucking as he was at caning, did exactly that. When he finally climaxed in a huge orgasm, both he and Roderick let out moans of pleasure. My god, Patrick, you’re as good with your cock as you are with the cane; you really are a crack with both.”

“Ah, my friend, there’s no substitute for experience; and I’ve had plenty at both. Glad you enjoyed the fuck, though. It gave me more pleasure than thrashing your arse; not you understand that I ever sneeze at thrashing an arse when I get the chance, but fucking one is altogether a more rewarding experience in my view. Now Roderick, , how about a fag? I really need a smoke to calm my nerves.”

“You don’t mean that you are proposing that we have a drag here and now. Jeezus man; you’ve just beaten me to pulp for smoking and now you propose that we so the same. Don’t you think it is a bit hypocritical of you?”

“My dear, Roderick, let’s be quite clear about something. I didn’t punish you for smoking; I punished you because I caught you smoking; and as a prefect I had no option but to beat you; I had to do my duty. As I told you, your mistake was to allow yourself to be caught by a prefect. Anyone of my co-prefects would have done the same. Now, do you or do you not want a fag – the hair of the dog that bit you?”

“Yes, of course I bloody-well do; you know full well I do. But what the hell’s name  happens if someone catches us smoking in here, half naked?”

“Well, we’ll probably both be birched. But fear not, O ye of little faith; no one is going to catch us. So let’s enjoy a drag and then if you feel up to it, not too weak I mean, you might like to consider a return bout. You have a really nice cock Roderick; and you know my own arse does feel very neglected given all the attention yours has been getting recently; so how about it?”

Needled by these provocative remarks, which, of course had been Patrick’s intention, Roderick jumped in feet first: “What the fuck do you mean by saying if I do feel up to it? Let me tell you that I am quite capable of nailing your arse to the ground; and that is precisely what I am going to do.”

Patrick walked laughingly across to the half naked Roderick; pulled of his shirt and then his own; and the two muscular, young studs stood there, face to face, cocks rock-hard, waiting for each other to move. Suddenly Roderick realised that he had been sent up and started to laugh: “OK stud; how do you want it? Anyway is OK by me as I reckon that when it comes to fucking arse, I’m at least your equal and quite possibly your better.”

“I really hope so; my hole is crying out to be fucked. So just go ahead and prove it to me. And with that, Patrick went over to the couch, lay on his back, opened his legs to welcome Roderick’s cock and waited.”

And thus began an hour or so of more or less continuous vigorous copulation, as the two boys enjoyed each other’s bodies. It was a truly joyous coupling and the two lads finally left to go to their respective beds, firm friends. And it was true, Roderick, in spite of his sore arse, proved himself one hell of a stud: an excellent all-round cocksman. They were indeed a well matched pair.

The above little vignette gives the reader a good idea of how Patrick’s final year at Rigby panned out. Basically, to sum up Patrick’s philosophy rather crudely, it was very much flog ’em and then fuck ’em if they are old enough. In fact Patrick really only liked boys of his own age or a year or so older; so only the final year boys at Rigby experienced the largesse of Patrick’s undoubted prowess at arse reaming. And although Patrick himself was not alone to practise anal intercourse at Rigby, he was its undoubted king. Fucking and flogging were to remain permanently two key activities in Patrick’s life and his taste for both male and female companions continued until the day he died.

It is worth noting that Roderick Pennington was a typical example of a straight heterosexual boy who indulged in buggery whilst at school. When he left, he went on to university, where he did well and thence into industry, where he became chairman of a major manufacturing company and eventually was awarded a knighthood. Sir Roderick Pennington married and had three children. He was a prime example of the reason why most public schools tolerated buggery among the older boys. His career bore out the assertion that most boys were not homosexual and that once out of school and in mixed society, they would drop the habit of fucking other men, marry and lead a normal life.

CHAPTER 6

But coming back to Patrick Ingram-Lewis, he left Rigby and enrolled in a Royal Navy officer cadet training course with a view to joining the Royal Navy as a commissioned officer. The course was somewhat of a shock for Patrick; it was like standing under a shower of ice-cold water; having himself been a devoted arse beater at Rigby, he now found himself, as a young trainee officer cadet, his one backside was regularly being beaten by his instructors. But after two years he emerged as a young commissioned officer with the rank of lieutenant, with the reputation among his fellow cadets of having a hyperactive cock, whose largesse was enjoyed by both his male comrades and his female conquests in town. Yes, Patrick Ingram-Lewis was a bit of a lad, to say the very least, which brings us to the conception, birth and the early life of his only son, Cedric Oliver Ingram-Lewis, who in case you had forgotten was, at the beginning of this story to be found stretched across a chair waiting for that Sword of Damocles in the form of Headmaster, Mr Inkpen’s cane to warm his virgin arse.

 Patrick Ingram-Lewis had been left without a father at a fairly early age and his mother, Mrs Mildred Ingram-Lewis, born Mildred Agnes Parker-Aston, lived alone in the Ingram-Lewis family pile, Ingram House, near Hexham. The Parker-Astons had also been in coalmining and were considered the crème de la crème of the mining dynasties. So the marriage uniting the double barrelled Ingram-Lewis’s with the double barrelled Parker-Astons created what Mrs Ingram-Lewis, as Mildred now became, the premier family in the region. That is, anyway, the way that Mildred saw it. Mildred Ingram-Lewis lived in isolated splendour with numerous servants at her beck and call. She rarely saw her only child, Patrick, who, in the tradition of the upper classes, had been shipped off to boarding school at the tender age of eight; he saw his mother only during the school holidays; even then his presence was somewhat of a bore, for he interfered with his mother’s social life.

When he graduated as a lieutenant from his naval training, all of which had been conducted down in Devon in the south of the country, just about as far from his home territory as he could get, he spent three months at home in Hexham, before bis first posting at sea. This was about the longest period in his life he had ever had to put up with his mother and she with him. To say that they did not to see eye to eye was to put it very mildly. But as head of the family and owner of the family estate, Patrick did exactly as he pleased, whilst his mother looked on in disapproving silence.

To a young and sexually active, twenty-year-old naval officer like Patrick, the delights of Hexham were distinctly limited. So he took to going into Newcastle to find some congenial company, either male or female, on whom he could exercise his considerable sexual attributes. Among those who fell prey to Patrick’s sexual advances was one, Beryl Cherith Penge. I ask you, what a name to be lumbered with. But Beryl was physically an attractive gir;, indeed very attractive; she had a nice figure and a pretty face and Patrick found her irresistible. In fact it was not clear who found whom more irresistible;  Beryl did not need much encouragement  as Patrick was what we today would call a hunk: handsome and well-hung. Well, to cut a long story short, the outcome of their frequent coupling was Patrick’s son, Cedric Oliver: heir to the Ingram-Lewis fortune.

Beryl’s father had been an underground coal-miner in one of the pits just north of Newcastle; but he and his wife and, of course, Beryl, now ran a seaside boarding house in the nearby resort of Whitley Bay. For those of you unfamiliar with the north-east coast of England near Newcastle, let me tell you that it is one of the most dismally unattractive stretches of coast in the country, looking out as it does onto the grey, cold North Sea. How this place managed to drag itself up by its bootstraps and become a holiday destination beats me: but it did! Anyway, thanks to his inability to control his own cock, Patrick now found himself with a pregnant woman on his hands; moreover a woman from a totally different class to himself. And that, in the early part of the century was a very serious matter. People were then very class conscious in Britain; they still are; but not the way they were back then. Then there was a place for everyone and everyone knew his place; and moreover, kept to it. Beryl and Patrick did not come from the same place and they both knew it.

But in the foolishness of youth, Patrick convinced himself that he was in love with Beryl and did “the right thing by her”, which is to say she became his wife and in the fullness of time the mother of  Cedric Oliver Ingram-Lewis, the heir to the Ingram- Lewis estate and fortune. The ink on the marriage certificate was barely dry, before Patrick realised that he had made a monumental mistake. Apart from sex, which both he and Beryl enjoyed together enormously, the two of them had nothing whatsoever in common; Indeed they almost spoke a different language.

Patrick’s mother was appalled at the marriage and nearly had an apoplectic fit when he installed his wife as mistress of Ingram House, which was, of course, his and he could do exactly as he wished. He then took off to sea, leaving mother and grandmother to tend to baby Cedric Oliver’s needs. The only good thing about the whole affair was that there was plenty of money and so the two women did not have to stint themselves or the child. But it was partly the abundance of cash and partly the cass divide between the two women, which was the ultimate problem leading to diametrically opposed views as to how the Cedric Oliver should be brought up. The elder Mrs. Ingram-Lewis and her daughter-in-law, Beryl, whose name she could barely bring herself to utter out loud, had violently opposed views on how the child should be raised. Patrick’s mother, as befitted someone of her class, wanted to engage a nanny and then pack Cedric Oliver off to a preparatory school as soon as possible; whereas his working-class mother wanted to raise her child herself; and so there was a constant battle between the two women; always civil, but rarely amiable.

At the end the day, a nanny was engaged; but Beryl was never far away and she and the nanny, as you might well imagine, did not see eye to eye; for who was in charge of the child? For any nanny, although being basically from the working-class – upper-upper working-class – or possibly from the lower-lower middle-class, to have to answer to a mistress whom she considered as coming from the class below her, was a bitter pill to swallow. So there was friction between the two women; the nanny thought that she was in control;, whereas Beryl, who understood as much about the art of nannying as she did about flying to the moon, knew that, at the end of the day, it was she, the mother, who had the final word. So, yes, there was friction: considerable friction. But as Cedric Oliver grew older, a private male tutor was engaged and the boy received the doubtful benefit of an education at home, totally divorced from the realities of life. Moreover, as Beryl was highly protective of her only child, Oliver was totally spoiled and did as he wished. He became a wilful young miscreant, but one who was never punished. And so, as you might well imagine, when he was finally shipped off, aged eleven, to the Rigby Court Preparatory School, he was totally unacquainted with the harsh realities of the life at an upper-class school into which he was now thrown. It was like being dumped into a bath of cold water, as he no longer had his mother to protect him. Add to that the fact that Cedric Oliver much to his grandmother’s disgust, spoke with the Tyneside accent of his mother. It is not for nothing that one’s native language is referred to as “the mother tongue”.

CHAPTER 7

Oliver barely knew his father, who spent most of his working days aboard his ship as a commissioned office of the Royal Navy and, quite frankly, what he did know of him, he did not particularly like. He saw him only on the rare occasions when he came up north on leave and there was not much of the father-son relationship between them. And with the 1914-1918 war when his father was more or less on active service the whole time, the rare visits became even rarer. However, in 1919, when Oliver reached the age of ten, Commander Ingram-Lewis as he had by then become, finally put his foot down and told Beryl that as of next year, their son would be enrolled in the Rigby Court Preparatory School to prepare him for entry at age thirteen into Rigby School. There was no longer any further question of his education being left in the hands of an ineffective private tutor; Oliver would henceforth enjoy the rigours of the English Public school system and would be brought up as an English gentleman: what had been good enough for his father would be good enough for him. And so, we join Oliver, aged eleven, on his first day at Rigby Court School and already, so to speak, in deep water and sinking fast. He was about to enjoy his first day at school!

The Headmaster, Mr Inkpen, had had a totally unsatisfactory summer break. He had gone off on a holiday with a friend of similar sexual persuasion to himself with whom, in the past he had enjoyed a good physical relationship. They had taken a cottage together in the Lake District and Gee-Gee had been looking forward to two weeks of active copulation. But, alas, his friend had commenced to have doubts about his own true sexuality. It turned out that he had met a girl on whom he was rather keen. She had evidently had captured his heart, as a result of which he was questioning himself about his own sexuality. He was in that awful, uncertain phase of asking himself: what am I? Am I or am I not? So what had been envisaged as a period of uninhibited fucking, turned out to be two weeks of interminable, soul-searching conversation between the two men. Had anyone recorded it, it would have made a great basis for one of those dreary novels written by one of those so-called “ break-through writers”; you know the sort; the ones no one actually reads; except of course the critics, who having been sent a  free copy of the book by the publisher, then acclaim it and its author as the greatest thing since Shakespeare or Dostoyevsky or some other luminary, before both book and author sink into well-deserved oblivion. The two weeks, during which it rained more or less incessantly (a key feature of the Lake District, by the way) ended with their being no conclusion and the Gee-Gee’s friend left still searching his soul, wondering what he should do. Gee-Gee, meanwhile left and went back to the school where he lived, feeling utterly frustrated. It would therefore be fare to say that at that time, Gee-Gee’s heart was not overflowing with the milk of human kindness; in the modern vernacular;, he was pissed off!

Back at school, Gee-Gee busied himself with preparing for the new school year. In particularr in perusing the school supplier’s catalogue, he came across a highly recommended new cane, made from a different species of bamboo, which was claimed to be more flexible, heavier size for size than the normal rattans and capable of delivering a really stinging experience to an errant backside. He promptly ordered half a dozen as a sort of compensation prize for his abortive holiday; he then felt a lot better just at the thought of what it would be like to thrash some errant lad’s’ arse with one. And when they arrived he found that they were, in fact, truly different, which made his spirits soar. Unlike the normal crook-handled school canes, they were straight with no bent handle, but were supplied with a well made wooden handle into which a cane could be fitted, giving its wielder a good firm grip. The new cane was also very flexible and could be bent virtually into a full circle: it was a very promising implement and Gee-Gee, who as you already know, was a great believer in the manifold benefits of corporal punishment, could hardly wait to try out his latest acquisition on an actual arse. And you can guess already whose arse was going to be accorded that privilege.

The great breakthrough in Gee-Gee’s monotony came late in the day on of the very first day of term. He was sitting in his study reading through the files of the new boys when his bell rang. He pressed the enter sign; the door opened and a tallish boy, clearly one of the new entrants that term, for he did not recognise him, entered. He was holding in his hand a punishment slip. Here a word of explanation is needed. In the lower school where boys aged eight to ten were taught, the masters were allowed to administer corporal punishment to the boys directly with a light cane applied across the trousers covering the miscreant’s buttocks. However, in the upper school, where our little drama is unfolding, only the Headmaster in the form of Mr Inkpen wielded the cane, a task he did with great vigour and considerable relish. And here the dreaded cane was always applied to a boy’s naked arse; bare bum caning as the boy’s called it.

Any master wishing to punish a boy, filled out a small punishment slip, which the unfortunate recipient had to take to the Headmaster’s study at the end of each day, before evening preparation, (that’s the boarding school equivalent of homework, by the way) when under the “strike whilst the iron is hot” maxim, the boy in question had his arse well and truly roasted by the Headmaster. It was, for Gee-Gee, one of the highlights of his daily routine, for, sex apart, there was nothing which gave him greater satisfaction than beating a boy’s butt. He thought of it as correcting the errant recipient; but it was a task which he truly enjoyed: one which gave him a certain sexual high. But he was somewhat surprised to see a candidate for his cane present himself at the end of the very first day of term and an unknown new boy to boot.

Gee-Gee looked balefully at the boy, bade him stand in front of his desk, put his hand out to take the punishment slip and said:” And who might you be, young man? I don’t seem to have had the pleasure of your acquaintance.”

“I’m a new boy today sir; Cedric Oliver Ingram-Lewis, sir; I’m a late entrant to the school as I’m already eleven sir,

“Oh yes, Ingram-Lewis, I’ve just been reading your file. It’s right here on my desk as a matter of fact. Now, why are you here this evening on your very first day a school presenting me with a punishment slip? You do know what this slip of paper means, I presume? In case you are in any doubt, Ingram -Lewis, it means that the master who gave it to you thinks that you deserve to be punished for some misdemeanour committed in his presence. You do know that I suppose, don’t you? Well, boy, let me see what he slip says and who gave it to you.”

Gee-Gee carefully read what was before him, leaving Oliver standing there trembling, wondering what was going to happen next; he was soon to find out. He had already been told by several of his new classmates, who had come up through the junior ranks and were already familiar with the ways of the school what would very likely happen to him. With a certain amount of sadism in his voice, one of his classmates had said to him: “You’re going ot get your bum swished  Ingram-Lewis”.

“I see Ingram Lewis, that this punishment slip was given to you this morning:, your very first morning in this establishment and indeed in your very first class, by Mr Turner who was endeavouring to familiarise you with certain elementary facts of mathematics. He says you refused to do the work; indeed, he says that you finally tore a page out of text book. Moreover you were insulting to him. Let me tell you here and now Ingram-Lewis that such behaviour is not and never will be tolerated in this school and Mr Turner was quite right to refer you to me for punishment. Are you aware of how I punish miscreant boys like you Ingram- Lewis? Probably not, I suspect;, so let me explain to you what happens to boys who cross this threshold with a punishment slip; I beat their bottoms with a cane; and let me tell you when I beat a boy, I beat him hard so that he knows that has been beaten. Make no mistake, young man; he leaves here with a very, very painful bottom.”

“Oh please sir, don’t beat me. I really am very sorry sir, and I promise it won’t happen again; and  I don’t want to be beaten. In fact, sir, I don’t think that I could stand being beaten and, sir, I don’t think my father would approve either. And anyway, sir, it is my first day, and I am a new boy and I think that you could let me off, just this once and I will promise to be good in future and not do it again.”

And so he babbled on; but all these entreaties fell deaf ears, for Gee-Gee could well have inscribed the legend from Dante’s Inferno above the door of his study: “Abandon hope all ye who enter here.” No boy, arriving with a punishment slip, ever left Gee-Gee’s study without a sore arse.

“Allow me to dissuade you, Ingram Lewis, from the mistaken impression you clearly have of your father’s thoughts on this matter; I have a here, in your file, a letter from him. Just listen to what he says.”

“My son, Cedric Oliver, who us being sent to you as a late entrant aged eleven to Rigby Court, has been mollycoddled all his life up to now by his mother, grandmother and nanny. Until now he has been educated at home by a private tutor, which in my view has been a great mistake – my mistake I hasten to add. My son has been allowed to run wild in a discipline-free environment, whilst I myself have been away on active service in the Royal Navy. I blame myself for having allowed his mother and grandmother to persuade me that a private education was best, which, viewing the results to date, is clearly not the case. As such you may well find that it will be difficult to make him toe the line when he arrives at Rigby Court; so do not hesitate to give him a sound thrashing, indeed, possibly several sound thrashings, to bring him into the real world. I am myself of the opinion that a sore backside never harmed a boy, so do not hold back if you feel it is necessary; just give him a good hard beating. As you are aware, I am myself an old boy of both Rigby Court and Rigby School itself and I know that both establishments maintain rigorous discipline in the old fashioned way, which has my entire approval. So, Headmaster, if needs be, take both cane and birch to my son and knock some sense into him. You have my complete confidence and blessing in your task.”

“So, Master Ingram-Lewis, what do you have to say to that? Ingram-Lewis, when a boy enters my study with a punishment slip, then he is always, I repeat, always, beaten immediately. You are no doubt familiar with the saying: Strike whilst the iron is hot. Well, Ingram-Lewis, that is a saying which I take very much to heart, which is why any boy handed a punishment slip during the day has to see me that same day, immediately after the last class, when I administer the punishment. And the punishment, as I have already told you, is a beaten bottom. As for letting you off as you are a new boy, that is out of the question. If a boy, you in this instance, oversteps the mark, then he is punished, no matter how long he has been in the school. I am a great believer in another saying: “Give a boy and inch and he will take a mile.” And so, Ingram-Lewis, I never, ever let any boy, and that includes a first day boy such as yourself, take that first inch. So, Ingram-Lewis now that we have got all that cleared up, I suggest you step up to that chair, drop our trousers and underwear, bend across the back of the chair and present your buttocks to me for punishment.”

“Oh please sir you’re not going to beat my bare bum, are you? I don’t think that I could stand it sir, Please, sir, have a heart. You know sir, I have never been caned before and I don’t want to be caned now, sir.

“Ingram-Lewis, I do have a heart; but frankly, the way you are going on is making it feel very stony at the moment: very stony indeed. So, be a good lad and do as I say; drop your trousers and underpants and bend across that chair. And yes, Ingram-Lewis, I am going to beat your bare bum, as you so picturesquely put it. In this school I beat the boy;, not his trousers. Now Ingram-Lewis; for the very last time; pants and underpants down and over that chair as I have now told you several times. Just do it, lad, there is no way out. And, Ingram-Lewis, to stop you bleating on any more, I can tell you that it will hurt; in fact it will hurt a lot, for that Ingram-Lewis is the object of the exercise. And as for it being your first time; well there has to be a first time for everything and today is the first time that your backside is going to feel the tonic effects of the cane. In fact Ingram-Lewis we are about to celebrate, for it’s going to be your first caning, on your first days at school, on the first day of the new school year, with a brand new cane which I shall apply for the first time to your buttocks. And you will be the first boy to be caned this year. So, there you are, Ingram– Lewis, this truly is a very special occasion.”

Poor Oliver, although I am not sure that we should call him that, as he clearly was a handful to manage, finally obeyed, dropped his pants and underwear and we find him as described at the beginning of this story, with his bare arse being gently tapped by the cane wielded by the Headmaster. Now Gee-Gee always savoured the moment he was about to thrash a boy’s arse, which as we have mentioned already,, apart from sex, his favourite pastime. Looking at Ingram-Lewis’s lusciously inviting posterior, it suddenly occurred to Gee-Gee that although the boy was only eleven, he was big for his age and could probably take the senior cane. So he stopped for a moment to choose a more potent implement with which to give Ingram-Lewis’s arse its maiden thrashing.

Finally the moment of truth arrived and the first stroke of the cane landed across the middle of Ingram-Lewis’s buns. The boy let out a howl at the pain, for never had he realised just how painful the cane could be. And Gee-Gee was truly an expert at judging just how far he could go; how hard a blow he could deliver. He believed in caning every boy to the limit of his endurance and always tried to apply the maximum force, which would be excruciatingly painful, but which would never break the skin. There was never any blood when Gee-Gee wielded the cane, but no one could have delivered more pain than he did.

He paused between each stroke to allow Oliver to appreciate fully the effect of each individual cut and although Oliver implored him to stop, the strokes went on and on, evenly distribute in parallel stripes across both buns, so that by the twelfth stroke his arse was a neat picture of parallel stripes distributed across its entire surface. The pain was unbearable, yet had to be endured and the poor boy wept copiously. But then, given the expert beating he had just had, would any other boy have behaved differently?

The Headmaster helped Oliver up from the chair and said: “Well, Ingram-Lewis, for a first time you took that very well, very well indeed and I hope that you now know just how we deal with naughty boys as this school and what a painful experience awaits any boy who presents a punishment slip to me. I have been lenient with you today and I hope that I shall not have occasion to see you again this term.”

If that was lenient, one asks oneself what a severe beating would have been like. But we have to remember that in the early part of the century, things were much harsher than they are today and Rigby Court was not alone in dispensing the sort of beating that Oliver had just undergone. One might have thought in view of the excruciating pain he had endured, that our friend Ingram-Lewis would have learned his lesson and mended his ways. But no! He was one of those boys who could not keep out of trouble and for the rest of the term he was a regular visitor to Headmaster’s study, where like so many more before and after him he was regularly beaten. But he had not counted on what was to happen to him the end of the term, just before the school broke up for the long Christmas vacation.

CHAPTER 8

It was three days before the end of term. The boys would leave for two weeks holiday at the end of the week. At the assembly that day, after the usual hymn prayers and daily announcements, the Headmaster paused and said: I would like to see the following three boys in my study, after supper this evening and he announced three names, among which was that of Cedric Oliver Ingram-Lewis. Eight o’clock sharp boys and I suggest that you wear your gym kit – no underwear necessary. You three young gentlemen (very ominous indeed!) and I have some very important unfinished business to attend to before term ends.

Well, you can imagine the feeling of panic which this announcement engendered in the three boys. The three were not at all friends and did nothing together. One was Duncan Phyphe, a Scot in his final year before moving on to Rigby School; the other, David Fairclough, was also in his final year and our friend, Oliver was the youngest, just ending the first term of his first year. None of the three had any idea why they had been summoned but judging by the clothing they had been told to wear, it looked horribly like a beating was coming. But why? What had they done? And why these three? As you can well imagine all three spent a very uncomfortable and mentally unsettled day in their classes wondering what the evening had in store for them.

Eight o’clock saw them standing in front of the door of the Headmaster’s study. The door was suddenly flung open and a severe faced Mr Inkpen beckoned them inside.

“You will, I am sure, all be wondering why I have brought you here tonight and I am equally sure that you are each saying to yourself that you have done nothing to merit punishment so why am I here in my gym strip. Well, gentlemen (always ominous) I will tell you why the three of you are here tonight. Each of you has been, in the course of his autumn term, a constant source of annoyance to your various masters, who have sent each of you to me for a beating a frequent number of times. You Phyphe, I have beaten no less than six times this term; you Fairclough, seven times and you, Ingram Lewis, the new boy, no less than eight times have I had to beat your naked buttocks in this very room. It is clear that you three boys are incapable of obeying the rules and are perpetually bent upon sowing disorder. I have therefore decided that the three of you need to be taught a very painful lesson and you are here this evening to be taught that very lesson: I am going to birch each of you. You Phyphe will receive ten strokes, you Fairclough, twelve and you Ingram-Lewis will suffer no less than fifteen strokes of the birch, as you are without doubt the most disruptive boy I have ever experienced. Look upon this beating as a final effort by me to make the three of you toe the line. So, all three of you: gym shoes and socks off and step out of your gym shorts. I want the three of you bare buttocks standing in line against that wall, with your hands on your heads.”

The three boys gulped when they heard what was to happen to them. None of them had ever been birched before and they did not even know that the Headmaster had a birch rod. All was now revealed however, for opening off the Headmaster’s study was a room into which no one had ever been until then. The door was now opened to reveal a largish room empty apart from what was clearly a professionally made birching horse, with straps to hold ankles and wrists in place on the frame, thereby immobilising the unfortunate recipient. On the side stood three buckets with the birch rods soaking in water. The three boys were totally petrified at this awful sight and could barely believe what they were about to undergo.

“I’ll deal with you first, Phyphe,” said the Headmaster, “Step over to the horse. It’s known as riding the pony by the way, so you are to be the first to take a ride! Phyphe moved slowly towards the horrible contraption until the Headmaster suddenly said: Smart about it Phyphe; I’ve not got all night. Now, you Fairclough; show willing and just buckle the straps on to your miscreant friend’s wrists and ankles and step aside. He’ll do the same for you in a few minutes.

Once immobilised, Phyphe could do nothing but wait for the onslaught, which he knew was about to come. The Headmaster picked up one of the birch rods, an implement made of a number of twigs bound together to form a handle, shook of the water and then gently tapped the rod against Phyphe’s arse. Phyphe trembled with fear as he waited for the first stroke; it came with a sudden swish and covered a good part of his buttocks as the twigs spread out. The first stroke was not so very painful; but as stroke followed stroke, each administered with maximum force by the Headmaster, the pain built up until it was totally unbearable; but unbearable though it was, the boy had to bear it. Finally, with his arse totally inflamed by the birch, the Headmaster undid the straps and told Phyphe to go and stand against the wall with his hands on his head and not to touch his ragingly painful arse.

You next, Fairclough; fix the straps Ingram-Lewis and then go and stand by Phyphe and wait your turn. And so the three boys were very soundly birched. If anyone had told them that it was worse than the canings they had received during the term, they could have hardly believed it possible; but it was. Indeed it was easily the most painful thing that had ever happen to the three boys. How they slept that night, do not ask, for their arses were raging with pain. In fact some connoisseurs of the implements of corporal punishment rank the birch, which is always applied to the naked arse, as being worse than the dreaded cat of nine tails, once beloved by, but now banned from use, in the navy.

So could Cedric Oliver Ingram-Lewis look forward to a pleasant Christmas at home? Well, I wish I could say that he could, but he was fated to misfortune. He arrived back at Ingram House just before Christmas to find his father, Commander Patrick Ingram-Lewis home for the holidays. Now most boys would have been overjoyed to see their father who was so rarely at home, but not so Cedric Oliver, for he had never really liked his father whom he really barely knew and found him a formidably frightening figure. Cedric Oliver had been at home for two days and it was December 23rd, approaching that Time of Goodwilll and Good cheer; but also, in the words of the ditty, The Time that Turkeys fear. Well, Cedric Oliver was not exactly a turkey, but he had the same misgivings and felt totally ill at ease at home with his father around.

CHAPTER 9

That morning a letter arrived by the first post, was opened and read by the Commander, who with a face as black as thunder, said to his son: This is a letter from the Headmaster of your school recounting your appalling behaviour throughout the term. I thought that they would knock some sense and decency into you at Rigby Court, but evidently I was wrong. I will see you in my study this evening immediately after dinner and you and I will have a little chat. It really is time that you and I had a very serious talk, Cedric.

Now the Commander’s study was not really a study at all. He was so rarely at home that he did not need a study, but this place was his private room in which he could shut himself away from the nuisances of his wife and his mother when at home. So although it contained a huge mahogany desk, this was largely empty and the rest of the furniture was of leather armchairs and a leather sofa, all very redolent of a gentlemen’s club; in fact it was the Commander’s private smoking room. After dinner that evening, Cedric Oliver entered, very hesitantly, his father’s private domain. Lying on the desk was a very heavy leather razor strop, with a large handle. This was already a very inauspicious start to the serious talk which his father had mentioned. The way his father welcomed him into the room and the tone of his father’s voice did nothing to dispel his fears.

“Come in boy, (Boy! Not Cedric or son). Sit down over there, whilst you are still able to do so. I have here a report from your Headmaster and I have to tell you that it makes depressing reading. It seems that you have adopted an attitude that you can do at school exactly as you wish. You have been continuously disruptive in class and in spite of several beatings the Headmaster felt that he had to birch you the other day because of your persistent unfortunate behaviour throughout the entire term. This is not the sort of behaviour I expect from my son. What have you to say for yourself?”

Poor Oliver did not know how to answer his father. He knew he had a high annoyance quotient at school and had come to accept that when he was thrashed, as he frequently was, he merited it. But he had no idea what to say to his father.

“For a boy who is so disruptive at school you seem to have little to say for yourself today, Cedric. I have to say that I blame myself for what has happened, for I allowed your mother and grandmother to talk me into a private education here at home when you should have been sent to prep school much earlier. But, young man, there is no way that a son of mine behaves the way you have clearly done this last term. It has to stop. I am appalled by the number of beatings which Headmaster has felt compelled to give you to try to make you toe the line. However he has clearly failed to inculcate into you a sense of decency and responsibility and I therefore propose to attempt to achieve that goal myself today.”

Cedric’s heart sank at these words, for he realised now that the instrument of inculcation was the razor strop; that his father was going to beat him and that there was nothing at all he could do to avoid it. He watched with horror as his father reached for the strap: a viciously painful piece of equipment when used for the purpose which his father clearly had in mind.

“Stand up Cedric, drop our trousers and underpants and kneel on the sofa there, and lean over the arm. Hold your buttocks up highboy, so that I can see what I am doing.”

Although he knew he was pleading a lost cause, Cedric tried nevertheless to escape from the inevitable: “Please father; please don’t beat me again. I was birched just two days ago and my bum is still very sore.”

“Your bum, as you put it, is going to be a lot sorer in a few minutes, when I have finished with you, my lad.  Now, do as I said; drop your pants and underpants and over the arm of the sofa. I want a nice bare arse to beat.”

“Oh father, please...”

“Pants and underpants down, boy, and over the sofa. Let me see your bare arse, boy and be quick about it!”

Cedric finally obeyed and waited, trembling, for the first stroke of that awful strap his father was wielding.

“The Headmaster seems to have done a good job recently on your backside, Cedric”. said the Commander as he inspected his son’s backside. “A few really well placed stripes from a recent caning and a good overall dispersal of the birching. I can see that a good thrashing with the belt will be an excellent means of consolidating your end of term punishment. Now, keep quite still until I have finished and keep your hands out of the way. I am going to give you twenty-four strokes of the strop, which I hope will finally bring home to you the seriousness of your situation. But just let me tell you that if you continue on your present path, I shall have no compunction in beating you again: none whatsoever!”

And so ended, very painfully, Cedric Oliver Ingram-Lewis’s first term at school. The razor strop was excruciatingly painful; as bad as the birch or so it seemed, and poor Cedric howled and wept as he begged his father to stop. But it was all to no avail, for the Commander, as we all know, took great satisfaction in administering corporal punishment and the fact that the target today was his own son’s arse was of no consideration. The Commander was administering punishment where he thought it was due and it never even crossed his mind that what he was doing was excessive. So Cedric had a rather uncomfortable few days over Christmas. His first term at school had been a baptism of fire.

TO  BE  CONTINUED  IN  PART 2