Reminiscences

Author’s Note: This is a full length novel of just over 110, 000 words. I suggest you read it a few chapters at a time. I think it tells and interesting story, as it combines CP with sex; but then, I would say that, wouldn’t I, as I wrote it! 

A Square Peg in a Round Hole

Prologue

With a nervousness that came from very painful memories acquired from numerous visits to that very room over the preceding years, I entered the head-boy’s study, one of the most hated and feared venues at Churton College, a public school for boys, where aged 18 and already a young man, I was just beginning my final year.

The most feared place of all, that pre-eminent dispensary of bare-arse agony, was, of course, the Headmaster’s study, where the present incumbent, bearing the highly improbable name of Augustus Caesar, regularly created fine examples of that transient, but nevertheless very painful hallmark of a public school education, the well-beaten arse. 

Let us be quite clear at the outset; if one thing dominated life at Churton, it was the inescapable devotion to the culture of the cane and, to a lesser extent, its partner-in-crime, the birch. Churton subscribed, enthusiastically and wholeheartedly, both in spirit and in deed, to the maxim: spare the rod and spoil boy. 

As you, dear reader will learn if you have the patience to read these first-hand reminiscences of a working-class scholarship-boy at the up-market, aristocratic, eye-wateringly expensive Churton College for Boys, the rod was never spared, nor was any boy even remotely spoiled. The liberal and regular use of the cane, always applied, with considerable vigour, directly to an offender’s bare buttocks, ensured that no one who benefitted from – some observers would rather say, endured – a Churton education, could ever, even remotely be spoiled.  In a word, the cane, mercilessly applied to all boys, irrespective of their age or preferment, was an unpleasant and excruciatingly painful part of everyday life at Churton.  

If I refer to the studies of both the Headmaster and the head-boy as holy places, occupied by the school’s two principal guardians of the faith, I am, of course, speaking figuratively of the professed faith of both the Headmaster and his head-boy in the therapeutic, corrective power of the cane, which each of them assiduously practised. Each study, located one at each end of the main corridor on the first floor of the original Churton school building, could have more aptly been described rather as a pain-dispensing hell-hole.

They were the two most feared venues in the entire School, the occupants of which, the Headmaster, Mr. Augustus Caesar, universally known as Sir, and the current year’s, incumbent head-boy, never allowed any lad, unfortunate enough to attend what was cynically referred to as a command performance, to leave their presence, without endowing him with that public school hallmark: vulgarly referred to as a well-beaten arse.

However, far be it for me to disparage the efforts of the numerous other prefects and the six housemasters, all of whom gave these two top purveyors of bare-bottom agony a close run for their money. One thing was sure; the use of the cane at Churton was endemic and as its use was entrusted to so many, very firm, capable and willing hands; it seldom remained silent for long.

But overall, in my experience – and I speak with some authority as someone, whose backside was regularly subjected to the prowess of a succession of sadistic, cane-wielding individuals over his years at Churton – the head-boy of the year and Sir, the ever-present Headmaster, were usually running neck to neck in what I fancifully thought of as the arse-beating-stakes. However – and I speak from considerable personal experience – in most years, I would have given the laurel wreath, by a hair’s breadth, to Sir, as he combined years of experience with an utterly single-mindedness of purpose when he was beating a boy; as he all too frequently did.  As he often remarked: “When beating a boy, pain is the name of the game.” And boy, oh boy, did he know how to dispense pain!

Whenever Sir wielded either the cane or the birch, or indeed, on some occasions, both sequentially, on the same boy, the above maxim was obviously at the forefront of his mind. The Headmaster and my own house-master, Mr. Fogerty, were the only two masters at Churton to use both the birch and the cane; and use them frequently – too frequently in the view of their victims – they both did; and to great and painful effect.

Not for nothing did Mr. Fogerty merit the nickname, The Flogger; for he never hesitated for an instant to warm a boy’s arse, irrespective of his age. Even the three prefects of Fogerty’s house, School House, the  house-captain included, were not immune from The Flogger’s cane. We all dreaded the order to see him in his study in our pyjamas before bed, which always presaged an uncomfortably painful night for those concerned.

Boys who were summoned to see either the head-boy or the Headmaster in their respective studies, entered either place quaking with fear; aa fear, which was completely justified, as they inevitably emerged from either encounter bearing the extremely painful, striped insignia of the rattan cane across their assiduously corrugated buttocks. Churton worked on the guiding principle that to be effective, beating should be really painful for the recipient; and painful not only whilst he was being caned, but painful for several days afterwards.

With this aim clearly in mind, none of the 26 authorised cane wielders at Churton ever stinted on the cane. As decreed by Sir, the standard entry tariff for any offence was a generous, twelve, swingeing  strokes applied to the bare buttocks, no matter who was wielding the cane, not how trivial the offence; and for really serious offences the number of cuts could go much higher. The concept of making the punishment proportionate to the crime was totally absent at Churton.

From my personal experience, not in any way wishing to impugn the Headmaster’s mastery with the cane, some of the most painful canings I had ever experienced had all been in this very room; the head-boy’s study. Over the years, I had regularly found, when presenting my naked buttocks to the TLC of .a succession of head-boys, all, to a man, spared neither themselves nor my arse.

In case you, for some reason have not understood, what was  known to the boys, who were on the receiving end of the cane, as a well-beaten arse, was the traditional, signature punishment of public schools in general; a tradition, which was wholeheartedly espoused and vigorously practised at Churton College.

I glanced around the room, which I knew so well. My old sparring partners – or better put – my regular nemeses: the two straight-handled, rattan canes, which always emerged victorious from my  painful encounters with the head-boy of the day, were still hanging, one each side of the fireplace. I knew both of them so well; wielded by the incumbent head-boy of the year, they had, on numerous occasions, over the years, infallibly delivered their excruciatingly painful message to my bare arse. Just seeing them hanging there waiting for their next target, sent a shiver of excitement, bordering on fear, down my spine and, as ever, set my cock stirring in my pants. 

The old armchair with the tear-stained cushion, and over the back of which I had numerous times – to use the Churtonian expression for the somewhat undignified position that one was obliged to adopt when being beaten – sported my bare arse – was still standing there, ready to welcome its next victim.

I have no explanation for the illogical reason why I should have entered that well-known room with a feeling of trepidation, as I had, on this occasion, not been summoned by the head-boy to be beaten; for I myself was the newly-appointed head-boy and this was now my study. For the final year of my career, as a pupil at Churton, before going on to university, the two canes hanging there, would be used by me on other boys’ arses, and not, as had been the case hitherto, applied by the incumbent head-boy to my arse.

Just looking at them from my new, elevated status: that of the beater rather than the beaten, my God, did I intend to use them;  I could barely wait for my first, let us call him, client, and for my year of payback, for all the agony that I had in the past endured, to begin.

No one had been more surprised than I, when the Headmaster had informed me that I, the boy possessing probably the most whacked arse in the history of Churton, was to be head-boy during the coming school year.

Towards the end of the previous school-year, I had been summoned to the presence of  God Incarnate at Churton, the Headmaster, Augustus Caesar, who was universally referred to figuratively on bended knee as Sir, by pupils and staff alike. He had ruled Churton as his fief, as a despotic autocrat, since his accession to the post of Headmaster at the very young age of 27 in 1885. 

All such visits to Sir’s study, of which I regret to say that I had experienced many, during my years at Churton, had, in the past, always been unpleasantly painful. Sir was no slouch with either cane or birch, both of which he wielded, regularly and vigorously with precision, which came from years of practice and dedication to purpose.  And, if, as I had myself observed when my own area was n the line, the tenting of the crotch of his trousers was anything to go by, he derived considerable sexual arousal and personal pleasure from the exercise.

One has to face the unpalatable, but equally undeniable fact that administration of corporal punishment, especially to the bare buttocks of boys, seems inescapably linked to sexual arousal in the administrant. It also arouses those who happen to have the pleasure of witnessing the act. I know from my own personal experience, waiting outside the Headmaster’s study to be called in to have my own arse shredded, just hearing through the closed door, the crack of the cane mating with the present victim’s bare buttocks, and to know that my oen arse would be shortly receiving the same treatment  made my cock hard and start emitting precum.

As far as the unfortunate boy, whose arse is being beaten on such occasions, is concerned, the effect on his libido is very variable. It ranges from a rock-hard erection throughout, to a post-flagellation cock looking like a limp rag, with examples of all erectile stages in between these two extremes. In my own case, I admit that I always entered the Headmaster’s study with a raging hard on, which Sir studiously ignored, bur left with a cock like a limp rag, with all my braggadocio attitude began out of me. Sir certainly knew his stuff when it came to handling the cane.

I am still ashamed to admit now, over 65 years later, writing these memoirs, that, in my year as head-boy, I sadistically and single-mindedly upheld the great tradition of Churtonian head-boys and had no hesitation in seizing on the slightest pretext to beat any boy’s arse.   I accumulated a great deal of first-hand, visual information, observing the boys whose bare arses I was beating. I thus observed all forms and combinations of sexual arousal in the boys being beaten, both pre, during  and post-application of the cane.

Much like the variable weather of the month of March, which as the saying has it, can come in like a lion and go out like a lamb. The only thing I can categorically say about the relationship between corporal punishment and sexual arousal is that whenever I beat a boy on his bare arse, I myself always immediately developed a hard-on; and as soon as I had sent the boy on his post-flagellation way, I had to relieve myself, either by masturbating or fucking my long-term sex partner, if he was available. What I never, ever did as head-boy was to succumb to temptation – often very strong – to fuck the arse which I had just beaten; It was to remain an unfulfilled dream, until I arrived at New College, Cambridge in October 1918.

On the occasion of my appointment as head-boy, having received the order to see Sir, as you might have already guessed, I was almost pissing myself with fear, racking my brain for some faux pas I had committed or some rule or other I had broken, as I assumed that my visit to Sir’s study was for my arse to be beaten, as had hitherto always been the case. I should have known otherwise, as the invitation to see Sir, had not come with the cryptic instruction to wear what was known as the appropriate attire – an obligatory sartorial requirement  for boys about to be beaten; of which  more later.

Quite contrary to my expectations, Sir had been in a totally unexpected and hitherto unheard of – by me, that is – pleasantly expansive mood. He offered me a glass of sherry and invited me to sit down in an armchair.  It was just as well that I was seated, for frankly you could have floored me with a feather, when he told me that, after long discussion with the six housemasters of Churton, the decision had been taken to promote me to the position of head-boy for my final year at the school.

So the two canes hanging one each side of the fire-place in the head-boy’s study were now my canes. During the coming school-year, they would be used by me, rather than on me. 

Contemplating my final year at Churton over the long summer vacation, I immediately saw that as head-boy, the most senior prefect at the school, charged with the quasi-sacred mission of upholding discipline outside the classroom.  My preferment made rethink my priorities; I was now in a position of authority and responsibility and must act accordingly. I had to abandon all thought of being one of the lads and running with the hare as I had done hitherto. Henceforth I would be hunting with the hounds and my schoolmates arses would be my prey.

I saw that if I was to enforce the strict discipline dictated and expected by Sir, which, as head-boy, I was sworn to uphold, I had to abandon all hope of being popular during my final year at Churton.  Quite unexpectedly like a bolt out of the blue, payback time had arrived for me. During my year as head-boy, as all my predecessors had done, I had.every intention of leaving my mark physically on the arses of as many of my erstwhile schoolmates as possible, friend and foe alike.

I was at that moment, when I looked myself squarely in the face in the mirror and saw that I too had a sadistic side to my character, which had lain dormant until now and which, in my heart of hearts, I did not really like.

I had never been one to look a gift horse in the mouth; and the mere thought of wielding the cane myself on someone else’s bare arse, was such an unexpected, but pleasurable, not to mention simultaneously sexually-arousing prospect, that just looking at the two canes hanging there, I already felt my cock stirring in my pants. In the past, always a chillingly menacing sight, the canes had now taken on an attractive quality, when viewed through my eyes as the newly appointed head-boy.

I admit I was surprise at my sadistic turn of mind, which had suddenly surfaced, as if from nowhere. But grasping the nettle firmly, I there and then resolved to make my year as head-boy as painfully memorable as possible for my schoolmates. I could barely wait to pounce on some unsuspecting lad, whose bare arse would be the subject of my maiden beating as head-boy of Churton.  It was with some horror at my feelings that I recognised the fact that things had suddenly changed for me. As head-boy, I wanted – and moreover, I intended – to be feared by the very group to which I had hitherto belonged.

But before I go any further, with what are reminiscences of the painful vicissitudes in the life as a scholarship boy: a working-class lad from Bolton, being educated at an elite public school in the early part of the 20th century, let me begin at the beginning, as that is always a good place to start any story.

CHAPTER  1.

My name is Alan Taylor; to be more specific; I am, at the time of writing these reminiscences of my youth in 1985, Sir Alan Taylor QC, a retired, 85 year-old, gay barrister. I make, and never have made, any bones about my sexual preferences, even in the then benighted, hostile climate of opinion in England, which until 1967 treated homosexual men like me as criminals. I am writing this in the autumn of 1985, in my 85th year of, what is still considered by many, as my perversion. Despite of a certain relaxation in the general phobia against gay men like me, we are still viewed by many people as queers.   Today I use the word gay, to describe what I am: a homosexual man; although in my youth the word, gay,  had quite a different connotation to today.

My life’s partner, Tim: Timothy Alastair Gordon Dillon-Weston, an old Etonian – whom I had had the miraculous good fortune to meet and fall head over heels in love and he with me, at New College in Cambridge, when we were both 18 years old, had died of a heart attack six months ago. Our mutual love had never wavered during the time we were together. Tim and I had celebrated my 85th birthday on January 1st, New Year’s Day 1985; precisely one month later, on February 1st, with no warning, he dropped dead getting out of the bed, in which we had slept and made love – we did more than just fuck – for our entire lives together.

In spite of our wildly different social stations, at the time we met, class distinction was then an over-riding factor in life; as, to a lesser extent, still is today, I had been lucky that my love was reciprocated by Tim. In spite of coming from very different social stratum of society, he and I were to live together for over 65 years, as unwavering, committed gay lovers and faithful companions.

Feeling bereft and lonely at my loss, after practically a lifetime  of human companionship and mutual love, I decided to pass my time writing a memoir of my early life, beginning with my life in Lancashire and my schooldays, as one of the first working-class, scholarship boys ever, to be educated at a public school such as Churton College.

Starting from the very beginning, fate had decreed that I be born on Monday January 1st 1900; so I am as old as the twentieth century. As was then quite common practice, I was born at home, with only a midwife in attendance to assist my mother through her labour, in the very bed, in which, some nine months or so earlier, I had probably also been conceived.

 I was, therefore, born a Victorian, as Queen Victoria died on January 22 1901.  I was baptised with only one Christian name: Alan; at that time, quite a common practice in working-class families in the industrial north of England; my father was named uniquely Herbert and my mother uniquely Doris. I was to be their only child.

My father was one of those dislikeable, bad-tempered sort of men, who regularly vented his spleen with his razor strop on my bare bum; so regularly, in fact, that I remember, from the age of six onwards my bum being almost permanently sore from his frequent ministrations s. My mother was a very docile Doris, née Clegg, who, true to her marriage vows, loved, honoured and obeyed her husband, with the emphasis being on obeyed. Ours was not exactly a very happy, relaxed house and by the time I was five, I had decided that I did not like my bad-tempered father at all; a dislike which, in my teenage years, was to turn to hate.

The home, into which I was born, was a purpose-built cotton-millworker’s terraced cottage: 25, Danube Crescent, Bolton, Lancashire, a street, which, in spite of its name, evocative of a curve, was as straight as a die. The Crescent, as it was locally know, was but one of a serried series of dreary, parallel streets, all imaginatively named Danube this, that or the other, separated from each other by dismal service alleys, onto which the the backyards of the houses, all identical, backed.  Dismally bleak was the expression, which summed up the whole dreary, depressing lot of them.

Our house, in fact, also everyone else’s house, had what, at the time they were built  – 1890 or thereabouts – referred to as the latest modern conveniences:  piped cold water and gas, but no electricity.  The whole Danube development was surrounded by those dark satanic mills of which William Blake so graphically spoke, in his poem Jerusalem. Alas, England’s green and pleasant land, of which Blake also spoke in the same poem, was nowhere to be seen.

The mills were not the only dark satanic places among which I grew up.  The whole town of Bolton was, if not dark and satanic, at least very grimy, thanks to over 200 cotton mills, each with its own tall chimney, emitting, more or less continuously,  soot-laden smoke from burning of bituminous coal, in an appropriately named Lancashire boiler, to raise steam to power the mill machinery.  The smoke never stopped, as in the early 1900s, the mills closed only for one week a year. Called wakes week, the employees were forced to take unpaid holiday, usually spent at home, whilst the necessary maintenance work was carried out on the mill machinery. Even on Sundays the boilers were merely damped down for the day, ready to start up again on Monday morning. So grimy smoke was churned out virtually 365 days a year.

Britain, then at its height as a colonial power, may have then been the workshop of the world; but, believe me, throughout the industrial north and midlands it was a dirty place to live in as its principal source of energy was soot emitting coal.

Our house, in common with all the others, had one room downstairs, with a nineteenth century, cast iron, coal-fired kitchen range along one wall and a sink in one corner; upstairs were two bedrooms. The one concession to progress was a gas-ring, installed on a shelf at the top of the cellar steps, enabling the morning tea, then as now, that indispensible element of English life, to be made without lighting a coal fire every morning. We did not even have a gas stove; all cooking was done on the coal fired range, which also included included an oven.

Oh yes; I had almost forgotten; each house had a rather damp cellar, equipped with a traditional keeping slab: a heavy slab of thick, smooth stone, supported on stone legs, on which perishable food was placed to prevent it from spoiling.  It was, for the lower working-classes, into which I was most definitely born, the Victorian equivalent of a refrigerator.

Upstairs, were the two small, unheated bedrooms.  It goes without saying that there was no bathroom and our daily ablutions were performed – in cold water – at the kitchen sink, where my parents and I shared one towel. The lavatory – fortunately of the plumbed-in, flushing kind – was outside in the backyard, where was also located an outhouse, partly for storing the coal, our sole source of heat. The outhouse also housed a so-called tin bath – in fact, made of galvanised steel – in which the whole family took its weekly bath in front of the kitchen range; but it also held the then considerable paraphernalia of utensils required to wash the clothes: two wooden peggy tubs, posser, rubbing-board, piggin and the like. And I must not forget the coal-fired set-pot in the corner of the yard in which the weekly wash was boiled.

It almost goes without saying that we had no electricity. The lighting downstairs was by a five armed gasoliers, equipped with five incandescent gas-mantles. The lighting upstairs and in the staircase was by candles. It might all sound very romantic; going to bed by candle-light; but in an ice-cold bedroom and jumping into an equally cold bed in the middle of winter, before blowing out the candle, believe me, romantic,, it is most certainly not!

I suppose we were relatively speaking, better off than most of our neighbours, as both my father, Herbert and my mother, Doris, worked in the same family-owned cotton mill, Henderson’s Britannia Mills, about ten minutes walk from our house in Danube Crescent. I do not know how much they jointly earned; but I do know that, even so,  money was always tight and that we had to skimp and save on literally everything. 

My parents were lucky, as my maternal grandmother, a widow, who was always dressed in deepest black, lived two doors away from us in the same street. Somehow – ask me not how – she managed, as a widow, to keep body and soul together without working; but she surprisingly did. She was also was a self-appointed housekeeper and maid-of-all-work for us. She it was, who washed and ironed our clothes and did the shopping for my parents.

My grandma Clegg, for she was my mother’s mother, was the one constant, matriarchal figure, always there in my early life and I loved her dearly and utterly. She made my lunch every day when I came home from school at midday and prepared the evening meal – called tea in the north of England – for my parents and me, which she usually ate with us. She was part of our family, although she had a house of her own just a few doors away. However, as my father once remarked to me of his mother-in-law: “Close, but not too close!”  He did not really care much for his mother-in-law; nor, for that matter, did she care for him; there was little or no love lost between them. 

My paternal grandparents were remote figures, whom I hardly knew. They lived on the other side of town from us and we saw them but once a year. My father had two elder brothers, Tom and Eddie, both of whom were married with children. We never saw them, other than at Christmas, when we were all invited to tea on Boxing Day by my paternal grandparents. So I grew up hardly knowing my father’s side of our family, all of whom were practically strangers to me.

At that time, education was obligatory for all children until the age of fourteen, when they could leave-school and start work, which was the fate of most working-class children. I attended the local primary and upper schools located in the aptly named Mill Street, about ten minutes walk from where lived. We were taught exclusively by women of varying ages and marital status, all of whom of whom we addressed as Miss. The head of the upper school was, nevertheless, a hard-nosed man, called Mr. Edwards, whom no one liked.  He was a relentless and hard caner; always on the palm of both hands. I remember him well, as; having committed some minor infraction  I was often sent, by some female teacher or other, to the Headmaster’s study for a caning.  Wielding the cane, as he often did, seemed, as far as I could judge, the Headmaster’s only occupation, as he undertook no teaching at all.

Boys and girls sat together in class in both lower and upper schools.  In the lower school, in as much as young boys ever play with young girls, boys and girls had played together, during the morning and afternoon breaks, which we called play-times. However, in the upper school, although we all sat together in the classroom, girls and boys entered by separate entrances and the school yard – the play-ground – was divided by a fence into two separate areas: one for boys and one for girls.

In working-class districts, most pupils, both boys and girls, left school at the age of 14 and started paid employment or an apprenticeship for a trade, usually in some cotton mill or other, of which there were many in Bolton. There was at that time, no obligation for secondary or any form of further education, beyond what were generally known as the three Rs: Reading, wRiting, and aRithmetic!

Grammar schools, which were not then funded by the government, had existed for hundreds of years, as places of higher education. They offered many of their places to better-off families on a non-competitive basis. Places, which were allocated by pupil ability, based on exam results, were often beyond the financial means of working-class families, as grammar schools were not then free of charge.

And so the future for the likes of me, Alan Taylor, the son of two, relatively unskilled, cotton-mill workers, was limited to following in my parents’ footsteps and working in a cotton mill, as they presently did and would do for their entire lives. Given the dismal prospects for self-betterment, all of which was financially impossible for the working-classes, which, at that time, they accepted as normal; not surprisingly, there was no concentration on learning and striving to pass public examinations, in the way there is today. Learning, was, in fact, derided as being next to useless for working-class man and totally useless for women.

When I was eleven years old and the class, in which I sat, was told that for the next three days we would be filling in examination papers; it was not a big deal for any of us.  There had been no special preparation, boning up on subjects, mock exams etc. as it the case today. In fact, I was totally unaware that I would be sitting an examination for a place in a grammar school, to which, even if I were successful, my parents would not be able to afford to send me. And so, this examination, the results of which, at the time, unbeknown to both me and my parents alike, were ultimately radically to change and condition my future life,  was just another three days of school work for me.

I doubt that my parents even knew that I was sitting an exam. For them, as for many analogous, working-class families, schooling was a legal requirement, which finished when children reached the age of fourteen and could start working and contribute to the general upkeep of the family. This mentality, of not looking beyond the end of their noses, was a characteristic of the majority of the working-class population of the UK at the time. It fostered the virulently divided and unequal society; the them and us attitude, which still exist in the UK today.

CHAPTER 2.

It was some weeks after the exam, which I had, by then, completely forgotten, that I was given a letter by the Headmaster, Mr. Edwards, to take home to my parents. I immediately came out in a cold sweat, thinking that it was a letter of complaint about my regular bad behaviour, for which I had just that very day been severely caned by him, receiving four swingeingly painful strokes of the cane on each hand, for rudeness to one of the female teachers.  It was not the first time I had received such letter to give to my parents, which had, in the past, always incited my father, a very short tempered, no-nonsense man, to flay my bare arse with his razor strop. I can tell you that once my father started to belt me, he did not stop until my poor bum was red-raw.

You will, therefore, understand that it was with a great deal of trepidation that I handed the letter over to my parents. My father’s first reaction was one of anger. He handed the unopened envelope to my mother and said: “Alan, don’t tell me that you have been misbehaving again at school, because, lad, if you have, I will keep the promise I made you the last time I belted you and said that next time you brought a Headmaster’s letter home, you would not be able to sit down comfortably again for a week.”

While my father was upbraiding me and telling me, quite graphically, exactly what he intended to do to my bum, my mother and my ever present Grandma Clegg, had, meanwhile, opened the letter and were rereading the contents. My mother said: “Hold on, Bert,” she always called my father Bert, rather than Herbert, “This is not another complaint about Alan’s behaviour, but an invitation for us to go along to the school at ten this Friday morning, to discuss Alan’s future. According to what this says, he has apparently done very well in his exams and the Headmaster says that next term he deserves to go onto higher education at a different school. The Headmaster says that we should both go along and see him on Friday morning to discuss Alan’s future.”

“I don’t see, Doris, what Alan needs higher education for. His future is as safe as houses. When he is fourteen, he will leave school and get a job in the mill and start earning his living, just as I and my father and grandfather before me had to do. You do realise, I suppose, that we’d both have to take Friday morning off, without pay, to see the Headmaster, which is the equivalent of day’s wages, which we can ill afford to lose.”

“No, Doris, the idea of further education for Alan is nonstarter from the word go. I, for one, am not going to lose a half a day’s pay going to the school on a wild-goose chase. Alan will leave school at fourteen as we both did and like the rest of them, will get a job in the mill and start earning his keep.  What does he need higher education for? You can go if you want; but count me out! You will see; it will go nowhere and you will have given up a half day’s wage for nothing.”

Grandma Clegg had listened silently to all this from her son-in-law. There was no love lost between my grandmother and my father In the interests of peace between them, the pair of them barely managed to tolerate each other. I frankly don’t think my father appreciated what his mother-in-law, my grandma, did free, gratis and for nothing for us; if she stopped coming around every day, as as unpaid house-keeper and maid-of-all-work for our small family, we would find ourselves in Queer Street.

My Grandma now intervened full throttle and said scornfully to her son-in-law, not mincing her words: “Herbert Taylor, I knew from the moment that my daughter started going about with you that you could see no further than the end of your nose. You see your life as a grind: you are a working-class man, who, every day goes to a badly paid job he does not like, because he has no option and has to earn a living.  And now you see your only son doing exactly the same as you. You don’t have the sense you were born with or the gumption to see that Alan has a better brain than you have – in fact, better than any one of us has – and that he might just possibly use it to go on and improve his station in life.”  

“You, great unimaginative lump that you are, have already decided on the future of your only child, aged now only eleven, sentencing him to the same dreary life you have led in the mill from the age of fourteen when you left school yourself. You see your son, who also happens to be my only grandchild, only as a means of increasing the household income as soon as possible; nothing more, nothing less! You are not even willing to go to the school as requested, because you are too stupid to even think that the Headmaster might have something positive to say about Alan’s future, which might give the lad an opportunity, which you never had, to improve his life. If you have your way, you will be condemning Alan to the same miserable working life, which you yourself hate.”

“Shame on you, Herbert Taylor; you don’t have the sense you were born with, that you will not even give up a half day’s wage to hear of what might be prospects of better life  for your only child. As his grandmother, I feel a deep responsibility for giving my grandson every opportunity to better himself in life. So, as you will not take time off work, Doris and I will go ourselves and see what the Headmaster has to say on Friday morning and I will make up Doris’s lost earnings from my savings. And if you forbid Doris to go, then I will go myself. There is no way, in which we are not going to hear what the Headmaster has to say about Alan’s future; so if you don’t like it, well, you can stuff it up your jumper.”

I had stood by while this verbal onslaught on my father took place. I saw from the look on his face, that he knew he had been beaten.  No one had thought to ask me what I thought about further schooling. And, quite frankly, it would have been a complete waste of time, as my own educational horizon ended at my fourteenth birthday on January 1st 1914, when I could leave school and start working in a mill, exactly as my father foresaw for me. The fact of the matter was that like most working-class eleven-year-olds, I had then no thoughts about education, either higher or lower; school was a fact of life and I had to go there every weekday until  I was fourteen when I would leave and go into the mill; end of story!

In the past few years, not one single boy or girl, who had attended my elementary school and who had been offered a place at a grammar school, who had been able to take it up, due to financial constraints of their families.  So I found myself agreeing with my father, whom I disliked intensely, that my destiny, as he had said, was to work in a cotton mill all my life. However, at that moment, I loved my grandma even more, if that was possible, for sticking up for me and for insisting that if no one else would  go to hear what the Headmaster had to say about my future, she would go alone.

My father finally capitulated, as his mother-in- law had promised to make good his wife’s lost wages, and said the my mother could also go. Having been bested by his mother-in-law, a woman whom he disliked, and, being, by nature, a bad loser, he grumpily said:  “Well, if you two want to waste your time on a fool’s errand, a lost cause from the start, then go and talk to the Headmaster. It’s no skin off my nose and I don’t really care too hoots what you do. But just mark my words; I predict that nothing will come of it.  Alan’s future is to work in a cotton-mill.”

How very wrong he was to be proved to be!

CHAPTER 3.

Friday morning arrived and at ten o’clock I was summoned from my class to the Headmaster’s office where my grandmother and mother were already sitting. “Come in Alan and sit down.” He called me by my Christian name in a kindly tone of voice, which was in sharp contrast to his normal bark, when I was about to be caned. Come to think about it, this was the first time I was in his office not about to be punished.  I was, I admit, a seriously mischievous boy, who deserved whatever the Headmaster dished out onto my hand outstretched in front of him; But, boy oh boy, did he know how to use the cane!  But in this meeting he showed the Dr. Jekyll side of his character and was all sweet light.

He began by saying that he had hoped to see my father there also, as he had some very good news for us all. My mother made some weak excuse for his absence, but my grandmother added, with absolute contempt in her voice: “Herbert Taylor, my son-in-law and Alan’s father does not hold with further education for working-class lads, his own son included, whose future, from the age of fourteen when the law allows him to leave school,, he sees as working in the mill.”

Not surprisingly, the Headmaster looked embarrassed at this forthright expression, explaining truthfully the absence of my father from what he saw as a critical meeting to examine my future education. He clearly had heard and understood the disdain for her son-in-law, which my grandmother had managed to convey in her voice,

However, he quickly composed himself and said: “Well, as we all seem to be here, I suppose I should explain to you the purpose of this meeting. I do not know if you, his parents, are aware of the fact, that, your son, Alan is an exceptionally gifted, if mischievous child. On the negative side, he is possibly the single boy in the School, whom I cane most often; however the positive side, he is also the boy, who regularly comes top in all subjects we teach in this School. In the recent exam, which you may not even be aware he took, he obtained full marks – I repeat, full marks – in every subject, which is no mean achievement. Your son was the star of this year’s exam for a grammar school place.”

“I do not know if you are aware, but the towns comprising the cotton belt of Lancashire have together over 2600 mills. For education purposes these towns have formed a joint examination board centred on Manchester, the cotton capital of the world. So when I said that Alan was the star examinee of the year, I mean that he was the star not only in Bolton, but of the entire cotton belt.”

“Now I know that most families cannot afford to send their children to grammar school, in spite of them having done well enough in the exams to be offered a place. I should tell you that in the five years during which I have been Headmaster of this School, unfortunately, not one single pupil, who successfully passed the exam and was offered a grammar school place, was able to accept it; their parents simply could not afford the cost, which, not to wishing to prejudge matters, I suspect might be the case with you.”

“However, in view of Alan’s absolute brilliance, it would be a pity not to allow him the opportunity to continue with his education. Who knows; he might one day become Prime Minister of this country. I am, therefore, happy to tell you that in view of your son’s quite exceptional ability, this paper I hold in my hands is from a public school for boys, called Churton College, located near the City of Hereford, which has seen fit to offer your son a place and a bursary.”

“Churton is one of only three public schools for boys, the other two being Frogmore College near York and Rigby School near Lincoln, to have offered places for the next school year, which starts at the end of August, to three working-class boys of outstanding ability from industrial areas of the country. The other two boys have been chosen from the woollen region across the Pennines in Yorkshire, centred on Bradford, and from the Black Country potteries, centred on Stoke on Trent.”

The Headmaster saw that he had clearly lost his audience of three: my mother, my grandmother and me. None of us had properly understood the import of the offer being made to me by Churton College; indeed, none of us even had hs slightest idea what a public school was.

This was made clear to the Headmaster by my grandmother who said: “Mr. Edwards, you say Churton is public school for boys. But surely this school which we are now sitting is a public school as it is run by Bolton Town Council. What is the point of sending the boy to another public school, miles away from where he now lives? He would have to find someone to stay with, as he could not travel to Hereford every day. And what exactly is bursary?  And,  you are quite right, Headmaster, even though Alan is bright and should go on to higher education, we, his family could not afford to pay for him to go to a local grammar school, let alone attend a school far away that he has to seek lodgings.  It makes no sense, Headmaster.”

“I see that I have badly explained the offer from Churton; so please let me explain more clearly for what I see as the opportunity of a lifetime for Alan. Firstly, the name, public school, is a monomer, used to describe upper-class, fee-paying boarding schools, like Churton, which is just one among many such schools.  I agree with you that it leads to some confusion, as fee-paying schools such as Churton are anything but public. But there it is: it is the accepted way by which such schools known. Such places as Churton, give their pupils, who are known as public schoolboys, what is referred to as a public school education, which gives them a superior start in life; they also are taugt taught  good manners and behave as gentlemen.”

“A public school education, at a prestigious school like Churton, is the best start in life, which any boy can have. So this offer to Alan of a place and bursary by Churton College should be viewed as a gift from on high. I should point out to you that most of the students at our two most prestigious universities, Oxford and Cambridge, are public school educated and of the cabinet members of the present government; almost all have been to a public school.”

“But to answer your question about bursaries, Churton is offering Alan a scholarship with all tuition fees and living expenses paid. The Board of Governors of Churton College, in collaboration with their counterparts at Frogmore and Rigby, have taken a first step by giving a scholarship to three working-class boys, to give them the opportunity to develop their full potential as a result of a high standard of education. If this trial is successful, all three schools intend to increase the number of scholarship boys, to give them the opportunity to shine in the upper echelons of British professional society, which has hitherto been restricted to boys from the wealthy upper-classes. It is a first small step towards making England’s class-ridden society more even.”

“The Governors of Churton, are aware that this experimental scheme – for, in fact, that is what this first step is – is fraught with difficulties, not the least of which is taking a boy from a working-class background with limited financial resources and thrusting him into an environment of boys from wealthy families, whose outlook on life, manners, accent and way of speaking are all totally different to those of the working-classes. They are also evidently acutely aware of the severe financial constraints, which prevent a working-class boy such as Alan, from reaching his full potential.”

Even I, aged only eleven at the time, noticed a sudden change in the tenor of what the Headmaster was saying, as he injected a distinctly positive note into his words. He spoke with conviction as if my parents had already accepted the place at Churton, as if it was a done and dusted deal that I was going to Churton at the end of August, immediately after the summer holidays.

“In the light of the difficulties of inserting a working-class lad like Alan, into what I am sure he will initially feel is a school of upper-class snobs with whom he has nothing in common, the Governors of Churton have wisely decided that their experimental choice will not feel visually or financially inferior to his fellow fee-paying schoolmates. They have therefore been very generous financially with bursary which they are offering your son to ensure that he has the wherewithal to keep his head above water in what is a society much different than that from which he comes.”

“In addition to paying the school fees, there is generous annual clothing and shoe allowance as Alan as will be required to wear the uniform regalia which is obligatory for all boys at Churton.  As the school uniform and generally approved clothing is supplied by only one clothier in Hereford, the Governors will pay for one annual return journey by train, from Bolton to Hereford to allow one of Alan’s parents to accompany him on his visits to the outfitters.  The School will provide you with the standard comprehensive list of clothing and sports equipment requirements necessary for life at Churton, as it does for all pupils. All the required items are available from the approved retailer in Hereford, who is the exclusive supplier to the School.”

“Churton, like all other schools in England, has three terms a year and will pay for Alan’s return journeys by train for vacations between Hereford and Bolton.  And, Alan, this is something especially for you. As you will require a certain amount of pocket money, which your parents can ill afford to give you, the Governors have decided that you will receive from the School, the sum of two shillings  (a shilling was one twentieth of one pound sterling) a week as pocket money for yourself.”

I could hardly believe my ears at this generosity; with two shillings for myself each week in my pocket, I would be rich beyond my wildest dreams. Even aged eleven, listening as the Headmaster listed the incredibly generous details of the offer, I could see that Churton College was as keen as mustard to have my parents accept their offer of a place for me.  I had no idea what sum I was costing Churton, other than the two shillings weekly pocket money, which seemed to me like manna from heaven. However, I saw how badly they wanted me as their first scholarship boy.

To put this pocket money, the equivalent of 10 new pence in today’s money, into context, Alan’s father was earning about £3 a week in the mill in 1911. His son was being offered weekly pocket money with a purchasing power in 2022 terms of just over £60. No wonder Alan was euphoric!

I looked at my mother and grandmother and I could tell from the expression on their faces that they were both as gobsmacked as me by the extreme generosity of the offer. If it had been up to me, as potential beneficiary of two shillings a week pocket money, I would have signed up there and then. The fact that it was tied to a new school at which I would be boarder and live together with other boys from wealthy families and that I was being offered a path to a much superior education, which would open greater prospects in life for me, did not cross my mind. At that precise moment, I was motivated purely by what I could do with such a huge sum of pocket money each week.

Mr. Edwards concluded by saying that the enrolment papers for Churton College and full details of the offer would shortly be arriving by post, directly at our house in Danube Crescent. He also said he hoped that my parents, by which he meant my absentee father, would see the the offer from Churton as the chance of a lifetime for their son and would accept.

That evening my grandmother and mother recounted what had happened that morning to my hidebound, reactionary father. My grandma said: “Herbert, you really should have taken the morning off and come with Doris and me to Alan’s school, to hear what his Headmaster had to say about your son’s performance in the recent exams. Alan came first, not only in Bolton, but in all the towns of the Lancashire cotton belt, which have come together to have one single examination system. He’s an absolute star is our Alan.”

“As a result of his performance, he has been offered one of only three scholarships to working-class lads, all expenses paid, by a fee-paying school called Churton College, near Hereford. Churton is a boarding school, which they call a public school, where the toffs send their sons to be educated. It’s a gift from heaven for Alan, allowing him to get a proper, upper-class education in the company of boys who are being brought as young gentlemen. And if he does well enough, I hope he may go on to be the first person in this family, to go on to university and get a degree.”

My father, to say the very least, looked sceptical and totally unconvinced:  “I don’t much hold with higher education for a lad whose future is working in a cotton mill. What’s the use of it? It won’t get him any further. Alan is a lad from a working-class family, and will, when he reaches fourteen years of age, go into a cotton-mill as I did; and I might tell you, when I began to earn my living, it was at an ever younger age. I tell you I just don’t see the point of a mill-worker’s son, whose future is in the mill, getting a higher education. What good will it do him, when he’ll be a cotton weaver all his life?”

I could see see my grandma’s hackles rising at my father’s resistance to any change in the way of life for his family.  “I do declare, Herbert Taylor, you are so blind that you cannot see any further than the end of your nose and I doubt sometimes that you can see even so far. I’ve always thought that you, Herbert Taylor, were a great nuppit and this confirms my worst fears. You sniff at a golden opportunity that would give your only son, my only grandchild, a good education and, by his own ability, a chance to pull himself out of this working-class poverty that everyone around here lives in.”

“Herbert Taylor, you do talk utter nonsense; if you think that, with a good education behind him, Alan will inevitably become a cotton weaver, like you and your father and grandfather before you and go on living in this miserable, unhealthy, dirty area all his life.  Around here, the very air is so polluted with the smoke from the mill chimneys and the coal fires, which we all burn, that it is not fit to breathe.”

“Have you no imagination, man? With a good education and his own innate,  God-given ability, Alan could go on to greater things and a better life than we any of us have led and will still be leading at  the end of our days. You would condemn him to remain where he is in life and go into the mill at fourteen, just because, as you put it, you don’t hold with higher education” 

My father was obviously infuriated by the comments of my grandma and replied, with all his guns blazing: “Going to a posh boarding school away from home, Alan will be like a fish out of water. You mark my words; he’ll be a square peg in a round hole: a total misfit: that’s what he’ll be, if we listen to you. You may be my mother-in-law and Alan’s grandmother, but let me tell you once and for all: this is my house; Alan is my son; I, and I alone, will decide what’s good for him, without any interference from you. So keep your views to yourself from now on.”

“As I’ve just told you, this is my house and I’m the one that makes the decisions around here, so once and for all, get that through your head. I’ll say it once and I’ll not say it again: there is no way that I’m signing any papers that will allow Alan to go to a boarding-school down south, miles away from his home. You must be out of your mind even to think of such a thing. When Alan leaves school at fourteen, he’s going into the mill, like every other lad and lass around here.  So from now on, Mrs. Clegg, I’ll thank you not to interfere in things that do not concern you.  I’ve just had enough of your putting your fillings in where they are not called for!”

My father only called his mother-in-law Mrs. Clegg when he was extremely angry. And even I, aged eleven, could see that he had worked himself into a real rage. However if he thought that he had had the last word on the subject and that the matter was closed, he had another thing coming to him. He had not reckoned with the combative power of my grandmother. While my mother stood around anxiously listening to the ever more heated altercation between her mother and her husband, Grandma Clegg took on my father; and I am glad to say, bested him single-handed.

I had always loved my grandma at least as much,  possibly even more than my parents. She had been the constant presence in my life as I was growing up and both my parents were working. She did not flinch in taking my father full on. Just as he called her Mrs Clegg, whenever he was angry with her, she addressed him by his full name, Herbert Taylor, which she spat out with considerable vehemence.

She now girded her loins, as the saying has it, and mounted what I can but describe as a full frontal, no-holds-barred attack on my father. With her voice filled with contempt and venom, she began: “Herbert Taylor, you should be ashamed of yourself. How you managed to father a son as bright as our Alan, God alone knows; and he will not tell us! And now, because, as you put it, you do not hold with further education, you would deny your only child the chance to better himself in this world. I’ve never heard such a load of self-serving tripe in my life.”

“You see no world other than the cotton-mill which you work to live. You are motivated only by your own greed; if you had your way, you would have Alan start earning his keep as a mill-worker as soon as possible. If you had the slightest common sense, you would see that in Alan, you have fathered an exceptionally bright and able boy who can – and, in spite of you – will go onto greater things.”

“Well, yuu can think again, Herbert Taylor, if you imagine for one moment that you are going to deny my only grandson the right to a good education at a top school: an education which will cost you nothing, other than to support  him during the school-holiday, when he returns home to this miserable place If you think that you are going to deny him the right to a better education, which, no thanks to you, he has earned by his own ability, then you can forget that right now. There is no way I am going to stand by and because of your prejudices, see you deprive my grandson of an exceptional opportunity, which his own ability has earned him. Whatever you say now, you will sign the papers and accept the offer when it arrives from Churton College.”

On an on she railed against my father, ever louder, until at last, with her verbal onslaught, she wore him down and he threw in the sponge and capitulated. 

“Alright, alright, you win,” he finally said, “But mark my words; nothing will come of it.  Oil and water don’t mix and the lad will find himself out of his depth among a group of young toffs, who have money to burn. I predict he’ll be home with his tail between his legs, before the first term is finished. He’ll find himself, as I have just told you, a square peg in a round hole; he will find that he just does not fit in among his schoolmates in such an upper-class school.  However, I have given in, as I shall never hear the end of it if I don’t allow him to go to Churton. So when the papers arrive, I’ll sign them and Alan will go to Churton after the summer holidays. But, you’ll see; it will be a disaster for the lad.”

My grandmother, now that she had won the battle over my future, showed herself to be generous in victory.  She now was all sweet light as if the argument over my future education had never happened. Gone was the strident: Herbert Taylor, to be replaced by the more endearing Herbert:

“Herbert,” she began, “You must not always look on the negative side of things. I know that the road from the local council school to a public boarding school, such as Churton will be paved with difficulties and I agree with you that Alan’s life away from home will not all be sweetness and light. But I have a great deal of confidence that he will meet the challenge and be successful. I must say that I am relieved that you have changed your mind and at least will allow your son to attempt to better his position in life.”

M y father true to his grumpy character, was not to be mollified and said, in his tetchy, unfriendly manner, maintaining his profit of doom predictions:  “Mrs. Clegg, the fact that I have agreed that Alan may go  to Churton, does not mean that I have changed my view on the matter. As I have said, in my opinion, you are sending the lad on a wild goose chase. I have only agreed to allow him to go as I do not want to hear you droning on for the rest of my life that I deprived your grandson of the the opportunity to better himself. You will, see soon enough that I am right; Alan will not be happy at Churton, where he will not fit in. He will, be back home before Christmas. So there you have it! We shall soon see who is right. And don’t expect either Doris or me to take time off work to go to Hereford to the school outfitters, to rig him out in whatever gear they wear down there. You must go with him yourself.”

I should just note that the above conversation between my grandmother and my father had been conducted in the Lancashire dialect, common among the working-classes at the time, which I have not attempted to imitate here. My grandmother had addressed her son-in-law, as she always did, in the second person singular, using thou and thee, as was common place among ordinary folk at that timeHowever, circumstances were definitely not normal on this occasion.

My father, who, by this time, on his highest horse, chose to add tension to the verbal exchange, by referring to his mother-in-law as Mrs. Clegg and addressing her formally in the second person plural, calling her you, which at that time was normally used only when speaking to someone in authority or to someone you did not know.

In adopting this formal form of address to her, which he continued to use long after the incident was closed, he indicated to my grandmother that even though he tolerated her presence in the house, that was as far as it went. Even though I was aged only eleven at the time, I could see that without my grandmother’s role as housekeeper and general maid-of-all-work, in fact, a veritable factotum, we would have been hard-pressed even to maintain the lowly life style we led.  I agreed, silently, of course, with my grandmother when she said that my father could see no further then the end of his nose.

My mother, who had remained silent during this entire argy-bargy of an argument, now brought the matter to a close by saying in her habitual, mild, apologetic way: “Perhaps, Bert, things might work out for Alan at Churton better than you think.”  Judging from my father’s face, at that moment, if looks could have killed, my mother would have dropped dead on the spot, for what he saw to be her siding with her mother. My father was a very bad loser!

CHAPTER 4.

The offer from Churton arrived next day in the post. My father signed it that same evening, muttering repeatedly under his breath, his dire warning of the the catastrophe to come, which he verbally underlined would be entirely due to my grandmother’s interference. My grandmother took it to the post office herself, to make sure that Churton College received the signed acceptance.  She clearly did not trust my father to post it, in spite of his having given his word. He just could not let go of the idea that he was right and that everyone else was wrong. And so we all listened, ad nauseam, to his litany of objections as he signed the acceptance papers. As I said above; my father was a bad loser; and it showed.

Eventually, two Bolton to Hereford first-class return travel warrants arrived in the post, accompanied by a letter listing the clothing and diverse things I would need as a newly enrolled pupils at Churton College. It suggested that we leave acquiring the requisite items of clothing until the middle of August, reminding my parents that I was a growing boy, and that as such, I would probably outgrow the initial outfit before the end of my first year, but that the constant requisite renewal of my wardrobe was something the School would take care of under the terms of the bursary which I had been awarded. It also said that when we visited the College’s official outfitters, Higgs and Nettlefold, located at 25, King Street, Hereford, they would send their bill directly to the College.

My grandmother, read the letter looked at the train tickets and observed that they really did things first class at Churton; no pun intended as she probably did not know what a pun meant. My father replied that, as he had observed earlier, they had money to burn at such places and that I would be completely out of my depth. But he could not let matters rest there and we were all treated to a repeat performance of his dire warnings, ending with: “He’ll not have time to grow out of his new school clothes; mark my words; he’ll be back here before Christmas.”

A few weeks later, another letter arrived from Churton, informing me, I would be member of School House, which would be my home-from-home during my entire time at Churton. It also told us that the housemaster was a Mr. Charles Aloysius Fogerty, who taught Greek and Latin.

I subsequently learned there were six boarding- houses at Churton, each housing about 80 boys, of which School House was the oldest. It had originally been part of the main school building. It had been moved in about 1880 to a new detached building, and was in 1911 the most modern of the six houses. The other five houses, all of which were located in separate buildings, were all named after 18th century British prime ministers: Walpole, Pelham, Grenville, Rockingham and Pitt;  other than Pitt, I had never heard of any of them.

 There were still six weeks to go before the end of the summer term when I would leave school in Bolton to go onto Churton, Mr Edwards, the Headmaster, who had been all sweet light when he had met my mother and grandmother, was, in fact, a hard, sadistic man, who, like so many schoolmasters enjoyed administering corporal punishment. I have already told you that I was, by nature, a mischievous boy and regularly received a number of swingeingly painful cuts of his rigid bamboo cane across both my palms; he never did things by half and always caned both hands. So, I was no stranger to the cane, which, as I was soon to learn to my cost, was common currency at Churton

It was Monday morning, some six weeks before the end of the summer term, that I received a summons, during the first lesson of the week, to see the Headmaster, Mr. Edwards in his office.: “Well, Taylor,” he said, “You will leaving us at the end of this term to go on to Churton College, which is a public boarding school with a fine reputation for academic excellence. If you keep up your performance, which has just won you one of only three public school scholarships ever awarded to working class boys in this country, an achievement of which you can and should be justifiably proud, you have a good chance of going on to university; Oxford or Cambridge are both within your reach, young man.”

“However, Taylor, you do have an unfortunate, less attractive side to your character. Although you are, without doubt, academically the brightest boy this school has ever produced, you are also the most mischievous lad I have ever known. I have just gone through my records and I see that this year alone, I have had occasion to cane you no less than fifteen times for misbehaving. That, Taylor, is not a record to be proud of!”

“Now in addition to academic excellence Churton has a reputation of being one of the strictest schools in the country when it comes to discipline. At Churton, as is the case in most public schools, the cane is not applied to the hand offender, but to his bottom, which is much more painful than anything you have, until now, experienced here. I am not telling you this just to frighten you, Taylor, but to make you aware that if you misbehave, you will be punished much more severely than you ever have been here in this school.”

“You will also be plunged into a new style of living, in a community of boys of the same age as yourself, all of whom will have previous experience of living away from home. You see, Taylor, the new boys, like you, with whom you will live, will all have been to what is called a preparatory school for boys. As its name implies, a prep school, as it is known, prepares them for life at public school, which is a second stage in their schooling. Now, as most prep schools also cane their pupils on their bottoms if they misbehave, most of your new house-mates will see nothing new in having their backsides beaten at Churton. However, the painful experience, which I am sure you will soon encounter, given your irrepressible mischievousness, will be new to you.”

“I feel that I would not be doing my duty as your Headmaster if I, figuratively speaking, of course, threw you naked to lions. I have, therefore decided that it would serve you well as an introduction to the discipline you will experience at Churton, if I were, from now on, to apply the cane to your bottom rather than, as hitherto been the case, to the palm of your hand, for any misdeeds you commit during your final six weeks in this school. So, Master Taylor, if you want to put off experiencing the bite of the cane on your bottom until you get to Churton in the autumn, you had better mend your ways and behave yourself for the next six weeks. You will appreciate, Taylor, that I am proposing this for your own good, so that when you arrive at Churton, you do not feel like a fish out of water.” 

“Knowing you, as I do, I think that you will find it difficult to keep yourself out of trouble for a period as long as six weeks. But who knows? I do not wish to prejudge things; other miracles have happened. However, you should now bear in mind that if and when – I suspect more probably when, than if – I have the occasion to cane you again, whatever the reason, it will be with six strokes of a new rattan cane that I have acquired for the precise purpose of using on your bottom. Giving a boy six of the best as it is known, is the commonest form of punishment inflicted on public school boys throughout this country. So you will be well prepared for what undoubtedly will happen to you at Churton.”

“Taylor, you will have time enough, once you get to Churton, to accustom yourself to the very doubtful pleasure of having your backside beaten. So if you wish to avoid the extremely painful experience of having your bottom beaten by me before the end of this term, you had better clean up your act, boy, and be on your best behaviour from now on. For the moment, Taylor, that is all I have to say to you; so you may now leave and return to your class.”

CHAPTER 5.

Was I worried by the Headmaster’s dire promise of what my backside would experience if I was again sent to him for a caning? No, not at all.  But but, as events soon proved, perhaps I ought to have been. But, with that nonchalance and insouciance of youth, I had made the fatal and erroneous assumption that the beating promised by the Headmaster would never happen; and if it did, it would be someone else’s bum rather than mine, which would suffer.  Retrospectively, I have no idea, why I should have made this stupid assumption, when I knew from past personal experience that Mr. Edwards was a keen and regular user of the cane and had never hesitated to use it on me or any other boys in the school. With the wisdom of hindsight, it was clear madness on my part to have ignored the threat, which the Headmaster had explained to me earlier in the same week; a threat he would, in fact, make good several times, in the six weeks remaining before the end of term at Mill Street School in Bolton.

Perhaps it was that I subliminally saw myself as untouchable and exempt from the normal rules of the school, dictating good behaviour.  After all, I had just been acknowledged as the brightest boy in the whole county in the recent examination; so perhaps the fact that I had been offered one of only three scholarships to working-class lads to go onto a public school had rendered me soft in the head.

Push came to shove more rapidly than I had expected. By Friday of that same week, I found myself knocking on the door of the Headmaster’s study, bearing a punishment chit from Miss Spivey. Miss Spivey was my form mistress, whom I would now judge as suffering from extreme, long-term, sexual frustration, which she vented on the boys in her class, by sending them to the Headmaster for a caning at the drop of a hat. He of course, being a sadist,, was only too ready to oblige without question,

There was theory, probably apocryphal, that Miss Spivey and the Headmaster were in cahoots with each other and had an agreement that she would ensure that he had a regular flow of boys to cane, which, as far as I could see, was his sole contact with his pupils, as he taught no class. One thing was sure; Miss Spivey was the most prolific writer of punishment chits among all the teachers and often sent boys to the Headmaster for a caning for the most piffling of reasons. But the Headmaster, a vigorously enthusiastic wielder of the cane, never questioned the appropriateness of referral of any boy sent to him for punishment.

In the present case, what had happened was that Miss Spivey had told me several times to stop talking during the lesson she was giving us. I had ignored her instructions, which had led to the present situation where I was knocking on the Headmaster’s study door. It was with my heart in my mouth and a feeling of extreme dread that I waited to be told to enter. He bellowed: “Enter.” across the closed door and I nervously entered the lion’s den to meet my doom.

“Ah, it you, Master Taylor, back sooner than I had ever thought. Well, young man, I do not make promise lightly. At the beginning of this week I told you, what would happen to you if you were again sent to me for a caning, during your final six weeks at this school. I take it from the pink punishment slip you are clutching in your sweaty hand that your form mistress, Miss Spivey, has again seen fit to send you to me, to deal with you for your misdeeds.”

He held put his hand and I passed him the pink slip detailing my offence, at which he barely glanced before screwing it up and throwing it into the wastepaper basket.

“Well, Taylor, true to my word, this time, I intend to apply cane to your bottom rather than to your hand.” He turned and went to a cupboard from which he produced long slender cane of a type, which I had never before seen. To great dramatic effect, he swished it menacingly down through the air a few times under my very nose, showing me how flexible it was, by bending it into almost a circle.

“This is a rattan punishment-cane imported from the Far East. It is the implement, along with it companion, the birch, used by most public schools for correctional purposes. It has the distinct advantage, due to its flexibility, of moulding itself to a boy’s buttocks when it is applied with vigour, thereby ensuring that each cheek of a boy’s bottom receives the full benefit of each stroke. As the buttocks contain no essential organs or the slender bones of the hand, the cane can be laid on with greater force than the bamboo cane used on the hand, thereby increasing the pain, which is why it has been adopted as the punishment of choice by public schools.”

“After all, Taylor, the purpose in caning a boy is to teach him a lesson and for him to suffer retribution for his misdeeds in the form of pain.; As you are now about to find out for yourself, the rattan cane applied to any boy’s bottom is very painful indeed. Taylor, I think you will find that when you leave my study, as the first ever possessor a well-caned bottom in this school, it will be impossible for you to sit down comfortably for several hours.”

“Taylor, you are now going to have a foretaste of the fact that, in your future life at Churton College, pain is the name of the game. I regret to say, that unless you mend your mischievous ways when you arrive at Churton, the well-caned bottom, to which I now intend to introduce you, will be your constant companion throughout your entire public school career. But enough of this talk, Taylor;  I imagine you are eager to allow your bottom to experience first, bracing experience of the cane.”

To say that I was eager to take the cane across my bum was probably the greatest misstatement ever. But as there was no way I could save myself from what I then perceived was going to be a fate worse than death. He continued: “Take off your jacket, Taylor; then go and bend over the back of that chair over there, and present your bottom to me. Place your hands firmly on the seat of the chair and keep perfectly still whilst I apply the cane. You will receive six cuts of the cane to what will shortly become your very painful bottom. I regret to predict the future; but knowing your penchant for mischief as well as I do, I fear that a painful bottom will become a regular feature of your life at Churton.”

Mr. Edwards, had obviously prepared himself for my first beating, for as I attempted to bend over the chair, it was obvious that its back, over which I had been ordered to present my bottom for the dubious pleasure of introducing it to its first kiss of the cane, was too high for me; remember that I was age only eleven at the time. However, the Headmaster was well prepared for just such an eventuality, as he produced, as if from nowhere, a wooden footstool, on which he ordered me to stand, thus resolving the problem. So I was now in place for the first onslaught ever on my posterior.  I cannot say, in spite of my usual devil-may-care past attitude towards the cane, that I was much looking forward to the first beating of my bum.

As you can well imagine, I was frightened and nervous faced with what was about to come. Times without number, I had taken the cane on my hands; but here was something quite different and I was trembling like a leaf with fear of the unknown, as I felt the Headmaster lay the cane gently across the crown of my bottom, where he obviously intended to land his first stroke.  Then, with the somewhat frightening peremptory order:  “Brace yourself, boy, as this is going to hurt,” the gentle touch of the cane, lying across my bum, was suddenly gone and was replaced, almost immediately by the disconcerting whine of the slender rod descending down through the air, at great speed, to end only a split second later with an almighty crack, as the flexible length of rattan mated with its target: my unfortunate bum!

For a brief moment, I felt absolutely nothing. But this was replaced almost instantly by the searing pain as the cane delivered its pent-up energy to my poor bum. I had never before felt anything even vaguely so painful in my entire life; I was no stranger to the cane on the palm of my hand, which I learned to take in my stride; but this seemed, at that moment, ten times worse. The Headmaster had not been kidding, when he had said that this was going to hurt. My eyes were already filled with tears after the first stroke; and there were still five more to come. By the time he finished with me, a veritable Niagara of tears was pouring down my cheeks.

This was easily the worst experience in my life to date. I found it hard to imagine anything more painful. However, to jump ahead of myself, once I got to Churton College, what I had just suffered at the hands of the Headmaster, I came to consider as a fleabite, compared with what was visited on my bum at Churton. And whereas at my present council school in Bolton, only the Headmaster, Mr. Edwards, had wielded the cane, at Churton, in addition to the Headmaster, the six housemasters, the head-boy, the six house-captains and twelve prefects were authorised to beat; a right which, to the extremely painful chagrin of the boys, they exercised to a man, on a regular and vigorous basis.

I returned to Miss Spivey’s class and gingerly regained my hard wooden seat at the double desk, which I shared with another boy named Arnold Smith, whom I did not particularly like. Seeing the difficulty I had in sitting down, he a whispered: “Did you get it on your bum this time?” When I confirmed this to be the case, he simply said: “Bad luck!” 

There still remained several weeks before the end of term; and as the Headmaster had predicted, I was not able to keep myself out of trouble for long; and so, he gave himself the pleasure and me the pain of addressing my backside with his cane twice more before I finally left to go to Churton in the autumn. As a result of my two further encounters with the rod of justice – if one could call it justice – for on both occasions, he whacked my backside really hard on the flimsiest of pretexts as if there was to be no tomorrow. He had used my departure for Churton as an excuse to give himself he pleasure of beating my bottom three times, a punishment unheard of in council schools in Lancashire at the time.

In a way, I suppose I should have been grateful to Mr. Edwards, for what he had passed off as his foresight, in preparing me for the onslaught on my arse, which, as I quickly learned at Churton, was public school speak for what we, in working-class Lancashire at the time, referred to as our bums. However, with the wisdom of hindsight, I now think that Mr. Edwards as just one more in that long line of sadistic school teachers, who derived considerable pleasure and sexual arousal from whacking a boy’s arse   I have to say at the age of eleven, when Mr. Edwards introduced my backside to the painful ecstasy of the cane, I had no knowledge of, or feelings regarding, sex nor of its well-known, symbiotic relationship with corporal punishment.  However, that was soon to be rectified as I accustomed myself to life at Churton.

CHAPTER 6.  

It was mid-August 1911, when my grandmother and I took the train from Bolton to Hereford, to visit the Churton College outfitters, Higgs and Nettlefold, in King Street, which was a very grand shop, fitted out with lots of polished wood, the likes of which I had never before seen, let alone been in such a place. It was the sort of place in which working-class people like us felt uncomfortable, surrounded by men’s and boys’ clothing, at prices that we could not afford to pay ourselves. My grandmother presented the person who served us, who happened to be Mr. Nettlefold himself, with the letter from Churton, listing the clothing items I would require as boarder.

“Oh, yes, Madam” said a fawning Mr. Nettlefold, “We have had a letter from Mr. Whittington, the Bursar of Churton College telling us of that your son, Alan, has been  awarded a scholarship by the School.”  He paused briefly he and looked at me: “And you, young man, must be Master Alan Taylor, the lucky young man, who has had the good fortune, due entirely to his own ability, to have been offered a place at Churton College, to complete his school education before going on to university.”

And then with just the slightest touch of deprecatory disdain in his voice, he added “Well, Madam, as sole official outfitters to the College, we are, of course, happy to be able to serve you and your son. And I am pleased to tell you that Bursar has left it entirely to us to see that this young man is fully kitted out with all that he needs for his life as a new boy at the College at the end of this month.”

“So if Master Alan would step this way, we will begin by choosing the main elements of his outfit essentially his tail coat, waistcoat, trousers, head-gear and shoes, before moving on to the other items of daily clothing and sportswear that your son will need for his life at Churton. And, in your case, he has asked has asked us to send our account, for all items supplied by us today, directly to him, as Bursar for settlement.”

“And, Madam, for your convenience, the Bursar has suggested that we pack all the items chosen by you today, and send them directly to the house at Churton, to which to which Alan had been assigned. I am afraid that there will be just too many items for you to carry back to Bolton with you on the train today. Of course, for boys whose fathers were at Churton, it is usual for their sons to be assigned to the same house as their fathers. However, as Alan is a scholarship boy, such considerations do not apply. I understand from the bursar that your son has been assigned to School House, of which the house colour is scarlet, which is reflected in the pipings on his waistcoat and head-gear.” 

Even I, aged but eleven, had heard the slight tone of disdain in Mr. Nettlefold’s voice, being forced to serve people whom he obviously considered his social inferiors, which we probably were, as he owned his own shop – or half of it anyway, and was his own master. But our northern accents stood out like a sore thumb in a cathedral market town like Hereford. He was used to bowing and scraping to the sons of families, which he considered socially his superiors. He was one of those men, who knew their place in the social hierarchy and liked to think that he only served people of status: people who were socially above him and who could afford to pay through the nose for the merchandise he sold.

So to descend to serving a mill-worker’s son from the well nigh unspeakable north was for him, almost beyond the pale. And yet he forced himself to be graciously polite with us, as he knew a juicy order was in the offing; a complete outfit from A to Z for a new boy at Churton did not come his way every day. Most of the intake of new boys would have been formerly at prep school and would already have much of the clothing needed for Churton. So I was the exception which proved the rule; I needed everything: absolutely everything, to transform me into a Churtonian public school boy, indistinguishable – at least visually – from the rest of my schoolmates. And so, Mr. Nettlefold, in spite of his obvious distaste for our custom, ate humble pie.

It was probably the first time in her life that my grandmother had ever been called Madam; but in control of the situation as she ever was, she rose to the occasion like a born lady, which in spite of her working-class origins and northern accent, she truly was. Whereas I, aged eleven, was overawed by the opulence of the shop and the different, more cultivated way of speaking Mr. Nettlefold had addressed us, my grandmother clearly was not.

As an uneducated woman, my grandmother was, nevertheless, full of that not-so-common commodity: common sense.  She had that innate sense of knowing the attitude to adopt appropriate to every occasion, and had the uncanny knack of winning most arguments. She had obviously seen which was the wind was blowing and had picked up on the innocent words,  of course, in your case, chosen and scholarship boy, which, in the context used by Mr. Nettlefold, had taken on a slightly, but nevertheless, sniffy, deprecatory significance.  He had managed without out actually saying so, to convey to her that he saw us as coming from the lowest stratum of society; that he was serving us under sufferance and that we, the customer, should be thankful that we were being served at all.

Mr. Nettlefold, in his mild putdown, even though quite graciously delivered, had reckoned without my grandmother, who was not at all anybody to be talked down to by anyone, least of all a shopkeeper with whom we were about to place a large order, no matter who was paying for it. Although she did not begin: “My good man,” a remark always destined to raise the hackles of the addressee, she let Mr. Nettlefold know, in no uncertain terms that she was the customer he the supplier; and without  actually saying so reminded him of that fact.

She said: “Mr. Nettlefold, first allow me to correct what is an obvious misunderstanding on your part.  In spite of my apparent youth, in your eyes at least, allow me to inform you, young man (he must have been at least fifty, the same age as my grandmother) that I am not Alan’s mother but his grandmother, Mrs. Clegg. It is my daughter, who is Alan’s mother; but she unfortunately could not come today to choose her son’s clothing for Churton.  I will accompany Alan, whilst he chooses his school clothes, from what stock you have available, to see that his garments fit him properly.”

“Whilst I see the sense of sending the bulk of Alan’s Churton wardrobe, directly to the School, I would like to take the items making up his school uniform with us back to Bolton to show to his mother and father; that is assuming you have his size in stock and that items must not be specially ordered. Now, perhaps we could get on with things as my grandson and I have a lot of other things to do in Hereford today, before our train leaves for the north.”

My grandmother did not actually say: “So put that in your pipe and smoke it, you snotty, little man.” But in telling him that she was not my mother, but my grandmother, and casting doubt on the ability of Higgs and Nettlefold to supply the essential school uniform off the shelf, she had demolished the superior manner of an uppity shop-assistant, even though he was part owner of the business.

Mr. Nettlefold was convulsed with embarrassment that he had mistakenly taken my grandmother for my mother and, figuratively on his knees, apologised profusely for his mistake. He had also learned from the steely determination of my grandmother, that she was someone from the working-classes not to be talked down to or trifled with.  In my grandmother, he had met his match; as had my father only a few weeks ago. Any vague antagonism towards us had now totally disappeared as he realised that he had been put, well and truly, in his place.

After that, he was all sweet light. The school outfit, which could hardly be described as a uniform, consisted of a black, cutaway coat with short tails, which just covered the wearer’s bum, worn over a waistcoat, also black, but relieved by the scarlet piping along its edges, identifying, to the initiated, that the wearer as a member of School House. The long trousers – my first – of which I was supplied with two pairs, were also black and were supported by a pair of braces hidden under the waistcoat.  But the pièce de résistance of this whole outfit, which struck me as absurd, was what Mr. Nettlefold, with some justification, referred to as head-gear.

To call what Churtonians of all ages were obliged to wear on their heads a cap, would have been equivalent to calling a diamond a piece of carbon.  This confection, which we were all forced to wear whenever we left the the School’s premises, enforced by the very real threat of that Churtonian cure-all of a severe beating, belonged to a Dickensian era of fifty years earlier. Years later, when I was an undergraduate at Cambridge, I saw that the Churton boys’ head-gear was modelled on the bonnet, the proper name for the hat that Doctors of Philosophy wear when they are arrayed in all their academic finery for some junket or other: a so-called scarlet-will-be-worn occasion. The Churton version was made of black velvet, piped with the house-colour, in my case, scarlet; and to cap it all, it was finished with scarlet tassel on top, inspired; I suppose, by the-cherry-on-the-cake garnish on a bun.

In front of a full-length mirror in Higgs and Nettlefold’s grandly named, Fitting Room, I looked at myself decked-out in what I saw as an absurdly cumbersome outfit comprising: a tailcoat – the tails just barely covering my bum – a scarlet-piped waistcoat, a pair black trousers, held up by braces over my shoulders, and finally completed a pair of shiny black shoes The whole outfit was completed by that ludicrous bonnet.  Frankly, I thought I looked completely ridiculous.

However, my grandmother, looking approvingly on, whilst I tried on various sizes of each item, finally said: “Alan, you look absolutely handsome in your school outfit. Your mother will be tremendously pleased when you put it on this evening to show her. Pack this lot up, Mr. Nettlefold, as we are taking these items with us. You can send the second pair of trousers and shoes, together with the other stuff we are about to order, directly to Churton, along with your bill.”

Listing to my grandmother authoritatively tell Mr. Nettlefold, who was by now completely cowed by this working-class virago, I realised just what an ally I had in her, especially, to combat my dull-as-ditchwater-stick-in-the-mud-father and my shrinking violet, too-timid-to-say-anything-contradictory mother. Knowing on which side my bread was buttered, I realigned my thinking to agree with that of my grandmother. I tried my best to to convince myself that she was right and that I looked handsome in my school outfit, in the way that she saw me; or at least, said that she saw me. But in my heart of hearts  I knew I was kidding myself, for in my own eyes, I was convinced that I looked totally ridiculous.

But we were still not finished with my outfitting, for we went to choose ten – yes that’s right: TEN – complete sets of underwear, ten shirts, and ten of everything else which could be washed.  Mr. Nettlefold informed us: “The young gentlemen at Churton change all their linen – an upmarket word if ever there was one – and socks every day, which means that five items are permanently in the wash in the School laundry, and five in use.  As part of the service we offer our customers, Higgs and Nettlefold will take care of the making of name tags in Alan’s name and sewing them onto all launderable items. We have found that with ten of all washable items of a boy’s outfit are quite enough to ensure that he does not run short of clean linen. Of course, some boys do have a full seven days of linen, to ensure that if the laundry delays in returning items in the wash on time, he has always a full week of clean clothes.”

My grandmother listened to this exposition and told Mr. Nettlefold that we too would, take fourteen of every linen item. As she said to me later: “I will not see my only grandson playing second fiddle to his schoolmates. especially as someone else is paying for it.”

Listening to this I was completely amazed at the extravagance of the life I would shortly be leading. Just think about it; here was I, an eleven year old,  lower working-class lad, who normally wore the same underwear, shirt and socks for a full week, suddenly faced with the possibility – not the possibility, but the obligation – of putting on clean clothes every day. I had never dreamt of such a thing. It was a new world of which I knew nothing, but, to which I was already beginning to understand, I would be forced to adapt myself if I wished to survive.

To anticipate what I learned when I arrived at Churton at the end of  August 1911,  I quickly saw that the saying: cleanliness is next to  Godliness had been turned on its head at the school, as  Godliness played second fiddle to cleanliness. Whereas at home, I had taken a bath once a week only on Friday nights, showers before going to bed bed and on rising in morning were de rigueur at Churton, as was a complete change of underwear, shirt and socks every day.

But as I was soon to learn, both cleanliness and Godliness were subservient to discipline; and as you will see, discipline was strictly and unquestioningly enforced at Churton by the liberal and vigorous use of the cane and birch, both of which were applied to the bare bottoms of offenders. With my penchant for mischief, I soon became a regular communicant, as the mating of the cane with my bare arse rapidly became as regular as sip of wine at the communion rail of the altar.

When we had finally completed our purchases at Higgs and Nettlefold, my grandmother said: “Alan now that we have finished here, before we catch the five o’clock train back to Manchester and Bolton, I think we have plenty of time, to take the local train to Great Churton to see what your new school looks like. You would like that wouldn’t you?”  I knew better than to argue with her; whether I liked it or not; my grandmother wanted to see Churton College so that is where we were now going.

CHAPTER 7.

The village of Great Churton was only fifteen minutes by train from Hereford. Today it is part of the urban sprawl of the city, but back in 1911 it was a distinct village, separated from the city by fields, which were later to be blighted by the characterless housing development which was to become common in 20th century England. Then as now, Churton College was essentially Great Churton in all but name. From the railway station the main street – imaginatively named Main Street – stretched towards the main gate of Churton College itself, which was composed of an imposing group of buildings set in spacious grounds, completely fenced in by tall wrought iron railings. To coin a phrase: you could not miss it!

To an eleven-year-old, working-class lad from the industrial north, who knew nothing other than the red-brick, late Victorian council school in Mill Street, Bolton, which was housed in one single building, Churton College seemed, at first sight, like a village in itself. And, that, I suppose, was what it was; for behind those wrought-iron railings, it was completely self-contained and cut off completely from village life.

The gate was closed, but fortunately a gardener was working within hearing distance and my grandmother had no hesitation in calling to him. She explained our situation to him and, as a working-class man himself, he was incredulous that a working-class lad from the north had won a scholarship and been offered a place at the School. He asked me what house I would be living in. He then informed us that my house, School House, was the oldest house at Churton, having been originally located in the main school building. But in 1870, it had been moved to a purpose built, at that time, modern building and its old premises in the main school building had been converted into additional classrooms as the school had grown to its present size of just under 500 boys.

However, he had added a slightly s chilling note to the conversation: “Just a word of warning in your ear; young-fellow-my-lad; if I were you, I’d mind my Ps and Qs when you arrive at Churton. Mr. Fogerty, the present housemaster of School House, has a reputation of being over-fond of using the cane on his boys’ backsides. It is generally known that he tolerates no nonsense from any of the boys, of any age, for whom he plays the role of the strictest of strict house-fathers in what is already the strictest of schools under the present Headmaster, Mr. Augustus Caesar.”

“Mr. Fogerty is also the master – he teaches mathematics – who has the reputation for issuing the most punishment notes in class, which condemns the recipient to a visit to the Headmaster’s study for a beating.  He is also the only housemaster to still use the birch on the boys in his house.  The Headmaster is the only other master, who still uses the birch fairly regularly. So, young man, when you arrive here at the end of the month, if you value your bottom at all, I advise you to be on your best behaviour from the word go; otherwise your bottom will soon make the painful acquaintance of the cane and the birch.”

The gardener then pointed out the six boarding houses of Churton College. The other five houses were all named after seventeenth century British prime ministers, none of whom I had ever heard of : Walpole, Pelham, Grenville, Rockingham and Pitt. Come to think of it, I did not even know the name of our present prime minister. Walpole, Pelham and Grenville houses were arranged around three side of a finely mown lawn, on the fourth side of which sat the original school building, in which School House had originally been lodged.

The remaining three houses, School House, Rockingham and Pitt were similarly arranged around an immaculate immaculate lawn on the other side of the main school building, with School House, facing the main building across the second lawn. Thus, the whole school was symmetrical, with the six houses situated three in front of and three behind the main School building.

In addition to these seven buildings, all of which were of considerable architectural distinction, there were several other buildings housing various classrooms, the chemical laboratory, the laundry and sundry other services needed for the smooth running of what was effectively a completely self-contained community of almost five hundred boys. There were numerous other small buildings dotted around what were extensive, meticulously maintained grounds.

Churton College was located in Great Churton; it dominated the village, but, at the same time, was not an integral part of it: Churton College was a world unto itself. As an eleven-year-old, I was mightily impressed, totally overawed, by the size of the new school at which, in a few brief weeks, I would be a pupil.

When we got back home, I was forced by my mother to try-on my school outfit.  She pronounced herself delighted with the way I looked. My father, grumpy as ever, said that I looked ridiculous. It was one of the few times I agreed with something that my father had said. Of course, he did not let matter rest there. He went on to give us repeat performance of what I had come to see as his profit of doom of predictions. He concluded saying to my mother and my grandmother: “You mark my words; nothing to the good will come out of this. The lad will find himself like a fish out of water in such a posh place as Churton. As I have already told you, before Christmas, Alan will be home with his tail between his legs.” He was quite certain in his own mind that I was going to fail at Churton.

It was with these discouraging words from my father, echoing around my head that I resolved, there and then, to prove him wrong. Come what may, I was determined stay the course at Churton, not because I wanted to succeed and make something of myself, but purely to spite my father and prove him wrong.

CHAPTER 8.

The fatal day at the end of August finally arrived: the day I became the first ever scholarship boy at Churton College. My grandmother insisted on coming with me to see that I was suitably installed and to satisfy her own curiosity as to where I would be living, in what was to be my second home for the major part of the year, in the foreseeable future.

“I’d never forgive myself if something happened to you on the train. After all, Alan, you are only eleven,” was the excuse she gave me. It was to be the one and only time in my career as a pupil ar Churton that a member of my family ever visited the place.

I decided there and then that whether I liked the place or not, I would not allow my father to have the upper hand as far as my future career was concerned. Come what may, I would stay the course and possibly go on to university; I resolved then that I that I would not allow my father’s direst prediction to come true. I would definitely not be going home, as he had put it twice: “With my tail between my legs before Christmas.” I would definitely be fulfilling my father’s most earnest wish and be leaving school aged fourteen to face a life of drudgery in some dark satanic cotton mill in Bolton, doing a job which I would hate for the rest of my life.

Churton College, which I joined in late August 1911, tallied exactly 480 boys, evenly distributed across the six boarding houses, each of which housed 80 boys. Although I did not know it at the time, Churton was unique among public schools, in that the entry age for boys was eleven – my age – and not thirteen, as was normal elsewhere. By the time a boy left Churton after seven years of intense instruction in small classes, he was already a young man pushing 19.  The small classes, in which the progress of every boy was followed and documented minutely, led to the majority of Churtonians being offered university places at Oxford or Cambridge.

But, as ever, I am getting ahead of myself. The total annual intake of new boys was then 60. Accordingly, in late August 1911, I was one of only ten boys to enter School House as a first former. The way that the system worked, was that ten boys of the yearly intake were allocated to each house. Until they reached the lower sixth, they were housed together in a single ten-bed dormitory, forming, what was to become a sort of fraternal group. In the lower sixth, two boys shared a study-bedroom; finally, in the upper sixth, each boy – or, by then, rather each young man – had his own study bedroom.

At Churton, what happened was that the numbering of the dormitories was changed annually to reflect the school year of the occupants. So, in School House, my nine companions and I were destined to occupy the same dormitory room during our first five years at Churton. Each year the dorm was successively re-numbered as first through fifth. Thus, the newly vacated fifth dormitory, the previous occupants of which, now in the lower sixth form, had moved at the beginning of their sixth school-year into two-boy study-bedrooms, became each year the first form dormitory for the intake of new boys, and would remain their physical home at Churton, until they, in turn, moved into the lower sixth.

For my first five years as a pupil at Churton, I slept in the first bed on the right in a rectangular dorm, which was one of five, strictly identical, ten-bed dorms, at School House. From the entry door to the dorm, the one large window of the long rectangular room was visible on the opposing outer wall. The ten beds were placed five along each long wall, each separated from the next by a sort of wardrobe, which consisted of a chest of drawers below, on top of which was a cupboard. The storage space for the occupant’s clothes and personal belongings was completed by a footlocker placed at the foot of each bed, which, as I was soon painfully to learn, served a more sinister purpose than simple storage.

But then I noticed – how could I not, as I had been allocated the first bed on the right – that a long, straight-handled cane was hanging on a hook at the side of the door frame. One of my dorm companions saw me looking at it and said: “That’s the dorm cane, Taylor.” He addressed me by my surname, which came as a shock to me, as we had all called each other by our Christian names at council school in Bolton. He continued: “The house prefects use it on our bums if we misbehave after lights out.”

That cane, a constant reminder of a painful backside if we were caught misbehaving in the slightest, was to be our constant companion for the first five years of our lives at Churton, until we reached the lower- sixth and moved into shared study bedrooms. As you will later see, it was in regular use, for as I quickly came to learn, Churton without the cane, was akin to a day without light.

So there you have it; my private space at Churton was my bed, my wardrobe and my footlocker.  Other than that, there was no privacy at all; we lived as ten brothers, sharing one room.  For me, it was as if I had been thrown into deep end of an ice-cold swimming pool, not knowing how to swim.  Can you imagine what it was like for me,  those first few days, a lad, who in spite of his working-class origins, had always had a bedroom to himself  and who, had, never in his life, lived cheek by jowl with other boys or besported himself naked, as my dorm mates had no embarrassment in doing? That first day, I felt myself in an alien environment – a veritable fish out of water – as I attempted to stow my Higgs and Nettlefold clothing into the two storage receptacles at my disposal.

But the worst of the matter was that I knew no-one. As soon as I opened my mouth, with my rough Lancashire, northern, working-class accent, I stood out like a sore thumb. Most of my dorm mates had been at prep school since the age of eight, and were used to living together in a group. And as in most groups, as even in large families of brothers and sisters, sub-groups – cliques – had already been established previously. I, on the other hand was the odd man out; I was alone: scholarship boy who spoke differently to the members of the group of privileged young lads into which I had now been thrust. I felt completely alone.

My saviour, who was to become my best friend at Churton, was, like me, a lad who seemed not to be part of any clique, and who took pity on me that first day. His name was Hugo Alexander Fenwick (pronounced Fennick) and he and I instantly liked each other and became unwavering, best friends and, during our final two years at Churton, eventually sexually intimate.

Hugo had an elder cousin, Oscar Littleton, who was also an inmate of School House and was now in the third form. He was a mine of information: a fount of all knowledge, as to what life at Churton was all about. If Oscar had intended to frighten us by his revelations, he certainly succeeded in putting the wind up me.

From Oscar we learned, among other things, that life at Churton was ruled by what he called the three Bs: birching, beating and buggery. He elaborated in some detail on the first two, of which he had obviously experienced himself. However, he was singularly vague when it came to buggery, leaving us hanging there, none the wiser as to what the word meant, with the cryptic remark: “You will know what it is the first time you experience it.” He left me wondering whether he himself knew what buggery involved. From my school days in Bolton I knew that the word, bugger, was a forbidden swearword; but what did bugger or buggery actually mean?

According to Oscar, it was inevitable that we would both, more probably sooner rather than later, have our arses thrashed by one of the many persons who were authorised to use the cane at Churton. It was a very frightening picture of a life filled with the potential danger of having one’s bare arse shredded by the birch or the cane. I should have said the birch AND the cane, for as we learned from Oscar, the Headmaster, Sir, as he was known to everyone, masters included, frequently indulged in the aphorism: nothing succeeds like excess, as he treated the unfortunate bare-arse lad before him to a thorough birching; and then, as if that alone was not enough, followed it up with several strokes of the cane; known as the dreaded Churton Double Whammy.

As Oscar warmed to his frightening narrative, just listening to him made my blood ran cold. I learned to my horror that no matter who was wielding the cane – and lots individuals in addition to the Headmaster and the head-boy were mandated to do so – all beatings at Churton were applied to the bare bum of the unfortunate boy; in classic, public school speak; boys were beaten on the bare.

The three beatings on my bum – or arse, as I quickly learned to call it, in vulgar Churton speak – I had received from Mr. Edwards before leaving the council school in Bolton, had all been on my trouser- covered bottom. So the trousers and my underpants had provided a protective layer from the worst depredations of the cane; but, nonetheless, they had, all three, been very painful experiences. I tried to push from my mind, the nightmare scenario, almost too awful even to contemplate, of the cane biting into the bare flesh of my bum. Although, according to Oscar, as sure as egg is (sic) eggs, it would happen to me one day. Alas for me, that day was not long in coming!

And as if that was not enough, the concept of the punishment being proportionate to the offence committed had been thrown out of the window by Sir, who had decreed that no matter what the offence, the entry tariff to the well-beaten arse, that hallmark of punishment of any public school, was 12 cuts of the cane.  So even for the slightest offence the offender’s arse was corrected – a mealy-mouthed euphemism for flogged – by a minimum of 12 cuts of the cane on the bare. The concept that to be effective, beatings should be painful, as well as unstinting, was the well-entrenched, guiding principle, which as I was, many times to experience to my cost, was enthusiastically practised by everyone, who wielded the cane at Churton.

According to Oscar, danger was everywhere. Although caning was banned from the classroom, the vigorous application of the rattan cane to a boy’s bare arse was nonetheless, alive and well. On a daily basis, at 4:30 in the afternoon after classes for the day had finished, a group of justifiably nervous-looking boys, wearing only gym slips and shorts (the appropriate attire) – each clutching a punishment note issued in class by some enraged master, could be seen assembled in the corridor outside Sir’s study, waiting to be called in to have their bare arses well and truly warmed by the Headmaster’s cane or birch – or sometimes both:  the notorious , hyper-painful, Churton Double Whammy!

The system of punishments notes was contentious among the masters, none of whom was allowed to beat. They felt that they had been robbed unjustifiably by the Headmaster – which, in fact, they had been – of what, they thought of as the God-given right for any self-respecting, public schoolmaster to beat the boys he was teaching. But the system punishment notes was so entrenched at Churton that they could do little other than follow it. Frustrated and disgruntled with their lot and as they justifiably were, the consequence was that many more punishment notes were written for piffling offences committed in the classroom, than would have been the case had the master teaching the class been able to thrash, there and then, the offending lad in front of his peers for having committed an offence.

In addition to the Headmaster, the six housemasters ruled over the members of their respective houses in the same dictatorial way that Sir, the Headmaster, ruled over the School. The cane was in regular use in all six houses. By a stroke of bad luck for me, my housemaster, Mr. Fogerty, who was also Deputy Headmaster, was alone among his fellow housemasters to use the birch in addition to the cane. Believe me, when I say that he was a died in the wool believer in the well- known saying: spare the rod and spoil the boy.

But Oscar’s tale of potential danger for our arses did not stop there. One should not forget the head-boy, who almost had the status of a housemaster when it came to disciplining his fellow schoolmates. Nor should one forget that each house had three prefects, one of whom was nominated house-captain. All three of them were allowed to use the cane on their house-mates’ bare arses. With the personal sexual satisfaction that inflicting pain on one’s fellow men often brings with it,  I swear that most of the prefects mandated to use the cane enjoyed a moment of epicaricacy which all too often accompanies the act.

However, their power to beat and inflict pain on their schoolmates extended well beyond the confines of their individual houses. During the day, these 18 prefects were expected to control the boys when they were not in class. So what with the punishment notes issued by masters in the classroom, which automatically condemned the recipient to a painful visit to Sir’s study at 4:30 pm the same day and a group of 18 blood-thirsty prefects under the direction of the head-boy, as senior prefect of the whole school, permanently on the prowl, looking for any likely arse to beat, danger, according to Oscar, was everywhere. And you know what? He was right.

But worse was yet to come, as Oscar explained the system of demerits to us. At Churton, no fault or misdeed, if detected by a master or a prefect, was too small to go unrecorded as a demerit mark. Such demerit marks were recorded in a small paper-backed diary, issued for this precise purpose, which was kept in the waistcoat pocket of every boy at Churton. The principle of the demerit system was based on the botanical aphorism: mighty oaks from little acorns grow; minor misdeeds, if recorded, cumulatively gave rise to a severely painful arse.

The sting of the demerit system was both figuratively and physically in the tail. The system obliged each boy himself to keep count of the number of demerits he had accumulated. Once he had received ten demerits he was then honour bound to present himself to the head-boy at 4:30 in the afternoon of the Friday of the week in which his total demerits reached ten.  The head-boy then gave the unfortunate boy a no-questions-asked, twelve-cut-bare-arse beating.

And if for some reason, as occasionally happened with certain boys, a boy qualified for three demerit beatings in one term, then, for the third beating, the head-boy was obliged to refer the unlucky lad to Sir for correction; a fate somewhat apocryphally described as being worse than death: the infamous Churton Double Whammy, which combined both birch and cane, applied, in that order, to the offender’s bare arse. Luckily for me, in my first term at Churton, although I was beaten regularly, I never had the misfortune to qualify myself for a demerit beating from the head-boy.

There is a saying: he who hesitates is lost.  In my seven years as a pupil at Churton, no one who wielded the cane had ever the slightest hesitation in using it on the flimsiest of pretexts. And I have to admit, to my subsequent personal  shame, that when, in my final year, as head-boy myself, I became the beater rather than the beaten, I allowed myself to slip into this same, sadistic attitude; I never missed even the  slightest opportunity to give an errant boy a well beaten arse.

With considerable obvious pleasure for himself, Oscar went on and on recounting in the grimmest detail, the painful flagellative experiences that lay in store for Hugo and me. If his goal had been to scare the living daylights out of us, he certainly succeeded – at least with me. You will appreciate that this was all just talk and that neither Hugo nor I had yet had our arses assaulted with the cane by anyone.

Mr. Edwards, the Headmaster at the council school in Bolton, had introduced me to the fact that at Churton, a public school, my misdeeds would be punished by beating my arse rather than my hands as had hitherto been the case. What he had not told me – perhaps he himself did not know at the time – was that the cane would be applied to my bare bum. Frankly, even as a boy who had been caned countless times on the bare palm of my hand, the thought of the cane biting into the bare flesh of my bum left me – not to put too fine a point on it – shit scared.

But in spite of the the facts of life at Churton as luridly detailed to us by Oscar, there was nothing – absolutely nothing – we could do to avoid what Oscar predicted as the inevitable beating; and, just let me tell you that in my case it was not slow in coming.

CHAPTER 9.

It was on Monday afternoon in my second week at Churton, that I had my first bare arse beating; it was performed by Sir himself in his study. My misdeed? I had inadvertently left an exercise book in my desk in the first-form class-room and naively, going from School House to the main school building to retrieve it, I unthinkingly walked across the lawn.  Frankly, looking back, I do not remember whether I knew or not that walking on the grass was prohibited; but my decision to cross the lawn, as being the shortest way from A to B, was to have disastrously painful consequences for me.

The Headmaster, Mr. Augustus Caesar, Sir, as he was universally known to all and sundry, just happened to be looking out of his window. His study was double aspect, affording him a view of both lawns, around which the six boarding houses were symmetrically arranged. He caught me committing, what I was shortly and painfully to learn, was considered by him as a heinously sacrilegious act.

As I entered the main building, Sir was waiting for me in the entrance and marched me straight to his study on the first floor.  He settled himself behind his desk and I stood in front of him, fully dressed in my school regalia.  I could see from the angry look on his face that he was not best pleased with me.

“What is your name boy?” he asked.

In a meekly trembling voice, betraying the fear that was already coursing through my body, I told him my name: “Alan Taylor Sir.”

He continued: “Oh yes, I see; you are the scholarship boy from Bolton, assigned to School House, if my memory serves me correctly. Well, Taylor, are you aware that walking on either of the two lawns is strictly forbidden to all boys of this school, other than the head-boy and the six house-captains. Apart from these seven boys, only masters are permitted to cross the lawns in going from one building to another.”

“The simple fact of the matter is that in walking across the lawn, you, Taylor, were breaking one of the golden rules of this school. It matters not, boy, whether you were aware of this rule or not; in this school rules are made with good reason and must be obeyed by all boys, including new boys. Ignorance of a given rule is no excuse for breaking it. In the confines of Churton College, the school rules take precedence over and replace the laws of the land; and if broken by any boy whatsoever, he must face the consequences of his misdeed. I trust, boy, that I have made your present position quite clear. You, Taylor, broke a rule and must now face retribution, which, as it is intended to be, I am afraid is going to be very painful for you.”

I could see from the angry manner in which Sir was upbraiding me for my inadvertent error that there was no point in arguing with him. He had just told me that ignorance of the rules was no excuse. So I resigned myself to my fate and simply said to him: “I’m very sorry, Sir, but I was unaware that I was not allowed not to walk on the grass and I will not do the same in future, Sir.”

But I knew that the die was cast and my fate was sealed. Even as I was apologising for my mistake, Sir had risen from his seat at the desk and was opening a wall cupboard, which, to my horror, revealed a series of straight-handled canes hanging there. Before my very eyes, Sir selected a lissom-looking one, which I had no doubt, in a few brief minutes was destined to mate with my bum.

Sir said: “I have already told you Taylor, that ignorance of the rules is no excuse. You were caught, by me, walking across the lawn, which is strictly forbidden and I now intend to beat you for your imprudent act. As you are a new boy, this time I will be lenient with you and will let you off with the standard, minimum tariff, which, as I am sure you are probably aware, is twelve cuts of the rattan cane, applied in parallel stripes across your bare buttocks.”

“So, Taylor, take of your coat and waistcoat and go and stand in front of that A frame beating horse over there. Lower your trousers and underwear and present your bare bottom to me for punishment by bending across the horse. I will adjust the height of the horse for you so that you are comfortable and to see that your bottom is correctly placed to receive the painful retribution for your offence. You should grab hold of the hand-grips projecting from the other legs on the far-side of the horse and keep perfectly still, whilst I apply the cane to your richly deserving buttocks.”

I was aware of the gory details and that a twelve stroke beating with the cane was par for the course and was applied to a boy’s bare arse. In conventional public school speak, one is beaten not caned; but when it comes to birching, one is birched and not beaten. However, I subsequently learned that at Churton one was corrected not beaten for one’s sins. But whatever you call it, my blood ran cold when I thought of the pain of the cane biting into the flesh of my bare bum.

Mr. Edwards had had the foresight to prepare me for the severity of public school at Churton, by giving me three beatings on my bum before I left the council school in Bolton. But, because he was probably unaware of the facts, what he had not prepared me for, was that at Churton, the cane would be applied  to my bare bum and that the minimum tariff– a fancy expression for the minimum number of cuts for any beating – was twelve. Even though I was prepared for the onslaught that I was about to experience, I was so terrified that as I was lowering my trousers, prior to bending over the padded top of the beating horse, I almost pissed my pants.

Sir was in no hurry to get my first beating over and done with; he swished the cane down through the air several times, basically frightening the living daylights out of me, before gently laying the rod of justice across, what I judged to be, the mid-point of my bare bum.

He left the cane in position for a few seconds, before saying: “Brace yourself now, boy, this is going to hurt. You must keep perfectly still whilst I am beating you. If you  moved at all, or attempt to touch your bottom  in what, believe me, would be a futile attempt to ease the pain which you are undoubtedly about to suffer, then I shall be obliged to give you extra strokes for disobedience, over above the standard tariff of twelve strokes.” 

The next thing I heard was the cane whistling down through the air at great speed, to end with a loud crack as it mated viciously with its target: my bare bum. For a split second, following the crack, I felt nothing. But then the agonisingly excruciating pain delivered by that slender, flexible, rattan-cane, biting into the flesh across the crown of both my buttocks manifested itself; and how! It was easily the most painful thing I had ever felt in my life, and I had been caned in Bolton by Mr. Edwards many times before. But even the pain of the three beatings across my trouser clothed buttocks, given to me by Mr. Edwards faded into insignificance compared to the pain of Sir’s delivery. It quickly became obvious to me that Sir was a consummate expert with the cane, as one unhurried stroke followed the other.

Sir paused for about ten seconds between each stroke; an age for the recipient of his labours: me, who fervently wanted the whole thing to be over and done with as quickly as possible. But I soon saw that there was a method to Sir’s madness. Pausing as he did, allowed me, his current victim, to appreciate the pain of each stroke, which was akin to having one’s bum cut in two by a red-hot knife. As the acute immediate pain of one stroke diminished, giving me a moment’s relief, so the next stroke renewed the agony.

After that first stroke landed on the crown of my bum, introducing me, in one fell swoop, to the exquisite agony of a bare-arse beating. Sir, then placed his next five strokes upwards towards the bottom of my back, before concentrating his six, final, parallel strokes on, what I was later to learn, was the hypersensitive area towards the top of my legs, aptly known as the sit-spot. Not for nothing were six strokes directed by Sir towards this area, for it ensured that I would be aware that I was the unfortunate  possessor of a well-beaten arse every time I sat down over the next few days. Sir certainly knew his stuff when it came to handling the cane, as he left me with a bum so painful that I thought I would never be able to touch it again.

Do not believe anyone who tells you, braggadocio-like, that a bare-arse beating is akin to a flea-bite; he is undoubtedly lying to bolster his own macho image among his peer group. A caning on the bare arse is a very painful business as I had just found out first hand – or rather first arse – for myself. If a twelve-stroke, parallel beating was what Sir considered lenient, what the hell, I asked myself, constituted a severe beating?

I was to only find out a few years later when Mr. Fogerty our housemaster subjected both Hugo and me to the ultimate punishment; the famous Churton Double Whammy: twelve strokes of the birch, followed by six cuts – and I do mean cuts – of the senior cane across our bare arses.

Quite honestly, as I heaved myself stiffly up from the beating horse, I felt that my bum would never recover from the ordeal to which it had just been subjected. But I was quite wrong, as the passage of time proved.  My bum recovered fully and lived to see another day, as had countless other bums before me and as would doubtless do numerous other bums coming after me. My bum, thus initiated by Sir into the maelstrom of beatings and birchings, which were an integral part of daily life at Churton, would find itself beaten regularly until in my final year when I became head-boy myself and was able to dispense to others the medicine which I had hitherto been forced regularly to swallow myself.

A boy’s buttocks have a remarkable power of recuperation and are the ideal spot on which to inflict the traditional public school beating. That day, I left Sir’s study feeling very sorry for myself; but I still went to my form room to recover the exercise book from my desk. My most burning desire at that moment was to get back to School House, shut myself in a lavatory cubicle and attempt to sooth the pain still raging in my bum with cold water.

However, in leaving Sir’s study in haste, I  had neglected to dress myself properly again and arrived back at School House carrying my exercise book in my hand and my waistcoat, which I had needlessly not put back on after my beating, over my arm: a fatal error, as I was shortly to find out. My bow tie had also, by this time, become undone. So it is safe to say that I hardly looked like the smartly turned out pupil of Churton College.

Of course, whom did I have the bad luck meet in the entrance hall of School House, but eighteen year-old Anthony Hawtry, my house-captain? He looked at me with disgust; disapproval at my appearance was written all over his face he said: “I see, boy, that you are a new first former here. What is your name, new boy; and kindly explain to me why you are prancing around in public in the afternoon improperly dressed?”

I gave him my name, with which he was evidently familiar, as once he learned that I was Alan Taylor, the working-class scholarship boy, from Bolton, his nose, figuratively, turned upwards. I tried to explain my present situation to him, but he was not interested. I was, in his eyes, an upstart member of the hoi-polloi, who understood nothing of the manners required of a Churtonian and would be treated as such.

Hawtry talked down to me, in that lofty authoritarian tone of voice, with which the upper and middle classes then – 1911 – addressed their servants: “Taylor, with your background, you clearly have a lot to learn about how to behave in a place like Churton.  It is my duty as house-captain to help you adjust to what must be a very different way of life to that which you have led hitherto. Given your background, suspect I shall have a lot to do. However, for the moment, let us concentrate on your lack of attention to your appearance.”

“I take it that you are aware, Taylor, that boys at Churton must, at all times, behave and dress in public like the young gentlemen they are; or, in your case, Taylor, as you come from the lower classes, perhaps I should have said, the young gentleman, you aspire to become. I trust that I am not wrong in assuming, Taylor, that you do aspire to become a young gentleman; however,  given your evident disregard for the proprieties of dress you are displaying at the moment, I may be wrong in that assumption.”

“That you have just been beaten by the Headmaster for a flagrant breeching one of the most sacred rules of this establishment is no excuse for the quite disgraceful state of your present dress. The offence you committed richly justified the beating that the Headmaster has just given you. If I, as head of School House, your house, Taylor, or the head-boy or any of the prefects from any of the school’s six houses had caught you walking on either of the two magnificent lawns, believe me, Taylor, our reaction would have been the same as the Headmaster’s and you would have suffered a prefects’ beating.”

“It is clear that you had to remove your coat, waistcoat and trousers to allow the Headmaster access to your bare arse with his cane. You are, I take it, aware that all beatings at Churton are administered to the offender’s bare arse, including those given by the prefects. However, on leaving the Headmaster’s study after your beating, you showed no regard for the proprieties of dress, by not adjusting your appearance to be that mandated as standard,”

“I would be failing in my duty as Head of this house if I did not draw your attention to the fact, Taylor, that in walking around the school precincts in your present state of undress, looking like a scarecrow, you are flagrantly breaking the Churton dress code, which, as you are aware, or should be aware, is that all boys wear the full school attire on every occasion. In ignoring the dress code, as you are doing at present, you are not only committing an offence, but also letting down the prestige of the school and the prestige of this house – your house – and disregarding what should be pride in your own appearance, as a pupil of Churton College. Just because you were feeling sorry for yourself after receiving a totally justifiable beating from the Headmaster, is no excuse for neglecting the school’s dress code.”

Let me explain to you what is expected of any boy who has the misfortune to see the Headmaster for a beating. Usually such visits are at 4:30 each afternoon, when the Headmaster corrects with the cane boys, who have received a punishment note from a master in class that day. Boys from any house are required to change into their PE shorts and gym vests, which they bring with them from their dormitories, in a room located next door to the Headmaster’s study which serves as a changing room for that express purpose. The shorts and gym slip are referred to at Churton as the appropriate attire, which is de rigueur for all visits to the Headmaster or the head-boy for a beating.

“So, I am afraid, Taylor, to have to tell you that you and I will meet again this evening in the prefects common room of School House, immediately after you have taken your obligatory evening shower before going to bed, when I will endeavour to instil into you the importance of being appropriately attired for every occasion. As you obviously have some difficulty in terms of what to wear on what occasion. I would draw your to the appropriate attire for you to wear for our meeting this evening, consists of your pyjamas, your dressing gown, and your bedroom slippers. So, Taylor, I look forward with pleasure to our meeting this evening, when I will endeavour to inculcate into you the importance of wearing the correct form of dress for any occasion.”

After listening in complete silence to this longwinded, pompous, indigestible lecture from Hawtry, who was obviously too fond of his own voice, I thought to myself: “The pleasure will be all yours Hawtry.” I was, however, wise enough to hold my tongue and not give verbal expression to my thoughts. Hawtry had seized on the fact that I was looking somewhat dishevelled after my beating from the Headmaster and was now making a mountain out of a molehill that I had not put back on my waist coat, on leaving the Headmaster’s study after I had been beaten by him.

Although Hawtry had not indicated precisely the form that his teaching on dress-code would take, the fact that he wanted to see me in my pyjamas, the bottom half of which was easily removable, boded ill for my still painful arse.  Incidentally, I had learned by now to stop even thinking of my bottom as my bum and was attempting to think of it, in Churton speak, as my arse.

Given the evident importance of the cane in the daily life at Churton and knowing my own propensity for mischief, which I found difficult to control, I already foresaw that my bare arse would probably be frequently on the line, in exactly the same way as the palms of both my hands had been regularly caned by Mr. Edwards, back at school in Bolton. I did not relish having a sore arse regularly; but, knowing my knack for getting myself into trouble, I had already resigned myself to the fact that it was something I would have to live with at Churton.

That having been said, I can tell you that I was not at all looking forward to my meeting with Hawtry that evening. The fact of the matter was that I was dreading what he might do to my already sore arse; but I knew that there was nothing I could do about it, other than grin and bear it.

Of course, once I had composed myself in the lavatory, in an attempt to calm the pain raging in my arse with cold water, which I soon saw was not very effective, I sought out Hugo, my only friend at the moment and unburdened my misery on him. He immediately wanted to see the damage that Sir had wreaked on my arse; I admit, I was more than a little shocked at his request, as I had never allowed anyone to examine my nether anatomy naked before, let alone cane it bare!

I suppose that I should not have been shocked after a week in the dorm and showering twice a day with my companions, none of whom had any embarrassment about flaunting their nakedness in front of their dorm mates; but somehow, allowing even my closest friend to examine such a private part of my anatomy, seemed wrong to me. However, when older, my sexuality asserted itself, I would later come to enjoy being naked in front of Hugo.

But Hugo’s request was then motivated by curiosity, in which sexual motivation played no role. Hugo told me that it was not only normal, but de rigueur to show off my stripes in the dorm and I had better realise that once my dorm mates learned that I had been caned on the first day of my second week at Churton, and not only caned, but caned by Sir himself, there was no way that I was going to escape a general dormitory viewing of my wounded arse.

So back we both went to the lavatory, where in a locked cubicle, I lowered my trousers and allowed my arse to be inspected, for the first time ever. Hugo sympathised profusely with me at my bad luck, pronouncing my arse to have been well and truly beaten, which was little consolation to me. I have to say that I would have preferred to be viewing someone else’s stripes rather than showing him mine.

He asked me if he could touch my stripes, which he duly did, running his finger across the twelve parallel stripes, each furrow which had developed two well-defined raised edges, where sir’s cane had really bitten into my bare flesh.  Hugo told me, running his finger across my stripes, that my arse felt like a piece of corrugated paper, so deep were the indentations. The only positive news was when Hugo told me that he had seen worse at prep school, as Sir had not broken my skin and I was not bleeding.

However, Hugo was astounded when I told him how I had been seen carrying my waistcoat by Hawtry, the house-captain, and that I was scheduled to meet him in the prefects’ common room of School House after the evening showers, wearing only my pyjamas.  Hugo commiserated with be at my double bad luck at having been caught again for such a piffling offence.

In spite of his sincere sympathy, Hugo went on to play Job’s comforter to me, as he confirmed my fear that although my arse was already in a tender state, I was likely to get a second beating before I went to bed that evening. Hugo’s opinion, was that Hawtry, already considered by everyone in the house as sadistic, self-serving, sod by his previous, bullying actions, would now use my arse to establish a reign of terror as the worst ever house-captain; a distinction, on which I would, frankly, have preferred to pass.

With Hugo’s words still haunting my ears, that evening, after showers, wearing only my pyjamas and dressing gown, as I had been so instructed by Hawtry, with my heart pounding in my chest, I presented myself at the prefects’ common room in School House. I was surprised to find that all three prefects were present: house-captain, Hawtry and is two sidekicks: Bromley and the very aristocratic Hamilton-Smythe. My worst fears were confirmed, as I saw that an old armchair, over the back of which I was evidently, in Churton speak, shortly to be invited  to sport my bare arse for the second time that day, had already been pulled into the middle of the room. A long, slender rattan cane, which would bring its venomous kiss to my arse, was lying across its arms.

As ever, the proceedings were drawn out to the maximum by Hawtry’s sermonising. I was fast coming to the conclusion that the present house-captain was excessively fond of the listening to the sound of his own voice. This time he preached a sermon, which could have been entitled:  Helpful hints for boys about to be beaten.

He began: “I thought, it might help you, Taylor, if I ran through the dress code which you must adopt if you wish to avoid a second beating, on the same day as the first, which is what you are now about to receive. As you should probably be aware by now, here at Churton the cane – and to a lesser extent, the birch – both play an important role, in maintaining order. For misbehaviour in the classroom, the master in question issues the offender with a punishment note which he takes to to Sir’s study at 4:30 pm the same day. There is no waiting about for days in nail biting anguish at Churton; any boy is corrected for his offence the same day as he receives the punishment note, He is beaten the same day by Sir in his study. Thus justice and punishment are immediate.”

“The standard punishment, consisting of twelve strokes of the cane, is applied by Sir, directly to the bare arse of the offender, as you have today experienced. The junior cane is used on boys in the first and second forms and the senior cane for all older boys; boys of any age are regularly caned by Sir at Churton.  No boy, prefects and head-boy included, even in his final year at Churton in the advanced sixth, is considered too old to be caned by Sir. We are all required to obey the school rules or bear the painful consequences for our actions.”

“Make no mistake, Taylor, any boy receiving a punishment note must present himself to Sir at 4:30 in the afternoon of the same day, wearing only what is known as the appropriate attire, which consists of his gym shorts and singlet and strictly nothing else. However, to preserve the dignity of this school, boys who are about to be beaten must change into the appropriate attire in the changing room adjacent to Sir’s study. Once a boy has been beaten, he then goes back to the changing room and puts back on his complete school uniform to maintain the dress decorum, as no boy is allowed in any of the school buildings, other than wearing his full school uniform.”

“I regret to tell you, Taylor, that in leaving Sir’s study, without adjusting your dress, you broke the inviolable Churton dress code laid down by Sir himself. You should have ensured that when you left Sir’s presence that you were correctly attired. That is why, young man, you are here before us, as prefects of your house, sworn to enforce the school rules, one of which you have flagrantly broken and for which you must now face the painful consequences. It is no good pleading that you were unaware of the strict dress code; here at Churton, ignorance of the school rules, like ignorance of the law of the land in a court of law, is no defence.”

“And finally, we come to the demerit beatings, which are performed uniquely by the head-boy each Friday afternoon at 4:30. The presentation of oneself appropriately attired voluntarily for punishment by the head-boy, at the appointed hour, is a question of honour.”

“If such an occasion arises with you, as I suspect it may well do, given the very different working-class background, from which you come, the appropriate attire is, of course, mandatory. Before you present yourself to the head-boy, to be beaten for your accumulated demerits, you must go first to the changing room and don your PE shorts and singlet before presenting yourself the head-boy.”

“And, before I forget, I must tell you, Taylor, that if any prefect or the head-boy summons you during the day in the main school building to see him for punishment, then you must use the changing room to don your PE shorts before presenting yourself for beating to the prefect in question. After your beating you must then return to the changing room and don your normal clothes again.”

After your beating by Sir, earlier today, you should have used the changing room to assure yourself that you were correctly dressed before returning to your house, rather than in the lamentable state in which I found you, which is why you are now in front of us to be beaten again for your  disregard of the Churton  dress code, 

Hawtry could not stop himself making the remark about my working- class origins, which really cut me to the quick. It was, in its way, as mentally painful as Sir’s beating and the beating I was just about to receive from Hawtry, my house captain, whom I already heartily hated; not because he was doing his job and beating me, which is what he was supposed to do, enforcing the school rules as a prefect; but because of the superior attitude he adopted when addressing me.

He finally said, disdainfully: “Well, scholarship boy, unless you have any questions, I think the moment has come to get down to the business to hand, which, in case you forgotten, is for me to beat your bare arse. Let me just remind you, Taylor, why you are being corrected with the cane for second time today.  You disregarded one of the school’s golden rules, which obliges all boys to be properly dressed in the full school uniform at all times.”

“Take off your dressing gown, step out of your pyjama bottoms and sport you bare arse for punishment by adopting the position over the armchair, placing your hands o its arms.”

As if to emphasise his order, he went over to the chair, picked up the cane lying across its arms, pointed it at me and motioned me towards the chair for me to bend over and present my arse for its second onslaught of the day, which I can tell you I did with extreme trepidation at what was about to happen to me.

Hawtry had called in his two co-prefects, Hamilton-Smythe and Jagger, to examine the results of Sir’s parallel, cane handiwork on my bare arse and they each pronounced it well and truly beaten. Hawtry then informed me, that he and his two cohorts had decided during their final year as prefects and as principal flagellators in School House; they would each take part in every house prefect’s beating.

“So, Taylor, you will have the unique pleasure of being the first member of School House to be able to compare and contrast three different styles of beating; In view of the fact that Sir has applied twelve strokes strictly parallel, we shall each give you four strokes diagonal: a total of twelve strokes in all, of which six in one direction and six in the other, thereby completing, a magnificent, twenty-four-stripe grid across your arse.”

I closed my eyes and gritted my teeth and waited for the first of the additional twelve cuts to land across, my already painful arse. I tried, unsuccessfully, I admit, not to allow myself to be reduced to tears by the tripartite flogging, which was worse than I had ever imagined a caning could be. When I finally was allowed to get up and put my pyjamas back on, and I was in utter agony; my arse felt like it was on fire and tears were streaming down my cheeks.

 I can tell you that it was just the worst moment of my life to date. I had truly been given a baptism of fire in my introduction to the strict and severely painful discipline, which was to characterise not only my life, but the life of every boy at Churton.   However, before allowing me to leave and go back to my dorm, Hawtry again waxed lyrical about the visual beauty of a well-beaten arse, which, in his view, any boy should apparently be proud to own.

“Taylor,” he pompously said, “You should feel privileged that your precipitate actions today, have given me and my two co-prefects, as principal guardians of School-House propriety, occasion to embellish the superbly well-beaten arse, with which Sir had already endowed you and thereby raising its raw, striped glory, to the level of great flagellative art. By any standards, Taylor, thanks to a combination of Sir’s peerless groundwork, combined with our joint, supplementary effort, your arse is, at present, a visual artistic masterpiece, alas only transitory; for, in a few days, it will have disappeared completely.”

“It is, nevertheless, something, of which, we as creators and you as temporary owner, can quite justifiably be proud. It should be viewed for what it is: a visual masterpiece of the flogger’s art. Your dorm-mates will clamour to view it, in the customary, post- beating viewing of a boy’s freshly beaten arse. I suspect, Taylor, if I know my onions, which I usually do, that you will be the hero of the dorm this evening.”

The way Hawtry was talking, he made my richly striped, doubtless-by-now, blood-flecked, arse sound like an asset, when, in fact, it was a source of excruciating pain to me, which I would have dumped immediately had that been humanly possible. As far as the viewing of my arse by my dormitory peer group was concerned, Hawtry made it sound like a visit to the Tower of London to view the Crown Jewels.

Although I did not then know the word fuck, which was not at the time in such meaningless, common use as it is today, I guess that had I known the word, I could not have given a fuck for the artistic qualities of my arse, nor for the very dubious pleasure of proudly showing off in the dormitory, what Hawtry obviously thought of as a transitory pictorial masterpiece, before it faded. At that moment, all I wanted was to bathe my bare bum in cold water, in a futile attempt to try to sooth away the raging pain of the cane, which was still very real.

However, that having been said,  I did, nonetheless, get some pleasure in being greeted as a hero by my hitherto standoffish dorm-mates, all of whom admired me for having survived my double onslaught with the cane. I suddenly knew that I was well on the way to being accepted as one of them; So perhaps two beatings one day had been worth it after all as I so wished to be accepted as one of them.

CHAPTER 10.

The relationship, which I initially enjoyed with Hugo Fenwick, was that of two young lads, who just liked each other’s company and had become inseparable friends. It was eventually to turn into something more physical as the male hormones began coursing through our systems. As we began changing from boys into young men, we realised that we were both attracted to the male sex rather than the female and, at the age of sixteen, we became lovers. I say lovers, as we started having penetrative sex with each other on a regular basis.

We never fell deeply in love with each other, in the way both of us would at university, after the First World War, where, I am happy to say that we each found our life’s partner. Even so, at Churton, exercising our libidos on each other got us both, then aged 16, our first and, thank  God, only double-whammy beating from our  housemaster, Mr. Fogerty whom, for obvious reasons we called The Flogger.

Reminiscing, more than sixty years later, as I now am, over my school days at Churton,  it is perhaps difficult for the reader to grasp how sexually innocent was the friendship between Hugo and me. So before sex arrived on the scene, as it one day inevitably did, I am happy to be able to say that in spite of the perpetual threat of the Sword of Damocles, in the form of the rattan cane and the birch, hanging perpetually over our heads, we enjoyed our time at Churton.

Hugo’s cousin Oscar, was an unending source of stories about the dangers facing all boys at Churton, and from my personal experience over my years at Churton, I regret to say, he was usually right. The Headmaster, the six housemasters, the head-boy and the numerous prefects, all enforced the strict disciplinary code which was dictated by the Headmaster himself. The worst – or possibly, from their point of view, the best – enforcers of discipline, were the 18 prefects, of whom there were three to each house, who were the main police force, ensuring  good behaviour of their co-pupils out of class.

The Headmaster, Augustus Caesar – Sir to all and sundry – relied on his teaching colleagues to provide him with a regular flow of boys to beat, via the punishment-note system in place at Churton.  In term time, Mondays to Fridays at 4:30 in the afternoon, usually saw a gaggle of boys of all ages, all wearing what was known as the appropriate attire – shorts and gym vest only – assembled nervously in the corridor outside of Sir’s study, waiting to be called in, one by one, to face the percussive music of the cane delivering its venomous message, with a sharp crack, twelve, successive times to their bare buttocks. I think that Sir was hooked on beating naked arses, in the same way that a drug addict becomes dependent on his next fix.

We boys – including for time to time Hugo and me, for we were neither of us well-behaved angels in class and each received our share of punishment notes . As we were waiting, in the corridor to be called in, we were akin to flies, stuck in a spider’s web, from which there was no escape from. what was considered by many lads as. a fate worse than death: a beating delivered by Sir. No boy ever emerged from Sir’s study with less than a well-beaten-arse, for Sir was ferociously efficient when it came to administering the cane. But in my, view, the yearly complement of 18 prefects, plus the head-boy, regularly ran Sir a close second.  In fact, in my time at Churton, I would have said several head-boys, who exercised their magic with the cane on my bare arse, by far surpassed Sir, in the ferocity of their delivery.

What explanation is there for the fact that each year’s group of prefects seemed to be cast in the same, vindictive mould, in their disciplinary attitude towards their schoolmates? At Churton, with Sir’s approval and encouragement, all prefects, to a man, used the cane with gay abandon. But, let’s face, it Churton was a school, where, under the 38 year tenure of Augustus Caesar – oh, yes, incredibly, he was Headmaster for the best of 40  years in all– the culture of the cane, as a unique medicine to cure all ills, reigned supreme.

I think that one explanation is that most, but not all, of each year’s group of prefects saw the mandate to beat their school-fellows as pay-back-time: manna-from-heaven, so to speak, for what they had themselves had undergone in their earlier years . At Churton they were not only allowed, but also encourage by Sir, to make others suffer the bite of the cane, much as they themselves had suffered under the system.

Let’s face it; in the long reign of Augustus Caesar as Headmaster, Churton was a school where the cane became an ingrained part of the daily culture and reigned supreme. As such, to avoid it, involved assiduous attention to one’s behaviour: attention, which most boys did not have; Hugo and I certainly did not; so for us, pain was, all too often, the name of the game. And so, most boys at Churton sported their bare arses to the bite of the cane at least once, in their school career. To escape from Churton, without having the cane mate with one’s arse, was well nigh impossible

As as I said earlier, when I was unexpectedly catapulted into the position of  head-boy, I am ashamed to say that my attitude towards my fellow schoolmates hardened instantly; in the best tradition of head-boys at Churton, I quickly became known as an utter bastard, by the harsh unyielding  way I treated my schoolmates and erstwhile friends alike. I regret now that I used the flimsiest of excuses to beat boys’ arses black and blue.

Looking back now, writing this over half a century later, I am ashamed at my behaviour towards my fellow Churtonians. I left Churton with the double distinction of praise from Sir, for doing what he described in glowing terms, in my final interview with him, before I left for university, as having done a sterling job with the cane: exactly the opposite of the view held by my fellow Churtonians, that I was the worst head-boy in living memory.

CHAPTER 11.

Oscar, that prophet of doom, as I soon came to think of him, did not, however, inform Hugo and me, of the progressively cumulative nature of punishments at Churton, of which I was to learn and experience very soon in my school career.

It was on Friday morning of my third week at Churton that I received my first punishment note for being rude in class – or so he claimed – from the irascible Mr. Thompson, who taught introductory mathematics to first and second formers. I had the distinction – if one could call it that – of being the first of the ten boys of the first-form dorm of School House, to receive a punishment note.

Oscar had apprised Hugo and me of the obligation to present oneself for punishment to Sir, at 4:30 in the afternoon, wearing only the appropriate attire for the mandatory twelve-stroke beating that was inevitably the unavoidable consequence of being issued with a punishment note. And so, with of Hugo’s utterly useless, best-of-luck wishes ringing in my ears, with a sinking heart, I went to the changing room, donned my PE shorts and gym vest, the so-called appropriate attire, ,for a Headmaster’s beating. I then joined a group of some seven school-fellows, none of whom I knew by name, in the corridor outside of Sir’s study.

We all waited around, with a sort of nervous bonhomie, in the corridor, to be called in, one-by-one, to meet our painful fate. A duty prefect was on hand, to see that we were lined up in ascending order of age; I learned that Sir’s custom was always to beat the younger boys first. I was the second boy to be called in to see Sir, as there was a first former from another house, whom I did not know, but who was evidently younger than me. With his tears rolling down his cheeks, he emerged a few minutes later from his ordeal with Sir, rubbing his arse to ease the pain he was obviously feeling.  Sir was obviously on form!

I shuddered inwardly, with fear, as the prefect said, quite callously, to me: “Come on, Taylor, you’re next; jump to it; get a move on; shift your arse boy; get in there immediately if you know what’s good for you, as Sir does not like to be kept waiting.”

If I had been expecting a more sympathetic tone of voice from the prefect, I certainly did not get it. I can tell you that there was comfort in numbers, waiting in the corridor among boys like me, all of whom had no illusions of why they were there. Like me, they were all holding punishment notes and were about to have their bare arses, mercilessly,  well and truly whacked by Sir, before any of us was very much older. But I can also tell you that I now felt frighteningly alone, as I entered the Headmaster’s study to face Sir. I handed him the punishment note which he read before fixing his disapproving look directly at me.

“I see, Taylor, from your personal file, which I have in front of me that this will be your third beating this term, which only began three weeks ago. I recollect that I had occasion to beat you on Monday afternoon in only your second week with us, as I had caught you walking across one of the two lawns, which are a striking feature of the school grounds. I then see that your house-captain, Hawtry, beat you again the self same day, for being incorrectly dressed. I thoroughly approve of Hawtry’s action, which confirms that the stringent, school dress-code is being strictly enforced, as it should be by all prefects.”

“Now, here you are again in front of me, Taylor, this time for being rude to one of your teachers in class. No, no, no, Taylor; this is not acceptable! To allow you to continue like this, breaking one rule after another, simply will not do.  As your Headmaster, it is my duty to rescue you, a boy at the beginning of his school career at Churton, from the downward spiral of misbehaviour, into which, on present evidence, he appears to be slipping, before it becomes endemic.  Therefore, boy, in view of our previous record, I propose to give you 18 strokes of the junior cane across your bare buttocks, to impress on you the importance of mending your ways immediately. Ignore this painful warning at your peril, boy, otherwise you will find yourself never able to sit down comfortably again during term-time at Churton.”

“Now, Taylor, unless you have any comments to make concerning your behaviour to date, step out of your shorts and adopt the position across the beating-horse with which you are already familiar. I think that the horse will prove to be at the right height for you, as it has just served for the beating of a fellow first-former.”

Although I was almost pissing myself the thought of an 18 stroke beating, I had already decided that, as there was nothing I could do which would deter Sir from shredding my bare arse, it would be best to remain silent. I thought that to argue with Sir, might make matters even worse; and let’s face it, what Sir was proposing to do to me was already pretty dire; in fact, much worse than I had expected. From my brief encounters with Sir, I had already seen that he was not the sort of man, over whom a mere boy could ever win an argument. So I obediently shed my shorts, bent across the horse, thereby presenting my naked arse to the excessive depredations of Sir’s cane.

I know it might sound silly, but for some reason, grasping the handles protruding from the legs on the far side of the horse, in addition to stabilising me for the coming blows, gave me a feeling of confidence in myself  that I could withstand anything, including what, by any standards, was to be a completely over-the-top flogging. Flogging was a not a word in use at Churton; but being from the blunt north, I say it as I see it: 18 cuts of a rattan-cane across the bare-arse of an eleven- year-old boy is a flogging in my book. And my God, did Sir lay it on that day? I thought I would die from the pain. Sir gave me twelve cuts parallel and the additional six, excruciatingly painful cuts, three each way diagonally.

I gave Hugo and his seemingly ever present cousin, Oscar, a private viewing of my arse in the lavatories, after Sir had allowed me to escape from my ordeal; and believe me, it had been an ordeal; one the like of which, I hoped I would never experience again. My hopes were, of course, in vain, as I remained as irrepressibly mischievous at Churton, as I had been all my life. Thus the cane and my arse were to become intimate companions until my last year at Churton, when I became head-boy and, as the saying goes: the boot was on the other foot.

Both Hugo and Oscar expressed their heartfelt sympathy for me. In Hugo’s case, I thought it was genuine. However, in Oscar, I detected and element of epicaricacy, the one word, in English, which so neatly encapsulates the feeling of pleasure, enjoyment and sexual arousal, gained by the perpetrator in seeing the suffering of others. My suspicions of Oscar’s sincerity were confirmed as he went on, in what I discerned was a gleeful tone of voice, to inform us that the housemaster of School House, Mr. Fogerty, known to the boy of his house, with some justification as Flogger-Fogerty – FF for short – was alone, among the six housemasters at Churton, to use both cane and birch on the boys in his care.

According to Oscar, FF was an ardent disciple of the Headmaster, whom Sir had recruited straight from Oxford University and had moulded into his own image. According to Oscar, FF more or less worshipped the very ground, on which Sir walked; in his eyes, Sir could do no wrong. Like the page in the English Christmas song, Good King Wenceslas, in his Master’s steps he trod, FF followed exactly wherever Sir led. How Oscar knew all this, I have no idea; but coming from the voice of experience, whether fact or fiction, it frightened both Hugo, and me; which was perhaps Oscar’s intention all along.

Sometimes, but not every time, as Oscar was at pains to point out to us, FF would award boys who had been beaten three times already that term, with a supplementary beating himself.  The way Oscar framed it, such gratuitously unwarranted beatings should be viewed by the recipient as a mark of distinction: as an honour, which should be viewed with pride, rather than as a totally indefensible, supplementary punishment for previous misbehaviour, which, in fact, they were.

The uncertainty of this progressively cumulative aspect, by which three beatings could, but not necessarily always did, give rise to an unprovoked fourth beating, was unique to Churton. It engendered uncertainty and great anxiety in potential recipients of the so-called honour, me included. However, having done his successful best to instil the fear of God into us, Oscar back-pedalled somewhat and was as at pains to point out that it might never happen. Of course, in my case, sod’s law intervened and it did!

I had been shit scared by what Oscar had told us was possible, But as time passed, I became less paranoid about the idea that I might be in for a supplementary beating. It was two weeks after my third beating: one from house-captain, Hawtry and two from Sir himself, that Hawtry himself said to me, in front of all the members of the first-form dorm, whom he was supervising as we were trooping to the showers that evening: “Oh Taylor, before I forget, Mr Fogerty, our esteemed housemaster, asked me to tell you that he wants to see you in his study, immediately after showers this evening, wearing only your dressing gown and pyjamas.”

I can tell you that my heart missed a beat at this news, which was the School House equivalent of a death sentence. To be summoned to see my housemaster, before going to bed, wearing only my dressing gown and pyjamas meant only one thing: I was to be beaten. I broke out in a cold sweat, as I envisaged what my high and mighty housemaster, with a formidable reputation for thrashing the arse of any, even vaguely delinquent member of his house, was about to do to me. Everyone in the dorm, thanks to Hawtry, now knew that one of their members, namely me, was to be thrashed that very evening, by our housemaster.

I duly went and knocked on the door of the housemaster’s study. FF was one of three housemasters who were bachelors and, as such, he lived in School House himself. Across his closed study door, I heard him bellow one single word: Come. I nervously entered the room and ventured: “Hawtry told me that you wanted to see me, Sir.”

“Indeed I do, Taylor, indeed I do!  Come in, boy, and close the door.”

It was the first time I had ever been in his study or spoken to my housemaster personally, although I saw him every day, as he presided over the house assembly each morning, where, following the British tradition, we sang a hymn and then listened to the text-for-the-day read-out from the Bible by one of the sixth-formers. FF then made the announcements for the day, before we dispersed to our form-rooms to begin the day’s lessons. At Churton, the whole school assembled only once a week in the chapel, when the service was led by Sir, the Headmaster: Mr. Augustus Caesar. I will expand on the unfortunate ramifications of this Sunday morning assembly later.

I found FF, sitting behind his desk, intimidating and unfriendly. He motioned to me to stand in front of him. We got off to a bad start, as evidently, he did not like my posture, for the first thing he said to me, quite sharply, was: “Stand up straight, Taylor, when you are in front of me; I do not appreciate and will not tolerate boys lounging around sloppily in my presence; so smarten yourself up, boy, and stand to attention now that you are in front of me. Now, Taylor, I think you know full-well why I wish to see you this evening.”

I feigned ignorance as to the purpose of our meeting and remained silent.

He continued: “Taylor, you had been with us only one week, when I see that the Headmaster quite rightly, had occasion to beat you for breaking one of the most important rules of this school: walking on one of the lawns. I have to tell you, Taylor, that had I caught you myself walking on a lawn, I too would have thrashed you, for daring to commit such a wantonly egregious act. (I had then no idea, what the word, egregious meant.)  But then, if my information is correct, which I believe it to be, the very same day, my house-captain, Hawtry, had occasion to beat you again, this time for ignoring the school’s dress code.”

“But your unfortunate story does not end there, does it, Taylor? Just over two weeks ago now, on Friday morning of only your third week at Churton, you were cheeky in class to Mr. Thompson, your maths teacher, as a result of which he issued you with a punishment note. Again in his position, I would have done the same myself. That led to your third beating, this time of 18 strokes, given to you, that same afternoon again by the Headmaster himself.  Not a pretty picture of your first three weeks at Churton, Taylor; not a pretty picture at all, is it, boy?  I think, boy, that even you must agree, three beatings in your first three weeks at Churton is something of a record”

I had not said a single word, since I entered the housemaster’s study. But I now deemed it necessary to agree with him as he had posed a question to which there could be only one answer.  So I very meekly said: “Yes sir, I suppose it is.”

“You only suppose it is,” he bellowed at me. “Let me tell you, boy, that I have never seen the like, in all my years as a teacher at Churton.  Your record, boy, really does take the biscuit. Taylor, I hope you understand that in indulging your penchant for ingoring the school rules and bad behaviour, you have let down both yourself and School House, which you should consider as your home from home. As it is now two weeks since your last beating, administered  by the Headmaster himself, you  may be asking yourself why it has taken me so long to react to your, what by any standards, is your unacceptable conduct. Well I can tell you now that it was because I wanted to be sure that the supplementary punishment, which I now intend to inflict on you, by way of added retribution for your past offences, was justified.”

So there I had it, straight from the horse’s mouth, as the saying goes; Oscar had been right; I was to be one of the unlucky ones, who was to have his backside roasted yet again in a supplementary beating, to reinforce the disapproval engendered in my housemaster by the three beatings I had already received. I desperately wished he would get on and stop pontificating and appease his obvious ire to beat my arse and get the whole business over and done with. But it was not to be: first I had to listen to him, whilst he lectured me on the error of my ways.

“You may or may not know, Taylor, that here at Churton, three beatings a term are considered excessively disobedient; so much so that they are enough to qualify a boy for a supplementary beating at the discretion of his housemaster. You, Taylor, as a new-boy and our first scholarship boy ever, have, however, broken all records, in that you managed to accumulate three beatings in your first week at Churton, let alone in your first term.”

“However, before I definitely decided, as I now have, to give you a supplementary punishment, which both the Headmaster, with whom I have discussed your case, and I think you thoroughly deserve, I wished to assure myself that it was justified: that I was not punishing you again, simply because I had the power to do so; but that in so doing, you would derive some benefit from being subjected to additional pain for sins, for which you had already been punished.”  

“Accordingly, two weeks ago, I wrote to Mr. Edwards, your old Headmaster at the council school you attended in Bolton. I hold his reply to my query, here in my hand right now. He confirms my worst suspicions that you, Taylor, are serial offender and blatant ignorer of rules: a boy, who is, as he picturesquely puts it, a permanent combination of disobedience, rudeness and mischief, looking for somewhere to take place. On the positive side, he has added that you are also academically outstandingly brilliant, coming first in all subjects, with little or no effort. He also confirmed that you were regularly caned by him personally, on the palms of both hands, which, he claims, had little discernible effect on your errant behaviour.”

“I think you should understand, Taylor, that here at Churton, academic brilliance does not exempt you from behaving properly and obeying the rules. We are aiming to turn out, not only well-educated young men who can pay a leading part in British society, but who are, at the same time, young gentlemen with impeccably good manners, who know how to behave properly on each and every occasion.”

“I regret to have to tell you, young man, that Mr, Edwards confirms what I had suspected; that you are a boy who gives not one jot of thought to others or what they think; a boy, who is disposed to believe that the school rules are made for others to obey and do not apply to him. Let me tell you, here and now, Taylor, that as pupil at Churton and in my care, in loco parentis,  as your housemaster it is my duty, to ensure that you obtain the best education which this school offers and also that you behave in a manner which befits this distinguished establishment,”

“As a working-class scholarship boy of your social status and background, coming from a council school in a northern industrial town, as you do, you should count yourself lucky and proud of the fact that you will have the benefit of a superior education, completely free of charge, at one of the best public schools in this country.”

On and on he droned with his moralising monologue. It did not escape my attention, even as an eleven and half year old, that he cut me down to size, in emphasising the class-distinction between me and my fellow classmates. There there was nothing I could do to stop him in his seemingly endless, sermonising flow of words, and accept them for what they were: a snobbish put down by the very man in whose care – as if he even did care – I would be for my entire career at Churton.

He finally got to the point and very piously, in a voice implying regret rather than anger, said: “Well Taylor, I think I have made it clear to you, as your housemaster, thinking only of your future well-being, how much I disapprove of the initial path of flagrant disobedience you have apparently chosen to tread since your recent arrival at Churton. It is my duty to stop you dead in your present track and try to redirect you onto the straight and narrow, which I expect from all boys who have the privilege – and I assure you, boy, it is a privilege – to be a member of School-House, the oldest and most traditional house at Churton, of which the motto is: Hold Fast the Rule.”

“In the light of what has happened since your recent arrival here at Churton and everything I have learned about your record in Bolton, I feel that it would be a mistake to allow you to escape unblemished from the supplementary retribution punishment which every housemaster at Churton has the option – but not the obligation – to  visit on any member of his house, who has overstepped the mark and been beaten at least three times in any one term.”

“Understand me, Taylor, thinking only of your future career at Churton and beyond, it is with heavy heart that I have finally reached the conclusion in your case, it would do you nothing but good, if you were now to become acquainted with the birch.”

“Believe me, Taylor, when I say that in spite of my reluctance to impose a supplementary punishment on you for your past, recent misdemeanours, I have decided that I must put my scruples aside and that your personal interests must come first. I have therefore concluded, purely for your own personal good, that I would be failing in my duty if I did not give you a thorough birching, which is precisely what I now propose to do.”

“Taylor, if you value your bottom at all, I can but recommend to you that you take heed of the School House motto: Hold fast the Rule, which taken together with the Churton College motto: Discipline, Discipline ,  make this school what it is: a place where boys must face severe retribution for their sins.”

In spite of this long-winded assertion that he was reluctant to impose an additional punishment, I later learned that he always birched any boy who had accumulated three beatings in any one term.

He then went on to reveal his true brutal character by saying: “In giving you twelve strokes of the birch today, Taylor, as a new boy, you should thank your lucky stars that I am being lenient with you. But, let me just tell you, young man, that the clock starts ticking again as of now. If you accumulate three more beatings this term, which, given your stellar record so far, I think you might well do, I shall have no hesitation in birching you again, but with the additional deterrent of six, complementary cuts of the rattan cane. The combination of birch and cane, which only the Headmaster and I practise, is known here at Churton as the Double Whammy, a name which has stuck since some unfortunate boy coined it years ago.”

At the first mention of the birch, that nec plus ultra, that fabled ultimate of all school punishments, I went hot and cold all over; it was all I could do to stop myself pissing my pants. My God! The birch, the birch, the birch; I was going to be birched. I guess it was the fear of the unknown: this legendary punishment, the mother and father of all schoolboys’ nightmares, which struck terror into the heart of anyone sentenced to receive it. It certainly had that effect on me. 

If Mr. Fogerty had intended to frighten me, by telling what the future held for me, if I accumulated three more beatings that term, he had certainly succeeded. He had scared the living daylights out of me, and to say that I was shit scared by the time that he finally got up from behind his desk, was the understatement of the century. He propelled by the shoulder into the next room, where the birching stool stood.

Just the sight of the birch itself, standing there in a deep pail of water, so filled me with fear of the unknown that I was already practically shitting bricks. I was trembling visibly like a leaf, as FF told me to take off my dressing gown and pyjama bottoms and bend across the A-frame of the birching stool, which differed from the the beating horse in the Headmaster’s study, in that it was provided with both ankle and wrist straps to restrain the poor lad, whose arse – actually, at that very moment, my arse – was to be lacerated by the birch rod.

Rod is a definite misnomer for that implement of torture, standing there in that pail water, that was shortly destined to transmit its virulently painful message to my naked bum. What is normally referred to as a birch rod is traditionally made up of a bundle of slender twigs – maple twigs, at Churton, as FF gratuitously informed me – more akin to a witch’s broom than a single rod.

Whatever it was called, I knew that the implement of punishment soaking in the water, would shortly be delivering its legendary, painful message to my naked arse and that there was nothing I could do to avoid it. And so, with no means of escape from my immediate, painful destiny, I did as I had been told and bent across the horse, presenting my bare bum to the tender-loving-care of the birch, wielded by  FF; and boy oh boy; did he know how to lay it on.

I thanked my lucky stars that the caning stripes I had received at my first punishment note encounter with the Headmaster two weeks ago had more or less healed and vanished, leaving my arse in a relative unmarked state, free from pain, ready if not willing to accept the coming assault. The seriousness of what was to come was heightened, as FF systematically strapped my wrists and ankles to the legs of the horse, rendering me completely immobile, like a chicken trussed for the oven. If the simile had ended there, all well and good, but it, of course, did not. FF would have made a very good cook, as by the time he released me after twelve vigorous strokes of the birch, like the unfortunate chicken, my arse felt well and truly as if it had been roasted to a turn. In FF’s hands, the concept of pain took on a totally different meaning.

FF gently placed the birch across my naked arse. Trembling with fear, I automatically clenched my cheeks in a reflex action to protect them.  He, however, was having none of this and ordered me, in no uncertain terms, under threat of additional strokes if I disobeyed him, to relax my muscles.

“To obtain the maximum benefit (not a word I would have used personally) from a birching,” he said loftily, as someone who evidently knew his onions, “In fact, to make its true mark, both literally, in terms of all-important visible traces, those hallmarks of a well-birched  bottom, but also figuratively in terms of the invisible pain delivered, it is essential that the birch be applied to a boy’s relaxed bare buttocks.”

After that build up, to my immense surprise, when the first stroke of the birch landed across my bare arse, the pain I experienced was not as severe as I had always imagined it would be, given the birch’s fabled reputation as being the most painful of all public school punishments. I am not saying that it did not hurt, because it did; but the pain I felt was totally bearable. However, that first stroke proved to be the lull before the storm, which quickly built up to gale force. By the time FF had delivered his full twelve strokes – twelve appeared to be a magic number, when it came to punishment at Churton a starting point, so to speak, for birching and caning alike, I was in absolutely the worst agony I had ever suffered in my life.

As FF applied stroke after stroke, with the consummate skill of an experienced, master craftsman, the initial pain rapidly built up to almost untenable levels, which I had no option but to bear. This, the first of what would become, over the years, my many encounters with the birch, confirmed to me that the mythical status surrounding that summa cum laude: that nec plus ultra: that reputedly most painful of all implements ever conceived of to inflict retribution on a schoolboy’s  arse, was perhaps exaggerated.

I saw that unlike the cane, of which bit deep into the flesh of the unfortunate arse of the boy being thrashed and delivered its full cutting message with every stroke, leaving the recipient with a discrete number of painful stripes across his arse, the birch was more subtly insidious. It covered the whole surface of the arse being thrashed with fine abrasions, left by the spread of its numerous, light, springy twigs, whose repeated contact with considerable force on the same area, in spite of their feeble weight, eventually  produced a unbelievably intense, quasi-untenable pain, which topped that of the cane.

I had two immediate thoughts after my first birching. The first was that I never ever wanted to be birched again; although I was subsequently to modify my views on the birch. The second was that Mr. Fogerty, my housemaster, who was, over the years, to become my principal nemesis, was a merciless and frequent, bare-arse bircher of all boys in his house and merited well his nickname, FF for Flogger-Fogerty. At that moment, if thoughts could have killed, which they, happily, cannot, Charles Aloysius Fogerty would have dropped dead on the spot. Needless to a say, he did not; he lived on to birch many more arses before he retired many years later.

If I had felt that the birching I had just received was the ultimate in painful beatings, I was to be proved wrong, when, several years later, Hugo and I, arse naked and side by side, were given the double-whammy by FF for our sins: twenty-four strokes each in all; twelve of the birch followed immediately by twelve of the cane. With this act, FF established himself in my mind, together with Sir, the Headmaster, himself, as two of the most sadistic sods of school masters on the planet: they were both merciless bastards when it came to flogging the boys at Churton.

My birching was finally over, the restraining straps were release and I was told by FF to return to my dorm, where I received a hero’s welcome.  In the short time had been at Churton, in my dorm companions’ eyes, I had changed, practically overnight, from being an outcast,  gauche, scholarship boy, who spoke with a heavy northern accent, unacceptable to their refined ears, into this virile, macho, stiff-upper-lip hero, who took his punishment without so much as whimper.

I had become the role model for how they all would have liked to think of themselves behaving under duress. However, most importantly for me, which was worth all the tea in China, after the pain of no less than four thrashings, I had been fully accepted as a memberr of the dorm: I had arrived; I was one of them!

When back in the dorm, I was forced to drop my pyjama bottoms and expose my arse to the inspection of my dorm-mates, I suspect it was the first time that anyone of them had seen a freshly birched arse Already, in that brief time, what had been the intense, almost unbearable pain I had felt during the birching, had begun to fade. Even though birching was quite justifiably, considered the most severely painful of all punishments then generally inflicted on public school boys backsides, judging from my one and only experience, its effect was not long lived when compared with the stripes left by the cane applied to my bare arse, which had left me in pain for several days.

By the time I got into bed, I realised that the pain in my arse was diminishing more quickly than I had ever thought possible. After what, whilst it was actually being inflicted ono me, had truly been the most painful experience ever, I tried to think why this was possible, as the pain of the birching, when it was actually happening, left standing anything I had previously felt from the cane.

I finally came to the conclusion that, while the repetitive application of the fine birch twigs on the same spot on my bare arse gradually built up pain to levels unequalled by the cane, the fact was that the multiple twigs of the birch, due to their individual light weight, had done less physical damage to my bum. It was the repetitive pounding of the same area of my buttocks by the birch that had produced the intense pain, totally unequalled by any caning I had ever had, which justifiably gave the birch its fearsome reputation as the worst of all schoolboy punishments. 

By the time I fell asleep the pain of the birch had faded to a dull, not unpleasant glow and by next morning the residual pain of my first ever birching had diminished to an all but imperceptible level.  So, I thought to myself: “A more painful birching with its less lasting effect, was preferable to a caning, the effect of which lasted for several days,” Not, of course, that I was ever likely to be given the choice,

However, when I explained my theory to Hugo, the ever present Oscar, that, omniscient font of all knowledge, knowingly said in a cynical tone of voice: “Taylor, in case you are unaware of the fact, Queen Anne is dead; so tell us something that we don’t already know. It is common knowledge that although a birching hurts more than the fires of hell when it happening, its painful effect is not as long lasting as that of the cane.”

“Why do you think that Sir, our seriously sadistic Headmaster, Mr. Augustus Caesar frequently adds a number of strokes of the cane when he has just finished a birching? It is to ensure that the owner of the arse, on which he is appeasing his pent up sexual frustration with the birch, remains seriously sore and feels the pain of retribution for several days. It is Sir’s own, much-imitated-elsewhere innovation and is known as the Double Whammy. Other than Sir himself, our own beloved housemaster, Mr. Flogger Fogerty is the only master at Churton, to use the birch in addition to the cane. In my view, you should count yourself lucky that he stopped at a birching and did not give you the Double Whammy, which, in the past, he has been known to do.”

So much for the ever, pseudo-comforting words from Oscar, whom I had hitherto vaguely also thought of as a friend, but whom I now saw for what he really was: A cynic:al shyster who enjoyed making his friends fearful of the potentially painful sequels to the nefarious actions, in which all schoolboys, who are not already dead from the neck up, from time to time, tend to indulge. I saw that Oscar took pleasure in sowing fear into his friends’ minds, especially in younger boys, like Hugo and me, who were less experienced in the ways of life at Churton; in a word, at heart, Oscar loved scaremongering, which he had raised to a fine art and practised quite often. 

CHAPTER 12. 

It must have been early in my second month after my arrival at Churton, that I was to experience a prefects’ mass-beating of the whole ten of us in my first form dormitory at School House. I have already mentioned the dormitory-cane, hanging by the door. It was regularly used by the duty prefect on the arse of any individual boy, whom he even suspected of committing an offence, when he checked the dorm each night and turned off the light.

So we, the occupants, had all witnessed one of our fellows hauled out of bed for some offence, real or imaginary and have his bare arse beaten by the duty prefect, The prefects main mission in life was to keep order in the house, which they successfully did, by taking every opportunity to thrash as many bare arses as they could; and I can tell you; prefects beatings were not anything to be taken lightly.

I should perhaps tell you that Churton, which was an establishment really well-endowed with cash, by the year 1910, had already taken the then unheard of step of installing its own electricity oil-fired generator. A special building had been constructed to house this equipment, which functioned day and night. The whole school had been wired for electric light, an innovation which I had never even seen in the area in which I lived in Bolton, which subsisted on  mix of incandescent gas mantles, oil lamps and candles.  Electricity brought with it all the advantages of immediacy. Light had become easily accessible at the flick of a switch. It also enabled the mischievous young boys, which in my dorm, we then were, easily to break the lights-out-rule, which was then set at eight-thirty each evening for the first form dorm.

It was this ease of access to light, which led to all ten of us in the first-form dorm, including me, being thrashed together in a full dorm beating. Like all eleven-year-olds, we all resented having to go to bed at eight-thirty. So about half past nine one evening, when everyone thought we would be safe from the prefects, who tended to prowl round the corridors for half an hour after lights out looking for cannon fodder for their insatiable canes. I, being closest to the light switch, with the tacit approval of the entire dorm, was delegated to switch back on the light.

Of course sod’s law intervened; when does it ever not?  A few moments later, with half the dorm already out of bed, the door was suddenly flung open and house-captain, Hawtry appeared, feigning extreme anger at finding the light on, which gave him the excuse to beat the lot of us.

“Right, the lot you, out of bed and take off your pyjama bottoms.. When I come back in five minutes, I expect to see every man jack of you kneeling on the trunk at the bottom of your bed and bending across its bottom rail, each sporting your bare arse well into the air ready to be beaten. Do I make myself clear, gentlemen?”

Then, for some unknown reason, which was shortly to become clear, he left us to prepare ourselves for what was to be a figurative bloodbath, from which there was no escape. Not surprisingly we were all suddenly very nervous; we had been caught by the house-captain, breaking one of the most stringent rules of the school, for which we were now going to pay a very painful price.  I was the only member of the dorm to have experienced Hawtry’s prowess with the cane; so just let me tell you that he was a very proficient deliverer of pain; leniency was a word which was not in his vocabulary.

We were all surprised when Hawtry returned accompanied by the two other prefects. Each of his sidekicks was brandishing a cane in his right hand. Hawtry himself unhooked the dormitory cane from its position  by the door and looked at the impressive phalanx  of ten, trembling bare arses, waiting to be thrashed, arranged in two opposing rows of five each, bent over the foot of each bed along the long walls of the room. By now, it was obvious to all of us that Hawtry had decided to make a spectacle of what was to be his first full dorm beating as house-captain: a figurative bloodbath, in which that all three prefects were about to participate.

“Gentlemen,” he began, “You must be aware that in putting the lights back on after lights-out time, you have all broken one of the strictest rules of this house. You have made your bed and and now you must, unfortunately lie in it.  I am afraid, gentlemen, that tonight you will all have a very uncomfortable night’s sleep, entirely of your own making. It is my duty as house-captain to subject each of you to the standard punishment as decreed by the Headmaster. As retribution for your sins, you will each receive twelve strokes of the cane across your bare arse.”

“However in view of the onerous task of one person performing a 120 stroke beating, for that is what is now going to take place. I have, therefore enlisted the help of my two co-prefects, Hamilton and Jagger. Hence, you will all  shortly have a unique opportunity to judge for yourselves the relative merits of each prefect’s delivery with the cane, Each of the three prefects will give each of you  four strokes with his cane.”

“What you are about to experience is, I am afraid, going to be rather painful for all of you; and, so it should be. It is our duty as prefects to make you, as new boys, realise that the rules are there to be obeyed; if you are caught breaking any of them, as you have been, I am afraid you will suffer the painful consequences for your actions, as you are now all about to find out. Brace yourselves, gentlemen, as you are now to be beaten; and not only beaten, but beaten hard, so that it leaves you with a long-lasting  souvenir of your misdeed, which will remind you, for several days to of the error of your ways, each time you sit down.”

As I had the first bed next to the door on the right, I was the first one of ten to receive the first of my twelve strokes.  Hawtry, who was no slouch when it came to beating, brought his cane sadistically down across my bare buttocks with all the force he could muster. Although I had been beaten previously by Hawtry, as the cane cracked down that evening for the first time, my bare arse felt as if it had been cut in two by a red-hot knife. Hawtry apparently was intent on showing us that he knew his stuff; and to give credit where credit was due, he did! I knew from that first stroke that we were all in for a rough ride. But then, with any beating one always tends to think it was the worst ever. But believe me; this whole dorm beating was pretty painful,

As Hawtry moved on to my direct neighbour, co-prefect Hamilton moved in to take his place and give me my second cut. It was not possible that the three prefects had rehearsed what happened that evening, as the beating of the entire dorm had reared its ugly, painful head quite out of the blue. Hamilton, nevertheless, coordinated his first stroke on my backside with Hawtry’s first stroke on my neighbour’s; both canes landed, with a resounding crack as if they were one, more or less simultaneously on our two arses. And so the ten-boy-beating of the occupants of the first form dorm continued; Jagger replaced Hamilton, as he and Hawtry moved on to their second and third victims respectively.

I use that word victim advisedly, to describe the plight of us ten boys, whom I considered even at the time as being victimised by the sadistic Hawtry and his cohorts. There was, to my mind, no way that our offence – turning back-on the dorm light – could justify such a severe, twelve-cut, bare-arse beating as we were receiving, But I was learning to adapt my life to the excesses at Churton and those of School House; they were each run by a rabid sadists: the Headmaster and his lap-dog, our housemaster, Mr. Charles Aloysius Fogerty, both of whom, in addition to using the case liberally themselves, encouraged the prefects to do the same.

We all had to learn to live with the cane and birch as key elements in our daily lives and accept the fact that they were part and parcel of the hyper-strict disciplinary culture at Churton; break the School House individual motto: hold fast the rule, at your peril; if caught in the act, your arse would be mincemeat before you could say Jack Robinson!

When Jagger joined, what is best described as the flogging triumvirate, and gave me the third of my twelve cuts, the three of them automatically coordinated their strokes as one, so that the three boys, whose arses they were then addressing, received the cane at the same moment. 

When Hawtry had given the occupant of the last bed on my side of the dorm his first cut, he then moved across and did the same for the occupants of the five beds along the opposite wall, before returning to address arse for the second time. And so the beating continued without pause, with Hamilton and Jagger following suit. The trio repeated this flogging round three more times, so that each of the ten dorm victims of this sadistic tour-de-force had been given the prescribed twelve cuts in all: four cuts by each of the three prefects.

This awful, sadistic spectacle dragged out enormously the agony of what should have been a basic standard, twelve-cut, Churton beating for each of the ten members of the first-form dorm. Instead of each of us ten young lads being beaten separately, with the traditional appreciation pause (a misnomer, if ever there was one: agony pause would be a more appropriate name) of several seconds between each stroke, to allow the full pain of each individual cut to sink in, now each victim received his first three cuts one after the other, in short order, each delivered by a different prefect, in what might best be described as the compare and contrast mode. 

What made matters worse was that once Hawtry had given the tenth arse its first cut,, he waited until Hamilton and Jagger had each completed their first round, before he returned to address my arse with his second cut. He was followed by Hamilton and Jagger with their second cuts. And so this long-drawn-out beating of the ten inhabitants of the dorm continue  for no less than four rounds, by which time we had each received the prescribed twelve cuts and were all in utter agony.

This viciously long, drawn-out, beating sequence was devised by the sadistically inventive Hawtry. It turned what was always going to be a painful act into a veritable nightmare. If ever a beating was meant to dissuade the culprits from repeating their misdeeds, this must surely have been it. We were all eventually allowed to go back to bed to nurse our agonisingly painful buttocks.

CHAPTER 13.

But I was fast learning that there were dangers, both predictable and unpredictable, at every turn at Churton, where the cane was never silent for long and a sore arse for someone was almost a daily event. The prefects took their appointed role as daily guardians of the school rules, very seriously, and never missed an opportunity to correct a boy for breaking even the most minor of rules. Don’t you just love that mealy-mouthed expression, to correct, for to beat?  

But their activity during the day took on a more serious note in the evenings, when, in their role as house-prefects, they were the de facto police, judge, jury and executioner in their respective houses; witness the mass beating of first-formers in my own house, School House.  In School House, the prefects, under the leadership of the incumbent  house-captain of the day, were given free rein – even encouraged – by our sadistic housemaster, Flogger Fogerty, to use the cane, on their house-mates; and, believe me, they regularly did: and how!

The worst of the predictable dangers were Sir’s punishment note beating, beginning at 4:30 each weekday afternoon, of the boys who had been issued with punishment notes in class during that day’s lessons. In term time, rarely a day went by when, at the fatidic hour, there was no boy trembling in the corridor outside of Sir’s study, wearing the appropriate attire of PE shorts and gym vest, waiting to be called in to receive the prescribed minimum of twelve cuts of the cane across his bare arse.

In my second week at Churton, I had fallen foul of this daily flogging ritual; a fixture, which occurred daily, with the same reliability as night follows day. I admit I was cheeky in class to Mr. Thompson, our maths teacher, and merited the punishment note he handed to me.  I had been unaware that I was playing with fire in giving lip to a master and would most likely get burned; but I can tell you I was made aware of the fact PDQ; after Sir had finished caning me, my arse felt it was on fire.

However, when I recounted my ill-luck to Hugo and his cousin and showed them the stripes on my arse, Oscar practically tripped over his own eagerness to tell us that there were other, what he flippantly called sporting fixtures, a name, which he had coined, based on the fact that prefects often used Churton talk when they were about to beat a boy, telling him to sport an arse. According to Oscar there were at least three other well-defined occasions, when boys at Churton were beaten for their misdeeds.

The head-boy’s Friday afternoon demerit honour beatings.

Sir’s post-chapel, pre-lunch Sunday beatings

The end of term top-up beatings  

The demerit honour beatings, a permanent fixture in the calendar, were dispensed by the head-boy in his study each Friday afternoon to any boy, irrespective of his age, who had reached a total of ten demerit marks at any time during that week. It meant that any boy reaching a total of ten demerits citations on Saturday, had to live for the next seven days knowing that on Friday, seven days hence, he would have to present himself voluntarily, appropriately attired for a beating, to the TLC of the head-boy. 

The full horror of the system was not only that boys were honour-bound to present themselves voluntarily to the head-boy appropriately attired, stripped for action for a beating, but that in the interim period before his Friday afternoon beating, a boy could also potentially be accumulating more demerit marks. The fact of the matter was that the demerit clock never stopped ticking and that demerit marks were cumulative and carried over from term to term. Thus even the most minor demeanour was never overlooked and played its cumulative part in the striping a boy’s arse.

The system of demerits was loathed by everyone.  The way it worked was that, at the beginning of each school year in September, every boy, prefects included, with the sole exception of the head-boy himself, who could be, and was indeed occasionally flogged, only by Sir himself, was issued with a small, diary This diary fitted conveniently into one of the pocket of the waistcoat, which we were all obliged to wear whatever the weather, come snow or heat-wave. Every fault, which was not in itself sufficient to justify immediate correction by a beating, was noted on the boy’s diary, by the simple expedient of the master or prefect issuing the demerit mark; entering nothing more than his initials and the date. Thus, there was no descriptive record of any fault, other than the date on which it was committed and, therefore no basis for re-consideration.

Now here’s the rub; every boy was honour-bound to police his own demerit diary; and on Friday, at 4:30 in the afternoon, in the week in which his demerit total reached ten, voluntarily to present himself to the head-boy, receive a twelve-cut-bare-arse-no-questions-asked beating. Thus. most Friday afternoons at 4:30 saw two groups of boys, appropriately attired for a beating, assembled at opposite ends the  main corridor; one clutching punishment notes issued that day in class, waiting to be called in by Sir, who would exercise his expertise with the cane on their easily accessible bare arses; the other, comprised of boys submitting themselves to the not-so-tender-loving care of the incumbent head-boy, who would similarly warm their arses with his cane, with a vigour rivalling that of the Headmaster.

Very occasionally, on Friday, some boy would find himself, in the invidious position of facing both a Headmaster’s and a head-boy’s beating; Sir’s beating obviously took precedence.  In agony after Sir had worked his powerfully painful magic on his arse, the unfortunate lad was morally obliged to limp – boys always tended to limp after an encounter with the Sir’s cane – along the corridor to the head-boy’s study where he was obliged to offer his freshly striped arse to the not-so-tender-loving-care of the incumbent head-boy. 

In such cases, which were by no means rare, no quarter was ever given: the maxim: spare the rod and spoil the boy, reigned supreme; as neither was the rod was ever spared so that, no boy ever had the slightest possibility of being spoiled. Sir’s twelve parallel stripes were embellished with twelve diagonal stripes applied by the head-boy. Pain really was the name of the game at Churton. The unfortunate individual emerged from this disastrous combination of consecutive, visits, first to Sir and then to the head-boy, with an arse bearing no less than 24 cuts of the cane.

Given my undeniable penchant for mischief, it was inevitable that I became intimately familiar with both venues in my first term at Churton; but I thank my lucky stars that I never experienced such a back-to-back beating. In my view, such over-the-top canings – 24 cane cuts across the bare arse – did more physical damage than did the Churton Double Whammy: a birching followed immediately by a caning.

But the be-all and end-all of demerit beatings by the head-boy, was recounted to Hugo and me, by the know-all Oscar. According to Oscar, the previous year, one of his classmates had received his tenth  demerit on a Saturday  morning and was therefore honour-bound to present himself to the head-boy to have his arse beaten, the following  Friday at 4:30. He thus had a full seven days to wait, mentally sweating, in the uncomfortable knowledge that come Friday afternoon his arse would be roasted by the head-boy: a particularly psychologically anxious time for anyone waiting for a beating. 

As any boy who has been beaten at school will tell you, he wants to get the whole thing over and done with as soon as possible and not have to endure a nail- biting delay between sentence and execution, which makes the wait almost as painfully mentally, as the  kiss of the cane on naked flesh does physically.

It never rains but what it pours! Being somewhat of a serial offender, in those seven days waiting for Friday to come around,  this individual somehow managed to collect another ten demerits, with the consequence that, come Friday, he was faced with 24 cuts of the cane. When Friday afternoon arrived, he presented himself to the head-boy to face severely painful retribution for his many accumulated minor sins. Needless to say, the incumbent head-boy had no difficulty in rising to the occasion and discharging his duties.

According to Oscar, who claimed to have been at the post-flogging viewing of the head-boy’s handiwork, he had laid on all of the first twelve strokes, parallel to each other, from top to bottom of the lad’s arse. He had then continued his onslaught, laying on twelve more cuts on top of the first twelve, the unfortunate recipient’s buttocks red-raw and in excruciating pain. Both Hugo and I thought that Oscar was gilding the lily and that this story might be apocryphal; but stranger things have been known happen.  Certainly, in my experience, all the head-boys I had ever known in my time at Churton, were rabid devotees of the cane; so who knows?

Daily assemblies were held on a house-by-house basis The whole school assembled only once a week, on Sunday morning, in the School Chapel for a service taken by Sir, Mr. Augustus Caesar, the Headmaster, After the usual, hymn, the text-for-the-day, read out from the Bible by one of the prefects in a suitable churchy sort of voice, a deathly hush fell over the congregation, as every boy in the entire school held his breath, hoping against hope that his name would not be on the list of unfortunates, as Sir, in sepulchral tones sending a shiver down everyone’s spine, announced the names of those boys, whom he wished to see in his study immediately after the service./ See was a euphemism for the pre-lunch Sunday beatings,which served as an aperitif to Sir’s Sunday lunch.

The form of the invitation was always the same: “I wish to see the following gentlemen individually in my study, each appropriately attired for the occasion. All invitees should assemble at 11:30 in the corridor outside my study and will be called in to see me individually.  As is the custom at Churton, I will deal with the gentlemen in question in ascending order of age. The duty prefect will see that you are line up in the correct order.”

The inclusion of those chilling words, appropriate attire, left no-one in any doubt that this was no social visit, but that the invitees’ arses were to be roasted. He then read out, from a prepared list, the names of the lucky lads (!), whom he wished to see, all of whom would subsequently probably find it more comfortable to stand rather than to sit at table for lunch, which was served in the individual houses at one o’clock on Sundays.

There are horses for courses; but, surprisingly, for such a permanent fixture in the Churton sporting calendar, no one knew who the runners would be, until Sir made his much hated announcement each Sunday. One thing was certain; they would all be ridden hard by Sir. There were, there were no winners or losers, as Sir made it his business to see that every every contestant emerged from his ordeal – and make no mistake, whenever Sir wielded the cane, it was an agonisingly painful ordeal for the recipient –   bearing that panacea cure for all ills at Churton: a well-beaten arse.

There was no single criterion which defined the choice of participants, who would be invited to run in the pre-Sunday- lunch, flogging stakes; it encompassed boys of all ages – even the prefects were not excluded – and included any type of fault, which Sir could possibly hang on boys.  I say faults, as some runners had broken no school rules and were there because they were accused of being lazy; or, the classic non-reason for a beating: because they had the wrong attitude, whatever that meaningless concept might mean.

Such unfortunate individuals were included among bullies and those boys, who had broken the school rules and who thoroughly deserved the thrashing they were about to receive. Each Sunday, Sir kept the whole school on tenterhooks, as he assembled the runners for his Sunday flogging stakes. Knowing Sir for what he was: a died-in-the-wool, enthusiastic, bare-arse beater, one is forced to ask oneself if he himself could live without the regular flow of boys to beat, passing through his study. Saturday – not Sunday, you will note – was the day of rest, without a permanent fixture for Sir’s cane. One could be forgiven for suspecting that the eclectic mix of boys assembled each Sunday was put together by Sir ad hoc, to enable him to assuage his addiction to for beating arse: a sort of flagellative prelude to his Sunday lunch.

Another much hated fixture in the Churtonian flogging calendar was officially the Eend-of-Term-Top-up-Beating, known jokingly to the boys as The End of \Term Treat, or the ETT for short. Allow me to assure you, that for any boy unfortunate enough to find himself taking part in an ETT it was not a treat, but an invitation to bare arse occasion to allow Sir to reinforce past beatings.

The much-feared invitations to participate in an ETT were issued by the Headmaster at the last full assembly of the whole school in the chapel on the Sunday immediately preceding the end of term. This was a beating, given by Sir himself, to reiterate his disapproval of the conduct during the term, of those boys who were unfortunate to be invited attend. Needless to say an invitation to attend an ETT was not much sought after. Invitations were essentially issued to those boys, who had received at least three thrashing during the present term; or who had already been thrashed twice by their housemaster for unsatisfactory monthly reports.

Terms at Churton always ended on a Tuesday morning, after breakfast, when the boys were free to leave the school premises and begin their journey home for the holidays. Sadistically, Sir always left the administering of the ETT beatings until 4:30 on the preceding Monday afternoon. He thereby ensured that the boys, who had benefitted from his attention, had a painful journey home and enjoyed an uncomfortable few days thereafter.

Needless to say, with my accumulation of three beatings in my first week at Churton coupled with several more encounters with the cane during my first term at Churton, I was one of those privileged to be invited to offer my arse to Sir’s TLC for an ETT, on the day before my return to Bolton for the Christmas holidays. Sir told me that in view of my many canings he considered me to be incorrigible. Incorrigible or not, he then went on to attempt to correct me, by giving me, not 12, but 18 strokes with his junior cane across my bare bum. 

Being charitable, I suppose you cannot fault Sir for trying his best to correct boy whom he already thought of as incorrigible. Thanks to Sir’s indefatigable assiduity, I can tell you that I had a very uncomfortable train journey home to Bolton. Sir had certainly achieved at least one of his goals in timing the ETT for Monday afternoon, as I knew to my regret, a painful souvenir of my first term at Churton would be with me well into the Christmas holidays.

My grandmother, considering I was not old enough to travel on the train by myself, had come to take me back to Bolton, for the first time since I had left in the summer. On the journey back, she told me to stop fidgeting as I endeavoured to find a position, which gave me less pain in my bum.  I deemed it wise not to tell her why; but instead showed her my end of term report, which I, in spite of my almost perpetually sore bum during the term, showed that I had come top in every subject, thereby justifying my existence as the first scholarship boy ever to be educated at Churton. 

CHAPTER 14.

It was my first return home since I had left at the end of August. I was delighted to have proved my father wrong in his prediction that I would be home in a few weeks with my tail between my legs. Fortified by the knowledge that I had done well academically, in spite of having my backside beaten times without number, I realised that I had already adapted myself to life a Churton, living together with a group of lads of my age. In spite of the brutality and being the odd-man out in the dorm, I liked my new life, which was better than life I had previously lived at home. 

It was not until I saw my old school friends in Bolton that it first hit me how just one term at Churton had changed me. The new upper-class society in which I was now living and the brutality of being caned hard for every tiny fault were, together, rapidly already knocking the corners of that square peg in a round hole, which is what my father had called me. Inevitably, without consciously knowing it, I was already adopting the manners and speech of the upper-class group of boys, in which I was now living. My old school friends in the northern working-class society from which I came and which I was now visiting after only a few months away, noticed the change immediately.

My erstwhile, close friends found me already, after only a few months away, completely changed and told me that I was talking posh. Although I had not noticed myself the change in my accent, evidently it had modified enough for my old friends to see me now as being different from them. I soon realised that in one term at Churton, the desire to become the same as my new schoolmates had already left its mark on me; so much so, that I longer had much in common with my former friends at Bolton; I had imperceptibly and automatically begun to adopt the manners and way of speaking of the boys with whom I was living, eating, sleeping, sitting in class at Churton.

I also realised that the life I was now leading every day at Churton was already, in such a brief time, driving me away from the life I had led and accepted as normal in Bolton. I found myself appalled at what had been my home life before Churton: no electricity, no central heating, no hot running water, baths once a week in front of the fire, the outside lavatory; these had all become an anathema to me after only one term at Churton.

Add to this the fact that my father still refused to acknowledge that he had been wrong about my future and still did not accept that his son might, by his own ability, was in the process of bettering himself. My first return home was made increasingly unpleasant for me by his non-stop snide comments that I could hardly wait for the New Year, when I could return to Churton.

CHAPTER 15.

Early in January 1912, I returned to Churton to start my second term. I was as the oldest boy in my dorm, as I had reached the age of twelve on January 1st. Shortly after my first arrival at Churton, I had been caned twice on the same day; first by Sir, the Headmaster for walking on the lawn; and then, later that same day, by Hawtry house-captain of School-House, and his cohort prefects, for being incorrectly dressed after leaving the Headmaster’s study. A few days later, I was the first boy in my dorm to receive a punishment note, which was redeemed by an 18 stroke beating by Sir.

Then for the rest of my first term at Churton, my arse had attracted the attention of the cane of numerous prefects during the school day. Twice I had the painful pleasure of visiting Mr. Fogerty, my housemaster, before bed in my pyjamas when he exercised himself with the cane right royally on my bare bum. But during my first term, I never suffered the indignity of being forced to offer my bare bum to the TLC of the head-boy, who by the end of my first term at Churton had established a reputation as being the hardest caner ever, second only to Sir himself. However this glaring lack in my percussive experiences was remedied with a vengeance on my second day back at Churton in January 1912.

The head-boy of the day was called Simon Stanion nicknamed the Stallion for reasons which were not then obvious to sexual innocents like Hugo and me. Oscar, that fount of all knowledge, professed to know, but refused to enlighten us, saying: “You will find out when you are older.” However, by the end of his first term as head-boy, I did, know that Stanion had established a reputation as being most frequent and hardest wielder of the cane ever. Stallion Stanion was considered a right bastard, by all who had suffered from his reputation with the cane. However, I was soon myself to be the unlucky beneficiary of the head-boy’s legendary expertise with the cane, which was referred to, sarcastically, by those who had been unfortunate enough experience it, as a dose of TLC.

What happened was that I was late for the afternoon class in mathematics, given by the irritable Mr. Thompson, who had handed me my first punishment note ever. Given Mr. Thompson’s readiness to see boys caned, I did not wish to receive another punishment note from him, which would inevitably mean another painful visit to the Headmaster’s study. So I took a shortcut to the classroom, which involved going along the corridor, where the studies of both the head-boy, and the Headmaster were located.

Being already late for class, I then did something foolish, which I was very shortly painfully to regret; in the full knowledge that I was putting my bum on the line and that it would be toast if I was caught, I ran down the corridor. I was only halfway down the corridor when I heard the authoritative voice of the head-boy behind me call: “You, boy, running down the corridor; stop immediately, turn around and walk back and stand in front of me.” 

My heart fell, for I knew I had been caught in flagrante, breaking one of the most strictly enforced rules at Churton: No running, under any circumstances inside any of the school buildings. One does many foolish things leading to retribution which one regrets later; but this time I knew that retribution would be immediate and that my bum was to be roasted.

“Your name, boy?” was the abrupt question; or was it an order that Stanion directed at me? I gave him my name and he said: “Oh yes I remember now; you are the first-year, working-class scholarship-boy from the north: the first of your ilk ever be privileged to enter Churton College, which is a prestigious, upper-class,  public school that has, until now, never before seen the likes of you.”

In insisting on my working-class origins and the fact that I was a scholarship boy, whose school fees were being paid by someone other than my parents, Stanion had shown himself for what he was: an upper-class snob, who looked down and sneered at anyone less fortunate than himself. I hated him instantly.

 “Taylor, coming as you do, from the working-classes, you clearly do not know how to behave in a civilised society like Churton. It is my somewhat thankless duty as head-boy to attempt to teach you how to behave now that you are here.  Did you not know that running anywhere in the school buildings is absolutely forbidden by one of the most strictly enforced rules of this school? Any boy, who is caught breaking this golden rule for any reason whatsoever, exposes himself to correction in the form of a twelve cut beating.”

“Frankly, Taylor, you must have been out of your mind to have tempted fate as you did and run down the corridor in which both my study and that of the Headmaster are located. Well fate dictated that I catch you in the act: in flagrante, as the expression has it, As a result of being caught you are about to suffer, what, a boy of your previous experience must already know, are the very gainful consequences for your action.”

Well, Taylor, you have already achieved fame among the prefects as being the most beaten boy ever, in your first term at Churton. So let me just say that I am delighted to have this opportunity to meet you, under what, for you, are extremely regrettable circumstances, which, as you are shortly about to find out, will have rather painful sequel. Taylor, I have to say that I am quite looking forward to the opportunity that your violation of one of the most strictly enforced rules of this school has given me to add my own humble contribution to – how shall I put it? – the most beaten arse ever among the new boys.

Stanion turned and re-opened his study door and told me to enter the room, where countless boys had met their Waterloo at the hands of the head-boy of the day. From his actions I saw that he intended to beat me there and then; a beating which I knew I fully deserved, but which if carried out immediately would make me even later than I already was for the irascible Mr. Thompson’s mathematics class. I tried, therefore, to explain to Stanion the reason why I had knowingly broken the rule and begged him to delay my beating until later in the afternoon after all classes for the day had finished.

“Taylor, that you were running along the corridor in order not to be late for a class, does not exonerate you form the consequences of your actions. As head-boy I am pledged to uphold the school’s rules and to punish any infringers accordingly. And that, my dear Taylor, is exactly what I now propose to do. I can but suggest that, in future, you allow yourself ample time to get to every lesson on time without breaking the rules. This school runs on strict discipline, which as you know only too well from your record-breaking, first term, is well and truly enforced.  As for delaying your punishment, that is out of the question, as I work on the principle that iron is best forged when hot. I, therefore, propose to cane you here and now.”

My blood ran cold as I entered, for the first time ever, the head-boy’s study and saw the two straight-handled canes, hanging one each side of the fireplace, one of which was destined to mate with my bare bum almost immediately.  Stanion wasted no time in positioning a low-backed chair in the middle of the room,, over which I was destined to bend and offer my arse for punishment. 

He went over to the fireplace and unhooked one of the canes hanging there and then turned cowards me brandishing the so-called rod-of-justice and said, with feigned anger: “Well what are you waiting for, Taylor? By now I would have thought that someone like you, given the considerable experience accrued during your first term, would know the position to adopt.”

“Come on, boy, don’t keep me waiting; sport me your bare arse across the back of that chair and let’s get get on with it.  I have other things more important to do than to whack first formers, who think they can break the rules with impunity and then shrink from accepting the consequences for their action. Get your pants and underwear down PDQ and let me see you correctly positioned over the back of that chair over there, when I will treat your arse to the tender, loving care of twelve kisses of from the cane. “

Well, can tell you that the beating I took from Stallion Stanion was not one which I would ever wish to repeat. The head-boy lived up to his legendary reputation as being the hardest caner ever and allowed me to confirm the opinion that I had heard of him: that he was was a right bastard. Of all the canings I had ever had at Churton, this seemed to me to be the worst. No beating had ever been more than painful as Stanion seemed motivated by the motto: pain is the name of the game.  But then, each time  had been beaten I had thought it was tge wort beating I had ever had.

When I got up after twelve cuts of the cane I was in excruciating agony. Stanion had laid on the cane with maximum force at very stroke: ten parallel cuts from top to bottom of my arse and two diagonal gating strokes to complete his handiwork. The whole thing took an age: the best part of three minutes, as he allowed about a fifteen second appreciation pause between every stroke to allow the pain to register with me. Each stroke was applied with the accuracy and force of a man who knew what he was doing.  I have to say that I admired his expertise and dedication to duty.

CHAPTER 16.

I finally hobbled into Mr. Thompson’s mathematics class a full fifteen minutes late. Thompson, always an irascible, sarcastic man, rose to the occasion: “Nice of you to join us, Taylor; your presence has been missed by all of us. I see from the way you are walking that you have just been beaten. Don’t bother to explain the reasons for your late arrival; just sit down and let me get on with the lesson.”

Seeing that I had difficulty in sitting down on my hard wooden seat, he then said: “Are your deaf, Taylor? I just told you to sit down. Now, boy, do as you have been told and sit down, before I lose my temper.”

I ventured: “Please, Sir, if it is all right with you, sir, I would prefer to remain standing.”

“No, Taylor, it will not, as you out it, put it be all right with me.  I have twice told you to sit down; now do so, boy, before you make me really angry. The fact that you have just been beaten is a problem of your own making, for which you have only yourself to thank for the painful state in which which you now find yourself. You, boy, have made your bed and must now lie in it. It is out of the question that any boy remain standing during one of my lessons”. Then, raising his voice, he roared: “FOR THE LAST TIME; SIT DOWN NOW, BOY. You have already disrupted the class enough by your behaviour.

“Sir, I only wanted.”’

I was cut short by Mr, Thompson who, yet again, roared: “WILL YOU NEVER BE TOLD, BOY? SIT DOWN NOW AND, IF YOU KNOW WHAT IS GOOD FOR YOU, DO NOT SAY ANOTHER WORD FOR THE REST OF THE LESSON,”

Needless to say, the master always wins in such exchanges. I spent an agonisingly painful forty minutes with my bum on fire, sitting uncomfortably on my wooden seat. At the end of the lesson, Mr. Thompson called me to the front of the room, demanded my demerit card and gave me five demerit marks for disobedience, thereby setting me well on my way towards the ten demerit marks which would mean yet another beating.

But that was not all, as he finally handed me a punishment note for my late arrival, condemning me at 4:30 that afternoon to present myself to the Headmaster, appropriately attired, for a beating. It never rain but what it pours; but, on this occasion, I felt myself in the middle of a typhoon, as I contemplated that fate, which awaited my bum.

Of course I change into tha appropriate attire of my gym shorts and slip and waited at 4:30 that afternoon, with a group of five others, outside the Headmaster’s study, at the other end of the corridor, where I had begun my painful journey earlier that same afternoon. The duty prefect organised us into a line in ascending order of age. By chance, there were two other first formers, who would be dealt with first, before Sir dealt with me. It was evidently the first time for both of them, as they were both incredibly nervous – as were we all, waiting there to be called in by Sir to meet our painful destiny of that afternoon.

One after the other the two first-formers went in to  see Sir.  After each entry, there were a few minutes of low murmuring, audible through the closed door, followed by the inimitable crack of the cane mating twelve times with the flesh of a young, bare arse, accompanied by howls of pain. One after the other, the two first-formers emerged from their first encounter with Sir’s cane, vigorously rubbing their bums, with tears rolling down their cheeks, acutely aware that the Churton College motto, Discipline Rules, really meant what it said. It was a chilling reminder – as if we needed it – of the painful fate which awaited the rest of us, still waiting to enter the lion’s den.

When I entered Sir’s study, he said mockingly: “Well Taylor, it is only the second day of term, but I see that your bottom could not wait to renew its acquaintance with the cane, which it must truly have missed over the Christmas holidays. It is said that absence makes the heart grow fonder and it is gratifying to me to think that you could wait no longer than the second day of the new term, to assuage the craving of your bottom for the tender caress of the rattan cane. I am delighted to tell you that I am only too happy to help you and that I will do my very best to help you fulfil your desired objective.”

On and on Sir droned, until suddenly the bantering persiflage was gone, as he abruptly ordered me to drop my shorts and adopt the position over the beating horse: a position with which I was, by now, after my first term at Churton, wholly familiar. Sir selected a cane and approached me. Bent over the horse as I was, expecting the worst, most painful moment of my life to be visited on my bare bum already throbbing with pain. I tried to imagine how I would feel from twelve cuts of Sir’s cane on top of the twelve I had taken from the head-boy earlier that same afternoon. But the expected onslaught on my arse did not come.

Sir said: “I see that you have just been given a thorough beating and much as I would have been delighted to discharge the punishment demanded by Mr. Thompson, I see that I cannot in all conscience apply twelve cuts of the cane to a lad whose bottom has just been so thoroughly well-beaten by someone else.”

For a fleeting moment thought that I had escaped punishment, However, my private euphoria was short lived, as Sir continued: “I feel that I have been let down badly by you, Taylor, for you should have told me that you had already, earlier in the day, received a beating from someone else, who, looking at the state of your bottom, certainly knew what he was about. He should be congratulated for his dedication to the enforcement of discipline, which is the backbone of this school.”

Frankly, I had so far not been invited by Sir, to say a word, nor did he now, as he droned on, as he always did on such occasions.

“However, Taylor, in spite of the obvious painful state of your bottom at present, I cannot overlook the fact that you evidently exasperated Mr. Thompson to such an extent that he felt he had no option but to issue you with a punishment note. I, therefore, propose to allow you to redeem yourself, which I am sure you wish to do, this Sunday in my study after chapel. You, Taylor, will join the group of boys, who will answer to me for their sins, in the time-honoured manner, by being beaten before Sunday lunch.  By Sunday I think your bottom will have recovered enough from its beating today to accept another dose of the cane.”

So there it was. I had not been reprieved,as I had initially foolishly dreamed; I would now have to live for six days with the thought that come Sunday, my bum would again be on the line; and there was nothing – absolutely nothing – I could do to change the course of events. On Sunday, Sir would again shred my bum and I had no option but to accept it. Even though I knew that I deserved what was coming to me, I resented it. My bum and the rattan cane seemed to have developed an alarming synergy for one other and were becoming dangerously close to becoming, companions.

True to his word,  in chapel on Sunday, my name led the list of the six gentlemen – Sir always referred to the boys he was going to beat before lunch on Sundays as the gentlemen – he wished to see in his study, before lunch. I was relieved to see that I was not alone standing there, appropriately attired in my gym shorts and singlet. There is, of course, strength in numbers when one is waiting to be called in individually by Sir to have one’s arse beaten. It is, somehow, comforting to be in the company of others awaiting the same fate, or possibly worse than oneself; it gives everyone waiting, what I call Dutch Courage, to face the inevitable.

This time, I was the youngest boy there to benefit from the doubtful privilege of allowomg Sir to work his magic with the cane on my bare bum. When the door opened, indicating that Sir was ready to receive his guests, the duty prefect said: “In you go, Taylor; you are the youngest of today’s lucky lads to see Sir; so look sharp about it, as Sir does not like to be kept waiting.”

Sir was sitting behind his huge desk, on which was lying a selection of canes, one of which, as it turned out, I wrongly thought was destined to refresh the twelve stripes, which the head-boy had given me earlier in that same week. Although I could still feel the effects of the head-boy’s twelve-cut-beating some six days later, my arse was in an eminently pre-prepared condition yo accept today’s beating; I shivered inwardly at the thought of what Sir was about to do to me.

Sir again chose to adopt a manner of false bonhomie in welcoming me to his study, as if what was to happen between us was a pleasant prelude to Sunday lunch. Always the best meal of the week in School House, to which everyone looked forward; however, today,  I was more preoccupied with the fear of what Sir was about to inflict on my arse, to care much about the meal. Knowing Sir’s prowess at delivering pain, I doubted that I would even be able to sit at table an hour hence.

“Well, Taylor, I am pleased to see that you are fighting fit again, after your unfortunate contretemps with the cane on Tuesday. You must be raring to redeem the punishment note which Mr. Thompson gave you at the beginning of the week, which has been left in abeyance until now, due to the indisposition of your bottom. However, have no fear, for I assure you that I will do all in my power to free you from the cloud of the unpaid dept, which has been hanging over you for the past six days. You will leave my study today, without a blemish on your character, although, in all honesty, I cannot promise that your bottom will emerge equally unblemished from our meeting today.”

“But before we move on to the practicalities of today’s meeting, tell me how your bottom came to be in the lamentable, well-beaten state in which I found it, when I examined it prior to thrashing it and decided to postpone any further punitive action until today. What precisely did you do to deserve such a thorough beating and who wielded the cane? I can but say, whoever it was did a sterling job in correcting you.”

Sir listened silently, whilst I told him the whole story and then said: said: “Well, Taylor, if it is any consolation to you, in my view the head-boy let you off lightly with the standard tariff of twelve cuts. Had I myself caught you running down the corridor, I would have given you 18 cuts of the cane for breaking  one of the most stringently enforced rules of this school. Let me tell you why I view what you did as on of the worst things any boy can do at Churton.  A few years ago, a boy running down the same corridor, collided and knocked over an elderly master, Mr. Patterson, who has since retired. As a result, Mr. Patterson had to be taken to hospital with a broken arm.”

“Taylor, you are a brilliant boy academically: first in your class in all subjects. But you seem to be one of those boys who is always looking for trouble. So let me tell you, here and now, that if you continue on your present path of self destruction, I shall have no alternative but to beat you time and time again, until you yourself realise that there is more to school life than a permanently sore bottom”

“Coming now to the reason you are here today, which is to face just and fair retribution for your disruption of Mr. Thompson’s class. In view of your own apparent inability to draw yourself away from mischief, which has resulted in your unbelievable punishment record since arriving at Churton just a few short months ago, I despair that you will ever change. However, it is my duty as your Headmaster to do everything in my power to save you from your worst self.  I have, therefore, come to the conclusion  that what you desperately need is a severe and painful shock to awaken you from the apparent complacency with which you lead your life.”

“Reluctant though I am to severely punish any boy for his general attitude, there comes a point in a boy’s school career when enough is finally enough, and he must finally face up to his own shortcomings. In view of your record since you arrived here only a few months ago, I have come to the conclusion, that in spite of a regularly well-beaten arse – I think that is how you boys refer to the almost permanent, painful state in which your nether anatomy finds itself – you show no signs of modifying what I define as your antisocial behaviour. I have, therefore, reached the reluctant conclusion that the only way forward is for me, as Headmaster to give you a very severe birching,”

“Some time ago, I understand that your housemaster, Mr. Fogerty, introduced you to the birch, due to his exasperation at your apparent disregard for the manners of the society in which you now live. This seems, to have been like water running off a duck’s back, for, on present evidence, you have not modified your bad behaviour.  I can but hope that the punishment I am about to inflict on you, makes you realise that you must now conform to the accepted norms of Churton College.”

“If, after the birching I am about to give you, your bad behaviour persists and brings you before me just one more time this term, then I think we must conclude that, in spite of your innate academic ability, of which there is no doubt, you are not suitable material for education at an elite public school such as Churton and I shall reluctantly have to expel you from this school. Manners makyth man is the motto adopted by the famous public school, Winchester College.  It applies equally here at Churton. Your future at Churton is now in your own hands, Taylor. Do not throw it away, young man.”

It was not so much the distinctly unpleasant prospect that Sir was going to birch me that sent shivers of fear down my spine, as the threat of expulsion from Churton, if I did not mend my ways. I took the threat of expulsion very seriously. After one term at Churton, despite the difficulties, as a gauche, working-class lad from Bolton, I had initially had, I had finally been  accepted by my dorm mates; and, I had no wish to return to my former humdrum way of life at home, under the thumb of a father, whom I had grown to dislike completely. The thought of what my life would revert to, if I was expelled from Churton, filled me with horror. I had no wish to go back to my old school, which, if my father had his way, I would leave, aged 14, to work for the rest of my life in a cotton mill.

It was the threat of expulsion, rather than a Headmaster’s birching that I took very seriously indeed. The last thing I wanted was to be thrown out of Churton. After only one term there, and in spite of a   permanently sore bum, I had learned to look further than the end of my nose and had seen that Churton was the key to my future. So, in fact, I took the Headmaster’s warning very seriously to heart.

Sir, stood from his desk and ushered me, trembling like leaf at the thought of what was to come, into the birching room, accessible by a door from his study. I had shivered, many times last term, whenever I had passed the door to that same room in the main corridor, emblazoned, in gold letters, with the words Birching Room.  I was petrified as I saw the birching frame with its padded shelf on which I would shortly be told to kneel, whilst Sir attached the restraining straps to my wrists and ankles. My heart missed a beat, as I observed, soaking in deep pail of water, the dreaded Churton maple birch-rod, whose bite I would shortly experience my bare bum. Frankly I was on the verge of pissing my shorts, just thinking of what was about to happen to me.

Sir invited me – better put; ordered me – to take off my shorts, and to kneel at the birching frame and present my bare bum, which he politely called, my bottom, to him for punishment.  He then proceeded to strap me to the frame before he gave me the bad news that I was to receive an 18 stroke birching: my second since my arrival at Churton.

“Taylor, I suggest you brace yourself, boy, for his is going to hurt you like no other beating you have ever experienced in your young life to date. I consider it my duty to show you what life has in store for you, if you do not improve our ways.”

He had not been kidding, when he said that his intention was to give be the most painful beating of my life, for he was mercilessly successful in his endeavour. He put my housemaster, Flogger Fogerty in the shade, when it came to birching. Sir delivered 18 merciless, swingeing strokes of the birch to my bare bum, thereby imprinting in my mind its fearful reputation as a fate almost worse than death itself. 

When he finally unstrapped me from the frame, I could barely walk; every step I took was utter agony. I had difficulty in putting back on my shorts, for every touch on my bare bum was unbearably painful.  If Sir’s intention had been to bring me back to the straight and narrow path, from which he thought I had strayed, he had succeeded admirably. No one in his right mind would risk the ordeal, to which I had been subjected, a second time.

That I was just one boy to be corrected in Sir’s regular, pre-lunch, Sunday morning schedule, was emphasised by the fact that as I left his study, Sir said to me: “Oh, Taylor, on your way out, tell the next candidate in the queue to come in, With the excessive time I spent with you, the others waiting eagerly in the corridor for my attention must, bynow, be thinking I had forgotten them. As their Headmaster, I must not disappoint them after such a long wait for my attention!”

Ashby, the duty prefect marshalling the guys waiting in the corridor to offer their arses to Sir for attention, looked with sympathy at my piteous state and said: “You look as though Sir gave you the works, Taylor. How many did he give you?” When I told him that I had just taken 18 across the arse with the birch, he whistled through his teeth and said: “You poor little bugger. I’m really glad I am not you; when Sir gets the bit between his teeth, as he obviously did with you, he really lays it on. Go and get yourself dressed. There’s some soothing cream in a drawer in the prefects’ common, which we use for those cases where we have seen a very severe in beating a boy.  I’ll go and get it and apply a bit to your arse; you certainly look as though you need it.”

Ashby was not being altogether altruistic in his offer to help; he, like most boys, wanted to see the damage Sir had wreaked on my arse. So I found myself giving Ashby a private viewing of what, by any standards, had to be one of the best birched arses he had ever seen.  I could tell by the way he whistled as he viewed my bum that he was mightily impressed.  Obviously I could not see my own bum, but I can tell you that on not one square inch of my two cheeks, could I bear even the slightest touch.  Ashby had to abandon his Good Samaritan intentions after his first touch and content himself with looking at Sir’s devastating handiwork on my bum, as I could not stand even the touch of his fingers to apply the ointment. Every step, putting back on my cumbersome school uniform, especially the trousers, was agonising; but eventually I was again decent and able to limp back to School-House, where I was given a hero’s welcome by my dorm-mates, who were all clamouring to view my damaged arse.

Sir had birched me so thoroughly that I could not face Sunday lunch at all, preferring to lie on my bed fully clothed. But I was was not to be left in peace to  nurse my wounded bum, as Hugo appeared with an order from head-of house, Hawtry, who holding firmly to the maxim that I had made my own bed and must now lie in it, insisted that I appear at table or face another beating from him straight after lunch. Needless to say I descended to the dining room and stood at my place at table, only to be told by Hawtry to sit down. As there was no point in commencing an argument with him, which I had no chance of winning , I had to grin and bear the excruciating pain of sitting at table, eating a meal, for which I, not surprisingly  had no appetite today.

It was whilst I was sitting at table, ruminating on the events of the past hour,; it hit me that two things Sir had said to me were incompatible. First he had said to me: “If, after the birching I am about to give you, your bad behaviour persist, then I shall reluctantly have to expel you from this school.” That promise had put the fear of  God into me, for there was no way I wanted to be expelled from Churton, which I saw as the best thing that had ever happened to me, despite its severe punishment regime.

But he had then said, as he was preparing to birch me: “I consider it my duty to show you what life has in store for you, if you do not improve your ways”

I saw these two statements were incompatible. If the present birching was final and if I did not modify my attitude, then I would be expelled. And so if I was expelled, birching could not stand as an example of what life had in store for me.

As I had no intention of tempting fate to determine which of the alternatives was correct, I resolved, there and then that I would not bare my bum for punishment to anyone for the rest of my second term at Churton. Frankly, the thought that I might be expelled from the school had put the fear of God into me and I was shit scared that it might happen.  I took very seriously Sir’s remark: “Your future at Churton is now in your own hands, Taylor. Do not throw it away, young man.” That sentence was to be the guiding light for rest of my life. 

CHAPTER 17.

By some miracle of self-control, thinking before I acted, I managed to avoid further punishment that term. As the Easter two week break approached. I dreaded the time I would have to spend with my parents back in Bolton.  My father never ceased to needle me whenever he could. I came to the conclusion that to prove himself right in his predictions about my future, he did not want me to succeed at Churton. Well, that Easter, things went from bad to worse, as my father and I rowed the entire time, whenever we were together. My mother, loyal to the end to her husband, always sided with him; so I was always, apparently,  in the wrong. 

The day finally came for me to return to Churton for my third term. The night before I was due to leave, my father and I got into a blazing row, so much so that I decided that I really had had enough of being berated by him. I lost what little of my self control which remained and said, addressing  both  my father and my mother: “If either of you thinks that I am going to spend the long summer holidays in this house,  you can think again as I am not. In fact, I shall never set foot in this house again, whilst he – meaning my father – is in it! He can stick his idea of my working in a cotton mill, as he has done all his life, where a monkey sticks its nuts!”

My mother hastening to pour oil on troubled water, said: “Alan, you don’t really mean that. Where will you go if you don’t come back here for the holidays; after all, Alan, this is your home.”

I replied vehemently: “Some home it is, with him down my throat the whole time.  I really have had enough. I am sick, sick, sick of being told by him that my future is in a noisy cotton mill, which is the last place in which I would ever want to work.   I’d rather be a refuse collector than be loom-minder for the rest of my life; that is what he is: just an unskilled, eight-hours-a- day, loom minder. Well I tell you both, here and now, once and for all, that is not for me.”

“I’ve now had my fill of home life with him and I’m out of here right now. I’ll pack my bags and go and stay with my grandma Clegg, just down the street. She is the only one of our family to have the gumption to see that a good education, which is what I am getting at Churton, is the key to my future life. I’ll stay with her when I am in Bolton for the holidays; so you will find me at my grandma’s house if you wish to see me. At least I’ll know that I am somewhere that I am welcome and with someone that supports me.”

How I plucked up courage to say what I did to my father, I shall never know. But I guess it was the fact that I had become much more articulate: much more confident in my speaking ability and the organisation of my thoughts after two terms at Churton. It was then that I saw that in definitively leaving home for ever, that I had burned my boats as far as any reconciliation with my father was concerned. I was on my own from now on.

I should point out that I had not consulted my grandmother before I descended on her. But I had made up my my mind; and despite a mother, who had collapsed into tears, I packed my things and went around to my grandmother’s house just a few doors away for us in Danube Crescent. As I had hoped, my grandma Clegg welcomed me with open arms.

She said: “Lad, in my view, you’re well done with that Muppet of a father of yours. Herbert by name and a right John Herbert of a man by nature, he is. Alan, he really does not deserve a son like you. I’ve always known, ever since my daughter married him, that the man could see no further than the end of his nose. Of course, lad, you can stay with me here any time and for as long as you want. You should know that by now know; you don’t even have to ask. But what are you going to do for money? Now that you have broken with our father, he’ll not want to be supporting you financially any longer.”

“Grandma, I have two shillings a week pocket money every week of the year, both during term time and holidays and so I’ll manage somehow without him. There is just no way, grandma, that I am ever going back to live in that house with them. I could not care less if I never saw my father again. But if he or my mother wants to see me, then they must come here; I’ll never go into that house again. I mean what I say; I’m done with him forever.”

“Alan, listen to me, lad; forever is a long time; you might change your mind later. Whatever we both might think of him and his ways, he is, after all, your father. But for now, let’s be practical; with two shillings a week, even living with me, lad, you are not going to be able to support yourself.  Luckily, I have enough with my savings and pension income, to fend for both of us.”

“So don’t worry, Alan, you’ll not go hungry during the holidays living with me. My biggest worry is what you will do with yourself during the long summer holiday at the end of this term, now that your former school friends have turned their backs you. The summer holidays at Churton last for almost two full months, July and August and that’s and awfully long time for a young lad like you to be cooped up with just a lonely an old bird like me for company. What you need, Alan, is company of lads of your own age.”

The same thought had crossed my mind, too. What would I do with myself, during the two-months-long, summer holiday, which was coming at the end of my third term at Churton?  In addition to my problems at home with my father, I had been, more or less rebuffed by the few friends I had seen over the Easter break at home. They no longer saw me as one of them. I was neither fish nor fowl. And it was understandable; the life I was now living at leafy Churton was as remote from theirs, in grimy Bolton, as if I had moved to the moon! 

I saw that after only two terms away from Bolton,  I had changed and no longer fitted in the working-class community to which I had formerly belonged. After only two terms at Churton I realised that the scholarship I had was a two-edged sword, which cut both ways. I was receiving an education that no working-class boy in England even knew existed, but at the expense of becoming estranged from my former life.

I realised then that I could not run with the hare at Churton, and hunt with the hounds  in Bolton; I had to make a definite choice, between getting a good education  and moving on to a way of life of which I had never even dreamt only a few months ago.  The scholarship was the thin end of the wedge, which in time would gradually widen the gap between my present and former lives, to such an extent that I would end up having nothing in common with my earlier life in Bolton. jumping ahead in my narrative,I would face the same problem vis-à-vis my former schoolmates at Churton, when, in my final year, I became head-boy of the school. In accepting the position of head-boy, I had assumed authority over my former schoolmates, whom I could now beat: I was no longer one of them!

When I returned to Churton to begin my third term at the school, of course, I unburdened myself to Hugo and told him exactly what had happened at home and how I had broken with my family and would henceforth, on my return to Bolton for the holidays, live with my grandmother. The upshot was that Hugo expressed himself delighted with what had happened to me, saying that there was now no reason why I should not plan on spending the long summer holiday with him at his family home in the Dorset village of Denton.

“Look. Alan, you and I, are both alone for the holidays.  My brother Paul, who is ten years older than me and went to school  at Eton, is doing his pupilage as a barrister in chambers at Gray’s Inn in London, and I am completely on my own as I have no close friends down there in Denton. My mother died a few years ago; so there is only my father around; but as he shuts himself away in his study all day, doing I don’t know what, I only see him at meal times. So what do say? Will you come? We can travel down to Denton together after the end of term, and come back to Churton together for the start of the new school year at the end of August.”

Of course, I jumped at the opportunity to spend the summer with Hugo, who had become my best friend at Churton and immediately wrote to my grandmother, always my best friend in Bolton, to ask her if she minded my not coming back to stay with her until Christmas. With her characteristic generosity of spirit it – and also of pocket – she replied immediately that she was pleased that I had found somewhere better than Bolton to spend the summer. But, she also told me that if I sent her Hugo’s address she would send me a five shilling postal order each week so that, as she put it:  I could pay my way. How she managed to give me such a large sum of money, I have no idea; but that is exactly what she did.

In my third term at Churton, I was caned only twice: once, by house-captain, Hawtry for being incorrectly dressed for breakfast one Friday morning and then again that afternoon, by the then head-boy, Simon Stanion. 

Hawtry was never one to let grass grow beneath his feet when it came to beating arse. Directly after breakfast, before the daily house assembly, I found myself presenting my naked bum to him in his study in School-House. If you can believe it, for such a trivial, so-called offence of not having my bow-tie correctly knotted at breakfast, that bastard, Hawtry gave me twelve on the bare. So I began the day with a very sore bum, which made sitting in class throughout the entire day very uncomfortable.

It never rains but what it pours; and a deluge descended on me that particular Friday. At Churton all boys were honour bound to present themselves at the head-boy’s study, for a no-questions-asked beating at 4:30 on the Friday afternoon of the week in which ten demerits had been registered in their personal demerit diary. The previous term I had already accumulated five demerits and so midway though my third term at Churton, I found myself joining a group of six other unfortunate ten-demerit-boys in the corridor outside the head-boy’s study, at 4:30 that same Friday afternoon, waiting to be called in to have my bare bum shredded by the cane. It was my only my second experience of a head-boy’s beating.

Simon Stanion, the head-boy in my first year at Churton, had quickly forged himself a reputation of being a ferocious and indefatigably merciless expert with the cane; he was also an utter snob.  I had only once, at the beginning of my second term at Churton, experienced his legendary prowess and knew, from that one occasion that his reputation was fully justified.

 As the seven of us waited nervously to be called in to face our painful destiny, Simon Stanion swept down the corridor, in a way reminiscent of the Assyrian, who in the poem, The Destruction of Sennacherib by Lord Byron:, came down like the wolf on the fold.  From the look on his face, unlike the Assyrian in the poem, Stanion had no need of assistance of any cohorts to carry out his formidable task, which would today require him to dispense, by mandatory standing order, no less than 84 strokes of the cane: twelve to each of the seven of us, waiting tremblingly in the corridor. 

Due to the extraordinary way in which the honour demerit system at Churton worked, the head-boy of the day had no idea, until 4:30 each Friday afternoon, whether he would have a good crop of arses to beat or not.  And on the odd rare occasions when no boy presented himself himself to be beaten, successions of head-boys were disgruntled at being deprived of what had become their Friday afternoon perk. It is surprising how once a boy at public school is appointed prefect and is authorised to beat his schoolmates, ostensibly to uphold the school’s rules, he find that he enjoys his newfound powers and exercises them excessively for the combined pleasure of Schadenfreude, known in English as epicaricacy, and the pleasing, if oft-times embarrassing sexual arousal, which inevitably seems to accompany infliction of pain. 

As ever, the youngest boys were dealt with first; and as there were two first formers younger than me, whom, as they were from other houses, I knew only by sight, I was the third boy to be called in to face the music, which, given the occasion, promised to be totally percussive.  I shivered as I entered the head-boy’s study, thinking that as Stanion had limbered himself up thrashing two arses before mine, he would really be on form to take my bum to hell and back. Unfortunately, to my painful regret, I was to be proved right in my thinking, as when I emerged ten minutes later it was with an arse which had been well and truly beaten.

In my mind, there is a great deal of difference between the head-boy beating one of his schoolmates, who has voluntarily presented himself to be caned, because he has accrued a total of ten demerits from various masters and prefects over a period of time, to caning a boy, whom he himself has caught in the act of breaking some rule or other. 

In the first case the head-boy is simply doing a job, in which he is not – or should not be – involved emotionally; he is acting merely as executioner: a link in the chain, of what, for lack of another expression, is a judicial process.

In the second case, the head-boy is emotionally involved, whether he recognises it or not. His victim is often subjected to a sermon of endless moralising, which many boys claim to find worse than the beating itself. Speaking as an experienced – to coin a word - beatee myself, I do not agree with this point of view. When the cane finally bites into the bare flesh of my bum, whatever the delay, the pain is much worse than all the long-winded moralising in the world.

For the recipient, the end effect is identical; he rises from his ordeal – and make no mistake, no matter what anyone might tell you, to have one’s bare arse beaten with a rattan cane is an ordeal, from which, at Churton, one always emerged with that emblematic hallmark of an English public school beating:: an agonisingly painful, well-beaten arse, with clearly visible stripes, reminiscent of a modern art painting.

Of the present gathering waiting to be beaten that afternoon, my two younger schoolmates had emerged from the head-boy’s study, in record time, in tears; each of them was vigorously  massaging his bum,  indicating that the the head-boy had not  held back; but then,  the words hold back were not in Simon Stanion’s vocabulary when it came to beating arse.

On entering the study, I was greeted, somewhat sarcastically by the snobbish Stanion: “Well Taylor, we meet again. If my memory serves me correctly, we first met at the beginning of last term, when I had the pleasure – he really meant it – of warming your arse, when I caught you running in the corridor outside my study.  I have to say, that I thought then that I would see you frequently last term, as I thought that, as a working-class scholarship boy from the north, you would benefit from the many lessons which the head-boy’s cane would give you, in adapting your working-class manners to what is expected of you in an upper-class public school; but it evidently was not to be. However, better late than never, now that you are here, it will give me an opportunity to make up for lost time.”

Stanion could not let go of the fact that I was a working-class scholarship boy from the north and was, apparently, in his eyes, a blot on the landscape.

“You do remember, as I explained to you when we first met that Churton College is an upper-class public school and that, as working- class boy from the north, you are very fortunate to have been accepted as pupil here. But, with your working-class manners you still stick out like a sore thumb. So, Taylor, what brings you to my study today, Taylor? How can I, as head-boy be of service to you?”

Both he and I knew full well why I was there today; that I was part of the Friday afternoon demerit contingent; more importantly, we both knew and that I was going to leave his study in agony, with a richly striped bum. But I had to play along with his persiflage and bit my lip, which would have said to him, had I dared, in profane language, which I was learn only at a later date: “Piss off, you pretentious, upper-class prick.”

What I actually said to him was: “Please Stanion, I am today a member of the group of boys, all of whom have, during the past week, accumulated ten demerits. According to the school rules we are honour bound to present ourselves to you, this afternoon, for punishment, for our cumulative sins, which is why I am now here.”

He ignored completely what I had just said to him and feigned ignorance of the fact that he knew why I was there and said: “So, Taylor, let me get things quite straight; you have come to me today, because you want my assistance in increasing your awareness of the type of behaviour, which is expected of all boys, who are privileged to be at Churton; and which, I have to say, in your case, is sadly lacking; but then that is not at all surprising in a boy of your working-class background.”

He continued: “Well allow me to say that you have come to exactly the right spot for guidance in your hour of need; it is my duty as head-boy to do everything I can to help in the character development of my schoolmates, from whatever background they come.”  I said nothing, but quite cynically thought: “A friend in need is a friend indeed, as the saying has it, but I don’t ever need a friend like you.”

Stanion continued: “Allow me to assure you, Taylor, that I will be more than delighted to help you with your present problem, as I did with your last. I am flattered that you should have chosen me in your hour of need. It confirms that the firm approach, which I adopted last time we met, has borne fruit, which indicates the success of the therapy with which I now propose to treat your present problem.”

I said nothing. What should I say, after listening to such a load if pretentious tripe? But if thoughts could have killed, Stanion would have dropped dead there and then, before my very eyes.

But Stanion was not yet finished with his homilies. He now got up from behind his desk and unhooked one of the two canes hanging one each side of the fireplace. He just could not let go of my working-class origins, about which he perpetually harped on, as he continued with his high-flown, verbal moralising, saying: “Well Taylor, in spite of your working-class background, I think you have probably learned enough in two terms at Churton to know the position that you must now adopt to allow me to take the necessary action to attend to your burning needs.”

Long-winded as ever, he continued: “Take of your shorts, Taylor, and sport me your bare arse across the back of that chair there. Keep perfectly still, with your buttocks completely relaxed, whilst I apply the therapy – yet again, that mealy-mouthed word – prescribed by this school for boys, who find themselves in need of corrective guidance, (sic) from time to time, as you now do”. 

I shivered with fear at his next remark which made even worse the already painful, standard, twelve-cut beating, which all boys accumulating ten demerits automatically received, as he said: “In view of your exceptional need for counselling,  due in no small measure to the very different social status of the lower classes (yet again!) from which you come, I have decided to make a special effort, entirely on your behalf, to encourage you in your quest to integrate yourself into the very different society of Churton.”

“As a favour to you, Taylor, I have, therefore, decided to make a special effort and give you the twelve mandatory cuts of the cane in the form of six on six, rather than administer them all parallel. I appreciate that this will involve additional, immediate discomfort for you; but I am sure that you will see that this measure, which, as you will doubtless appreciate, I am doing completely dispassionately, is aimed solely at allowing you to successfully integrate yourself more rapidly into the very different society of Churton.”

My blood ran cold listening to the head-boy’s latest pronouncement, which showed him to be an unprincipled, sadistic bastard. He knew full well  as did I, the unfortunate future recipient of the six on six beating that what he was proposing to visit on my bum, would render an already painful, parallel twelve-stroke beating, utterly excruciating. 

But I suppose it could have been worse, for it was rumoured that the sadistic Stanion, if rubbed the wrong way, occasionally resorted to even more painful variants of delivering a twelve stroke beating: three on four: four on three: or that ultimate in hellish, searing, excruciating agony: the six on two.  Even Stanion, who had  no scruples about inflicting pain on his fellow schoolmates, stopped short of the twelve on one beating: all twelve strokes delivered to the exact same place on the arse of the boy being punished; or perhaps I should  have said in Churton speak: being corrected? 

But for me twelve strokes applied six on six was bad enough. Several times, I had felt the pain of the two final, so-called gating-strokes applied diagonally across ten parallels, ranging from top to bottom of my bum.  The points of intersection of the diagonals with the parallels had always been particularly painful: but they were only points. What Stanion was now proposing to do to my bare bum was much worse.

Each of the six, painful, full-length, parallel furrows, defined by two welts, raised by the bite of the cane, stretching across both cheeks of my bum, from the small of my back to the top of my legs, would now be revisited with a second swingeing stroke rendering the ultimate pain well-nigh unbearable.

I confess that I was practically shitting bricks, bent across the chair, as I waited for the first stroke to land on my bare bum. I have to say, Stanion had mastered the art of of making a boy suffer, both mentally and physically. He did not rush things, to give me time to appreciate the care he was lavishing on my bare bum. He first sawed the cane gently across my naked buttocks for several seconds, before administering his first stroke which, when it mated with the bare flesh my bum, unleashing  its full, vehement venom, took my breath away; so much so that I felt my eyes already watering.

He then leisurely laid on five more strokes, parallel from the top to the bottom of my buttocks, evenly spaced so that my entire bum was on fire; as well you might imagine, having just been given what in most other schools but Churton, amounted to a classic six-of-the-best beating. But of course my beating was not yet over as the worst was yet to come: a further swingeing six strokes applied with consummate expertise by Stanion, doubling exactly his first six.

I hated Stanion, not for beating me, which was his duty as head-boy, but for the obvious pleasure he took in the pretence that he was doing me a favour; extending himself to his limits, uniquely for my good. The rag-bag of bag of demerits for which I was being beaten in no way justified the ferocious attack he made on my arse. Alas,, this was Churton, where regular and excessively severe, corporal punishment was the accepted way of life for the boys; and I had to grin and bear it.

Finally it was over and Stanion told me I could get up, put back on my shorts and leave. But even after having beaten the living daylight out of my bum, he could not resist another dig at my working-class origins: “Well, there you have it Taylor; you now see, as working-class, scholarship boy, how things are done at an upper-class school like Churton, to whose ranks you aspire.”

At that moment I could gladly have kicked him in the teeth, not to mention another, lower part of his anatomy. However, I showed him that I was made of sterner stuff, pulled myself together and, through my tears, thanked him for his services, as was customary after a beating at Churton:  “Thank you for correcting me, Stanion; I am sure that I will benefit from the generous attention you have just given given me.”

Did he notice the sarcastic tone in my voice? I could not avoid it, as it expressed exactly how I felt about Stanion, who was a personification of the quintessential, snobbish, sadistic bastard.

CHAPTER 18.

To say the very least, my third term at Churton had got off to a resounding, if painful, start. However, luckily for me, after my first beating, the term turned out to be relatively calm; I was not beaten anyone during the course of the term. Hugo was not quite as lucky as he was beaten three times that term, once by Flogger Fogerty and twice by Sir himself, having twice received punishment notes from Mr. Thompson, our notoriously bad-tempered maths teacher.

End of term finally came and the long awaited summer holiday stretched before us. On the final Tuesday of June – for some unknown reason, terms always finished on a Tuesday at Churton – Hugo and I together took a train from Hereford to London Paddington.

When we arrived in Paddington, to my complete surprise, we were met by a very formally dressed young man, whom Hugo greeted as Robert. I later learned that Robert was one of two footmen, employed at Denton House by Hugo’s father. He had been sent to meet us at Paddington Station to shepherd us on our onward journey to Denton,

Robert returned the greeting formally by saying: “Master Hugo. I am glad to see you coming home to Denton for the summer. And this must be your school friend, Master Alan Taylor, whom your father told me would be staying with us at Denton all summer as your companion.”

I held hand out towards Robert and said: “Hello Robert; I’m pleased to meet you; my name is Alan Taylor, and you can call me Alan.”

I realise immediately that I had made a gaff, as my outstretched hand was studiously ignored by Robert, who said formally: “And I am pleased to meet you too Master Alan”. Having my hand ignored by Robert had taught me my first lesson; servants do not shake hands with their employers; or with their employers’ guests.

“Now young gentlemen, we have to get a move on as we have a fast train to Dorchester leaving from Waterloo Station in an hour, so we have to hurry if we want to catch it. Let me get your luggage and find a cab so that we can get to Waterloo in time not to miss the train.”

It was the first time I had been in London and I think we were both thankful – I know I certainly was – to have Robert oversee our move from Paddington to Waterloo. Needless to say, we had ample time at Waterloo to find the right platform for the Dorchester train. Robert installed Hugo and me in a first class compartment, of which we were the only occupants. He then disappeared, as I later discovered, to travel third class himself, to reappear on the platform when we arrived in Dorchester.

This was my first experience of having a servant who took care of things for us. Hugo, having been brought up in a household,  where servants were on hand to spare the master and his family from any task, took Robert’s solicitously respectful behaviour in his stride, as being norm between master and domestic staff. I was learning fast how the upper classes behaved towards their employees. The question of equality never crossed the mind of either Hugo, in the role of young Master of the moment, or Robert, the servant. 

Hugo and I were treated with friendly reserve and respect by Robert. The fact that the young man had ignored my outstretched hand said it all, without a single word actually having been spoken; master and servant could treat each other in a friendly manner, but they could never be friends, in the way Hugo and I were. Young Robert, in his first job, already knew his place in the society in which he worked and kept to it.

Ensconced in the luxury of the first class compartment Hugo, looked at me sheepishly and said: “Alan, I suppose I should have told you earlier but I did not, as I feared that once you knew the truth about me it might put you off coming to Denton for the summer. You see, Alan my full name is Andrew Christopher Hugo Fenwick-Denton and I am the second son of the fifth baronet, Sir Lionel Fenwick-Denton. I never use my full name, preferring to call myself Hugo Fenwick. It seemed pointless, when my brother Paul is to inherit the title, the estate and the family fortune, when our father dies, my fater is a traditionalist who wants to perpetuate the title and the baronetcy in style. So, you see, unless he leaves me something in his will, I shall be penniless when he dies and will have to earn my own living, which I intended to do anyway.”

“My father is not a peer and as a baronet, although the title is hereditary and can be handed down, he cannot sit in the House of Lords in Westminster. Unlike a lord, he could, if he wished, run for seat as a Member of Parliament in the House of Commons. So although he has title, which he can hand on to my brother, he has the legal status of a commoner, as do Paul and I. I am no different, nor ever will be, in the eyes of the law than you, Alan. The difference is that I am from a very wealthy family and you are from a working-class family in the north.  But that is not important, as I see you as my very best friend. That is why I have not told you about myself until now, as I feared you might decide not to come for the summer once you knew who I really was.”

On the journey from Waterloo to Dorchester, Hugo filled me in on his family\s history. “In the late 18th century, my four or five times great grandfather owned the biggest of only four gunpowder mills, located in the town of Dartford in Kent, some 20 miles from London.  These four powder mills were the main suppliers of gunpowder to the Royal Navy, which at the time was preparing to take on the combined navies of France and Spain; so it needed a stock pile of over 1000 tons of gunpowder to supply Nelson’s fleet for the forthcoming battle against the combined in what, on October 21st 1805 was to be the battle of Trafalgar, which was to take place off Cape Trafalgar in the south-west of Spain, near Cadiz.” 

“Nelson’s flagship, The Victory, the most important of the 27 British ships to take part in the battle, had three gun decks and 104 cannons and set sail for the battle with a crew of over 800 men on board, and with 35 tons of powder in the hold.”

“In the run up to the preparation for the battle, two of the four powder mills in Dartford were destroyed in two separate explosions and the Fenwick Gunpowder Mill, had to work day and night to make up the short-fall in gunpowder.  As a result of his services to his country, in 1806, my ancestor was made a baronet by George III, who also saw fit to bestow on him the estate, including the eighteenth century Denton House and several hundred acres with a number of tenant farms in the village of Church Denton, where the family has lived ever since, under the name of Fenwick-Denton.”

When we arrived in Dorchester, Robert again appeared on the platform. He installed us in a first class compartment in the local train, which took us to Church Denton village ten miles from Dorchester. We were met at the station by a horse-drawn carriage, driven by a second young footman, whom Hugo greeted as Edward, who drove the three of us to Denton House, some two miles from the station; Hugo and I sat in the carriage and the two footmen, Edward and Robert up front.

I am not sure what I expected to see when we arrived at Denton House. Hugo’s father, Sir Lionel Fenwick-Denton, may have been a member of the lowest echelon of hereditary nobility, but he certainly lived in style. In 1911, even middle-class families had numerous servants; in fact, prior to the first world-war, domestic service was the biggest source of employment in the country. Hugo’s father certainly did not stint himself.

The door was opened by a formally dressed butler, old enough to have been Hugo’s grandfather, but whom Hugo addressed with confidence as Harris. Harris respectfully formally welcomed Master Hugo home for the summer holidays: “Sir Lionel would like to see you and your friend straight away and he had asked me to show you both to his study immediately on your arrival. Robert will take your luggage to your room. Meanwhile we mustn’t keep Sir Lionel waiting, must we?”

To this day, I recall distinctly that Harris, the butler, had said your room rather than your rooms, which indicated that Hugo and I were to share the same bedroom. I was completely at ease with that, for as a result of sharing a dorm with nine other boys,  after a year at Churton, I had lost all my initial, working-class inhibitions about besporting myself naked in front of others.

However, I did not know it then, as neither Hugo nor I had yet received the sexual wake-up call from the hormones, which would soon to be coursing through our bodies, when we both suddenly realised that our initial friendship was changing from being just best pals, into a serious sexual relationship. The fact that we were put in one room together as twelve year olds, set a precedent for us sharing a room in the summers to come, all of which, whilst I was at Churton, I spent with Hugo at Denton House When we became a little older, it gave us the privacy as homosexuals, which we both turned out to be, to exercise the physical side of the sexual attraction which we found in each other.  

By chance, fate had decreed that we two young lads, aged eleven when we first met and, in spite of being from very different social backgrounds, established a solid friendship. We found,  as we matured sexually, that we were both were attracted to other males, rather than to females. In a word, both Hugo and I turned out to be gay: a word which took on its present meaning only in 1955.  From age 16 onwards, as two gay young men, we took advantage of the privacy that summers in Denton House afforded us. Not to put too fine a point on it, once we had found – a most men do – that toy, which never fails to please. In the exuberance of youth, we played with it to excess; we took advantage of sharing the same room, to fuck each other like rabbits.

As we walked to meet his father, Hugo shrugged his shoulders and pulled a long face directly at me, behind Harris’s back, as he escorted – marched us, would be nearer the mark – somewhat officiously along the corridor to Sir Lionel Fenwick-Denton’s study. He knocked on the door and announced our arrival to the great man himself: “Sir, as you requested, here are Master Hugo and his friend for the summer, Master Alan Taylor, to see you.”

He somehow managed to introduce a sneering note into his voice as he said my name. He clearly disapproved of a person, from what he thought of as the lower classes, being a guest in what he obviously considered was great house. Given the degree of class-distinction, which I was soon to learn also existed in the servant hierarchy, of which he was the person undoubtedly in charge, he obviously felt that it was beneath him to be obliged to treat, with respect, a working-class lad, from the unthinkable north, as a guest in the house of a baronet: a hereditary titled gentleman, who was, albeit, a very minor member of the hereditary aristocratic hierarchy.

This was the first time I had been in the presence of a man with a title and I had no idea what to expect on first meeting Hugo’s father. My first impression was that I was re-entering the Headmaster’s study at Churton. Now as then, I had the same queasy feeling in my stomach that something awfully painful was about to happen. As it turned out my premonition was, unfortunately, right. However, this time, it was Hugo alone, who was destined to have his bare arse roasted by his father.

Sir Lionel Fenwick-Denton was sitting behind a huge desk, as Sir had been on the first occasion I had entered his study at Churton. My fears were confirmed by the fact that a long, straight-handled, rattan cane, of which the purpose needed no explanation, was lying in full view on the desk.  Hugo and I were obviously to be subjected to the same discipline in Denton during the holidays, as we were in term time at Churton.  The question which posed itself was: were we both destined to be caned immediately, as neither of us had done anything to justify a beating.

As for Sir Lionel himself, my first impression was of a man of stern, no-nonsense appearance, in whose breast, judging from the already angry look on his face, probably beat a heart of solid, unforgiving stone: an impression reinforced by the presence of the cane in full view. Having done his duty, Harris, the butler, now withdrew leaving Hugo and me alone with his father. The introductions and barely welcoming words were soon dispensed with.

Sir Lionel soon confirmed my first impression of him as he began immediately to berate Hugo, in front of me, for his mediocre performance during his first year at Churton. He suddenly stopped, realising that what he had to say to his son did not concern me, before saying to me: “Alan, as I have a private matter to settle with my son, I wonder if you would mind waiting in the corridor for a few minutes, whilst I deal with Hugo?”

Framed as question, it was obviously an order, as he immediately stood up, came from behind his desk, picked up the cane in his right hand in passing, placed his left hand behind my shoulder and gently propelled me into the corridor. I believe that he purposely left the door somewhat ajar, as he went back into his study to deal with Hugo, so that I could hear, but not actually see, the whole proceedings as a lesson to me, thereby establishing his bona fides as no nonsense guardian of good behaviour to which I was also expected to conform during my stay at Denton House.

Sir Lionel was obviously very displeased with his son’s performance at Churton and he did not mince his words as he tore a strip off poor Hugo. “Hugo, I have now told you twice, at the end of your first and second terms at Churton to pull up your socks and get down to some work. Young man. I am paying exorbitant fees to send you to one of the best and strictest schools in, the country, to ensure you get the benefit of one of the finest educations that money can buy. But I see now, that my words about your persistent laziness have apparently gone in one ear and straight out of the other, for all the good they seem to have done.”

“This piece of paper, I am holding in my hand, is your end-of-year report, which is worse than bad: it is downright appalling. What all your masters, to the very last man, say, is that you are a capable boy, who does not care for work. In word, Hugo, you are the quintessence of laziness, as your English language master so eloquently summed up your character in his comment. Well, young man, if you think for a moment that I am prepared to stand by and let you plough the furrow to self-destruction during your second year at Churton, as you seem intent on doing at the moment, you had better think again. Today, Hugo, you will unfortunately face your own Waterloo, at which figurative battle, you will find you, as did Napoleon that you are on the losing side.”

“I have personally caned you twice, at the end of your first and second terms, in an attempt to arouse you from your lethargic laziness. However, judging from the present report, my efforts were to no avail as in your third term, you appear to have gone from bad to worse.  I do not know, Hugo, if you remember what I promised would do to you, the last time I caned you, if you did not get down and do some serious work in your third term term at Churton. Do you remember what I then promised I would do to you, son?”

So far, Hugo had not said a single word during the harangue, to which his father was subjecting him. But now faced with a direct question, he was forced to answer. In a tremulous voice, indicating that his father’s anger had finally made an impression on him, he ventured:  “No sir, I am afraid I have forgotten.”

“Well, son, let me refresh your memory; I said that if your performance at school did not improve, I would give you such a hiding that the skin would be taken off your bottom. In fact, I remember, quite distinctly, saying vulgarly, that I would skin your arse. My threat seems to have had exactly the opposite effect on your performance, to that which was intended, which, according to your last report, has deteriorated considerably during the third term.”

Faced, as he now realised he was with an inescapable, thorough thrashing by his father,  Hugo began to cry in front of him,  pleading, in vain, for clemency: “Father, I promise you faithfully that next year I will make an effort at school; so please, please, please, father, could you refrain from beating me now?”

But Sir Lionel was not to be deflected from his his chosen path as he said: “Hugo, you have made such promises before, not one of which you have ever kept. Words are cheap, son; action is what is now needed to bring you to your senses.  I said I would cane you if you did not improve your performance during your third term at Churton.  As I am a man of my word, that is precisely what I now intend to do to you Hugo  I am sorry to have to say to you, Hugo, that never was a boy’s bottom more deserving of a thorough beating, than yours is today.”

“I see no reason in delaying your mental agony any further. Take off your school-coat, waistcoat and shoes, and step out of your trousers and underpants. Then, if my memory of my own school days at Eton serves me correctly, I believe the correct expression is: sport me your bare arse over that armchair over there. The basic drill, with which you are already familiar from past encounters of your bottom with my cane, is to bend across the back of the chair, place your hands on its arms, and keep your head down towards the cushion, whilst I address your bottom.”

“Keep perfectly still until I tell you to to put your clothes back on. One final warning: do not be tempted to touch your bottom in an attempt to ease the pain; pain, I might add, which you richly deserve and which it my intention to make as severe as possible, in the hope that I will finally manage to impress on you that you must abandon your idle ways and get down to some serious work at school.”

Listening to Sir Lionel talk to his son, he sounded exactly like a schoolmaster himself. My heart went out to Hugo as his father continued: “This, beating will not be a walk in the park for you: one that you can shrug off and put down to experience.  On the contrary, as a father who loves you and wants you to make something worthwhile out of your life, I intend to make this the most painful of your many encounters with the cane, both at school and here at home: a beating that you will not forget in a hurry: one, which in the next few days of your holiday will remind you, each time you sit down, of the reason why you have been justly punished so severely.”

“I take no pleasure inflicting, severe pain on you in this barbaric manner; but I see no other solution to galvanise you out of your lethargy, which, if it is allowed to continue its present course, has all the appearance of becoming a way of life for you.  Now jump to it, Hugo! Take of your clothes and get your bare bottom across that chair, ready for caning, so that we can get your sad homecoming over and done with. Oh, I forgot to say to you that in view of your persistent idleness at school, I think it right and proper that you should be made to call out the number of each stroke as you receive it. And as penance for your unacceptable behaviour, thank me, after each stroke for having had the foresight to pull you back from the very brink of failure, before it was too late.” 

“The form of words of thanks that you will say to me, after calling out the number of the stroke, will be as follows: Thank you, sir, for having had the foresight to correct me before it was too late. I much appreciate your concern for my well-being and future development and beg you to continue. Please, sir, give me another stroke of the cane.”

I heard Hugo ask his father how many strokes he was to receive, only to be told that he would learn that only when he had called the number of the last stroke and thanked his father for it and was now told that the beating was over and he could now get up from over the chair and put back on his clothes. Listening to this exchange via the door left ajar, I realise that my first impression of Sir Lionel Fenwick-Denton was chillingly correct. 

Sir Lionel was hard, sadistic unyielding man, with a heart of stone, who was ready to inflict on his son, not only the beating of a lifetime, which, frankly, Hugo probably deserved, but also to submit him to the additional mental torture of not knowing when it would end. Couple this with the absurdly verbose  rigmarole of thanking him profusely after every cut – and as I later saw for myself viewing the state of Hugo’s beaten arse, cut described exactly the stripes left by his father – confirming what a covert sadistic, epicaricacist Sir Lionel truly was.  (Epicaricacist: a hitherto, non-existent word, which I have coined from the little known and used English word: epicaricacy. It means someone, who rejoices at the misfortunes of others: a quality, which Sir Lionel possessed in spades and which we all know under the German word: Schadenfreude.) 

With a crack reminiscent of a pistol shot, .I heard the first stroke land on Hugo’s bare arse.  Hugo called out the number one and thanked his father for correcting him, for the first stroke what was to prove to be many more than I had ever thought possible. Was I surprised, when after the sixth stroke fell, that the beating continued still farther? Well, I suppose, not really; for at Churton, twelve cuts of the cane on the bare, was par for the course for even the most minor of offences. But this was no ordinary beating; judging from the sharp, penetrating crack of rattan mating, time after time, with the bare flesh of Hugo’s arse. Sir Lionel, supposedly caring for his son’s future, was laying on the cane with venomous intent, as if there was no tomorrow.

Despite this onslaught by his own father, Hugo somehow managed, I know not how, to maintain his dignity and self-control, and to call out each stroke and thank his father for delivering what proved to be a total of eighteen, maliciously swingeing, excruciatingly painful strokes of rattan across his bare arse.  I guess that I should not have been surprised when the beating continued after the twelfth stroke. It was not until after the eighteenth stroke and has been thanked of ot that  Sir Lionel told his son that his punishment was over and that he should get up from over the back the chair over which he had been bending having his arse beaten for a full ten minutes and put back on his clothes.

I suddenly became aware of the fact that I was no longer alone in the corridor listening to Hugo’s beating, as the young footman, Robert, had silently appeared behind me. He whispered into my ear, that I should mind my Ps and Qs when dealing with Sir Lionel, to whom, surprisingly, given the circumstances of our meeting, he still respectfully referred to as The Master.

He then said: “If you offend the master, Master Alan, he’ll have your guts for garters at the drop of a hat. He’ll have you bare bottomed arsed across the back of a chair, before you can say Jack Robinson; and, boy oh boy, does he know how to lay on the cane, as you’ve just heard for yourself.” 

“He’s whacked both Edward and me, several times, for committing what he calls offences. He’s got no legal right to treat his employees in that way; but as there are not many jobs available hereabouts for lads like Edward and me, and as we live in a comfortable house and are well fed in addition to being paid, we agree to let The Master beat us from time to time to time, as it’s better than being out of work.  In a way, working here is like being back at school again, where the headmaster’s cane was a regular feature of our daily lives. But here it is on our bare backsides we take the cane, whereas at school it was on the hand.”

At that very moment, Sir Lionel suddenly opened fully his study door to call me in; he found Robert there with me in the corridor. On seeing Robert there, he exploded with rage, which knew no bounds, as he verbally assaulted the young man: “What are you doing here Robert?” he bellowed, his face black as thunder. “I pay you as a footman and as such I do not except you to be spying on me, eavesdropping, as I correct my son for his miserable performance at school. What, Robert, do you have to say for yourself?”

Having posed the question, he then did not allow Robert the time to open his mouth to answer, but railed straight on with his verbal lashing of the young man: “Let me tell you, Robert, that you really have gone too far this time, young man. I overlooked the fact that you forgot to wear gloves when you served my guests at dinner two nights ago. And now I find you listening in to my private conversation with my son. Your behaviour, Robert, is really too much for any decent man to stand; I am of a mind to dismiss you without a reference here and now.”

Sir Lionel obviously expected everything in his house to be done according to the then accepted conventions of the upper echelons of the aristocracy. One of the then conventions was that footmen wore gloves when they served at table. The diners served themselves with each course, from a serving platter, offered to them from the left – de rigueur – held in the gloved hands – de rigueur – of the footman, onto a plate, pre-warmed if necessary, which was placed before them, for each of the multiple courses of the excessively elaborate meals of the time. Meanwhile, the butler, un-gloved – de rigueur – served the wine from a decanter; absolutely never ever directly from the bottle.

Such dinners were minefields for the uninitiated guest to show his ignorance of the ways of the aristocracy. They could be considered as occasions of formal rectitude, where people who knew, exercised their good manners, rather than occasions of gustatory pleasure.

At the mention of potential dismissal, I saw Robert go white and begin to tremble. As he had just told me, the very last thing he wanted was to losem what was, for him, in spite of an irascible and sadistic employer, a very comfortable and enjoyable job. He started to try to explain himself and defend his position, only to be cut short by Sir Lionel, whom I was fast beginning to see a man too fond of his own voice: one of those men, who always had to be right.

“If you want to remain in my employ, Robert, I think you will agree with me that it is only right that you suffer severe redress for your two lapses, one of which we can attribute to forgetfulness. However, much more serious is the fact that you stooped so low as to listen to a private conversation I was having with my son. However, as I am, in general, satisfied with your work, I am prepared to reconsider my decision to discharge you without a reference, on condition that you agree to face retribution for the error of your ways.”

I could hear the relief in Robert’s voice as he agreed to submit himself to Sir Lionel’s not so tender loving care. As he had told me earlier, anything was preferable to better being dismissed from his job. So, he immediately accepted Sir Lionel’s’ offer. Never, in my admittedly limited experience, had a lamb so easily been led to the slaughter.  But from what Robert had told me earlier, he knew exactly what he was letting himself in for. It was not the first time that he was putting his bare arse on the line and allowing Sir Lionel to beat him, so that he would not lose his job.

“Very well, then; as you accept that you must suffer painful redress for the errors of your ways, after serving dinner this evening, you will present yourself to me here in my study and we will get the whole sad business of your momentary lapse from grace over and done with. However, after I have finished with you this evening, I promise you that, like my son whom I have just beaten for his lack of application at school, neither of you will spend a very comfortable night in your beds tonight.”

Sir Lionel then turned to me and said: “Well, Master Taylor, you have heard how I dealt with my son’s idleness at Churton.  You had now better come back into my study, as Hugo is in need of a sympathetic shoulder to cry on. What he has just endured is entirely his own fault and usrifiable, as I will not tolerate any boy, even my own son, who does not pay attention to his school work.”

“You are very welcome to spend the summer holidays with him at Denton House, for it is a lonely place for a young lad without companionship. However, I must warn you that even as a guest in my house, I will not tolerate any form of bad behaviour and shall have no hesitation in taking the cane to both you and my son, if I deem it necessary. You have been warned, young man; so do not doubt my word.”

Then turning to Robert, who was still standing in the corridor: “Robert, show this young pair to their bedroom as Master Hugo is in need of some assistance from his friend, before they both present themselves at table for dinner this evening.” He then added: “As you two boys are sharing a bedroom with Hugo, Robert will valet for the two of you, during your stay at Denton House. And if you then talk to him nicely, he will probably  bring you some soothing cream which I am sure the two footmen apply to their own bottoms after I have caned them for their, alas, quite frequent misdemeanours.”

I had never even heard of the word valet until now and I had not the faintest idea what Robert would do for Hugo and me in his role as our valet. However, I was learning fast that the ways of people who were –  to coin a phrase –  to the manner born, led a completely different home life to that of a working-class lad from the north. At Churton, I had already begun to see how different life was for the wealthier classesl; and my stay at Denton House was to introduce me to the ways and manners of an aristocratic household, where manners and customs were tantamount to in-born in boys like Hugo.

I now saw that I was at the beginning of a steep learning curve, which I had to follow and conform to the rules of, if I was to succeed in my new life, which the award of a scholarship to Churton had given me. I saw that the style of life into which I had been thrust at Churton, had already begun to distance me from my earlier life in Bolton. And now here I was, by chance befriended by Hugo, who unbeknown to me, until we were in the train on opur way ot Denton,  had turned out to be the younger son of a hereditary titled father, a baronet, who, as I was to learn, led a lifestyle way above his rank, in the pecking order of the British titled aristocracy; obviously, money was no object in the Fenwick-Denton household.

At Denton, I felt that I had my feet on the first rungs of the ladder to a better life than that into which I had been born and I decided that I would do my utmost to benefit from the chance that my scholarship to Churton and my invitation to spend the summer with Hugo had given me. If anyone had told me that I would be spending my first summer holiday from Churton College, in a grand house like Denton, which had a full complement of domestic staff, including a butler and two formally attired footmen, I would have thought them stark, raving mad. And yet, the fact of the matter, so often stranger than fiction, was that I was.

But tempering my good fortune was the fear, which Hugo’s father, Sir Lionel, had inculcated into me, by his over-the-top, brutal beating of his son. Also, he evidently had no respect for the law, as he had more or less blackmailed Robert, one of his employees, into offering his backside for a beating later that same day, by the threat of dismissal. After seeing – or, at least hearing – Sir Lionel dealing with Hugo and promising to do the same to Robert later that evening, I came to the conclusion  that he was worse than any of the cane-wielding fanatics at Churton; including  Sir, the Headmaster himself,  my housemaster, Mr. Fogerty, and any of the prefects. I had already painted Sir Lionel as an out-and-out, brutal sadist, who took pleasure in inflicting physical pain on others. He was, in fact, the quintessential epicaricacist.

But for the moment, my duty was to assist my best friend, Hugo, in his hour of need; and oh boy, looking at the trembling way, in which his father had left him, was he in need of moral support and comfort! By the time I re-entered the study, Hugo had somehow managed to dress himself – a very painful business, due to the raw state of his bum. We were led, Hugo limping with pain, to our joint bedroom by the footman, Robert, who left to fetch the cream, to which Sir Lionel had alluded. Meanwhile I helped poor Hugo remove his trousers and underpants. He lay face down on his bed, sobbing gently, with his bum totally exposed.

I was not at all surprised by his tears, as once I saw the state of the bum, with which Sir Lionel had left him, I realised that I was looking at the mother of all well-beaten arses, of which I had viewed plenty and experienced several myself during my first year at Churton, where hardly a day passed, without some poor sod being beaten. But what I was viewing was an arse, which exceeded in its ghastliness anything I had ever seen at Churton.

Hugo had called out eighteen strokes as his father had beaten him and I was now able to count every single furrow, defined by two raised welts. All eighteen strokes had been applied strictly parallel to each other, tightly, but not overlapping, from the bottom of Hugo’s back to the top of his legs, Viewed now, his arse resembled a piece of red and blue-black corrugated paper.  I supposed I was looking at a gruesome masterpiece of the art of a master flagellator, which Sir Lionel, certainly was. 

Whether that was an attribute to be proud of, I seriously doubted. But I had to admit that Sir Lionel certainly was an expert without equal: hors pair, as the French would say, when it came to beating a bare arse with a cane. He could certainly have given a few tips to the beating-brigade at Churton, none of whom, including Sir himself, had ever produced such an over-the-top, excessively-beaten arse as I was now viewing on Hugo. I must say looking at Hugo’s shredded backside, I was filled with fear that my own bum might meet a similar fate before I returned to Churton at the end of August.

Robert finally came back with the cream. Although he had heard the inimitable sound of the cane mating with Hugo’s bare flesh, it was only now that he saw the damage Sir Lionel had done to his own son, that he realised in agreeing to allow Sir Lionel to cane him rather than face dismissal, that he well might be previewing the state his own arse might well be in, after dinner that evening.

He whistled through his teeth as he gazed on Hugo’s backside, which he pronounced well and truly roasted, before saying: “Well young masters, Edward and I have several time been caned by Sir Lionel. It always hurt quite a lot, but both Edward and I agreed that it was a better alternative than losing our jobs. The only handiwork of The Master that I have seen before is the three times that he beaten Edward. And allow me to assure you that the beating, you have just endured, was at least twice as bad as anything your father has ever done to Edward or me.”

“I confess I am shocked to see the state you are in, Master Hugo. I think that your father has just given you one of the worst, if not the absolute worst beating ever. How you managed to stand what your father just did to your bare bottom, leaves me in total admiration of you, Master Hugo. I only hope that later this evening, that The Master will not treat me as severely as he has just treated you and that I have backbone enough to accept my beating in the same resolute way you have done.”

“Now, Master Hugo, if you can bear the touch of my finger on you obviously painful stripes, I will gently massage in a little of this cream, You will soon see that it will ease the acute, immediate, agonising pain of the cuts, which will be replaced by a not too painful, warm glow and that you will be able to sleep comfortably tonight.”

I saw that Hugo winced within at each touch, as the kindly Robert applied the cream to his painful backside. The soothingly anaesthetic effect of the cream was immediate and Hugo was able to control his tears. He said: “I don’t think I am going to come down to supper this evening as I’d rather stay where I am right now.”

Robert immediately looked alarmed and said:  “I don’t think that would be a very good idea, Master Hugo. You see, your father even when dining alone, which is often the case, insists on the strictest formality. He always insists that Mrs. Higgins, the cook, make him a full dinner, which Edward and I serve to him alone. Mr. Harris, the butler, pours him the wine and supervises the whole dinner, exactly as if we were serving a table full of people. I know it sounds absurd; but that is the way things are done in this house; ours not to question why, but simply to obey; Edward and I because we want to keep our jobs, and you, young Master Hugo and your friend, to avoid any further unpleasant encounters with your father’s cane.”

“I think your father would be very angry if, you and your friend did not appear formally dressed at dinner. I know that you are both rather young to appear in the dining room, but I sense that that is exactly what your father wants. I know for a fact that he gave orders to Mr. Harris to set places for both of you at table this evening. Master Hugo, I suggest that both you and your friend put on clean shirts and appear at dinner in your full school attire, at seven o’clock precisely. Not to do so would be to bring your father’s wrath raining down on both of you; and we all know of what The Master is capable when he is annoyed.”

Hugo, in a pleading on of voice, said: “But, Robert, I can hardly bear to put my school trousers back on, let alone sit through a boring dinner.”

“Master Hugo, I cannot force you to do what I have just suggested. However, I really think that it is in your best interest, for both of you to appear at dinner this evening. In my view, it would be better for you personally, young Master, to suffer the discomfort of sitting there through a tedious meal than to face the alternative of another beating, which would be much worse. You must grit your teeth and bear it.  Imagine, if you can, how I feel right now. I am going to serve dinner to the very man who later is going to roast my bare bottom as he did to you just now. I am going to allow your father to beat me after dinner this evening, as I consider that to suffer the considerable pain of an illegal beating is better than the alternative, which would be to lose my job in this house.”

Hugo, did in fact, take Robert’s advice; both he and I appeared at dinner replete in our full school gear, which was a formal as we could be. Sir Lionel was dressed up to the nines, in white tie and tails, even though I was the only guest. He obviously had the money to live, as he evidently did: the style of a self-indulgent life of a man, with pretensions well above his rank, at the bottom of the hierarchy of the hereditary, titled aristocracy.

Hugo subsequently told me that he believed his father resented the fact that his forebearer had been elevated only to the rank of baronet and not baron by King George III, and that he was addressed only as Sir Lionel and not Lord Fenwick-Denton.

“My father lives under a constant inferiority complex which make him the belligerently, self-important man he is” said Hugo. He tries unsuccessfully to satisfy his ego by leading a life, in which he displays our family’s obvious wealth, essentially to himself. He would give his right arm to be invited to dinner in Dorchester by Lord David Dorset; but he never is, nor will he ever be. Class distinction runs throughout British society from the lowest to the highest. The titled, landed gentry are all very well aware of their position in the pecking order. I hate the whole set-up, which is why I have adopted the abbreviated name of Hugo Fenwick.

I have never seen anything remotely like the table for dinner in Denton House. In 1911, electricity had still not arrive in deepest Dorset and we dined by the light of 18 candles, held high above the us, in three tall, six-branched candelabra, arranged down the centre of the table; and, as if that was not enough, numerous decorative objects of solid silver were arrange down the middle of the table. It goes without saying that the cutlery was of solid silver.

Frankly the entire evening was an essay in excess. Just think of it; we were two twelve-year-old boys sitting with one adult, at a table so sumptuously set that we could have been royalty. But the excess did not stop there, for the three of us were served by both Edward and Robert, wearing the obligatory gloves of footmen, whilst the butler, Harris, whom I had difficulty in addressing just as Harris, as protocol demanded, poured the wine barehanded for Sir Lionel and water for Hugo and me. The whole evening was a surreal mix of fact and fantasy.

How Robert managed to maintain his cool, in the knowledge that once the dinner was over he was going to offer his bare arse to be shredded by Sir Lionel’s cane, I will never know; but he did, He was not, however, allowed to forget his forthcoming encounter with the cane. As soon as Sir Lionel stood up he reminded Robert of his appointment with him in his study. I shuddered in inwardly at the thought of what the brutish Sir Lionel was about to visit, quite illegally, on poor Robert’s backside.

Hugo and I went to bed rather early that night, as Hugo was still suffering the effects of the beating his father had given him earlier that same day. I was amazed and somewhat shocked by the way, in which Hugo discarded his clothes on the floor, and made no attempt to pick them up:  Hugo said nonchalantly:  “Robert, who is valeting for us, will do that when he comes to see us later. After all, we have to leave something for him to do as that is his job: looking after our clothes and seeing that we are well turned out for every occasion.”

I must just comment that I saw Robert as a friend to Hugo and me, in spirit at least, if not in fact. He always took care never to overstep the bounds of respect that a servant owes to his employer. So, as a servant in Denton House, as he always referred to Hugo as Master Hugo and addressed me as Master Alan; and, whenever he mentioned Sir Lionel to Hugo and me, he referred to him as The Master. I quickly saw that there was no way in which Hugo and I could call the friendly Robert a friend.

We were on friendly, indeed on intimate terms with Robert, but not actually friends in the way Hugo and I were. Robert had massaged soothing cream into Hugo’s painful, beaten bum and no one could get closer than that. But Robert very wisely knew his place as a servant in the household and kept to it. He never overstepped the bounds of respect for the family for which he worked; and this despite the fact that Sir Lionel, his employer had sorely and also, illegally, abused him in the past and was proposing, that very evening, to do the same thing again.

I realised then that even though Hugo claimed to have renounced his life as the son of a baronet, he was nevertheless the product of an aristocratic household where there were servants to hand for every job.  Now that he was home for the holidays, he could not shake off the upbringing into which he had been born.  I thought to myself that if, under the severe draconian rules imposed on us at Churton, he had left his clothes on the floor if the dorm – one of the many deadly sins – he would immediately have felt the bite of that cure-all, the cane, of the duty prefect across his bare bum for his transgression.

As Robert limped painfully into our bedroom that first night, after having just been thrashed by Sir Lionel, I would have liked to have been given the chance to view his stripes. But he did not offer us that privilege and neither Hugo nor I had the temerity to ask him. Robert, dutifully and without comment, picked up Hugo’s discarded clothes, from the floor, onto which he had thrown them. Next morning, Robert appeared in his footman’s livery, to open the curtains and draw the first of our baths.

Here at Denton, Hugo fell quickly into his old, sybaritic ways, which not only he, but also the servants, accepted as the norm. Hugo would never be other than to the manner born. Just as he could not escape the shadow cast by his earlier life at home, so also was it with me: I realised that my humble early upbringing would, if not haunt me, be with me for the rest of my life. So I just accepted Hugo, my best friend, for what he was: a product of the environment in which he had grown up. As his guest, I followed suit and quickly accepted as the norm that the servants were there to be at our beck and call to do our bidding,

It is hard for anyone reading these reminiscences about the way life was, well over seventy years ago, now totally disappeared, to realise how oppressed were then working classes compared with the then aristocratic landed gentry, when class distinction was then at its height as he bane of life in the UK.

I confess that at Denton House, I quickly fell into the style of life, where one of a phalanx of – at least to my mind – supernumerary servants fetched and carried for the small family of Sir Lionel, Hugo and me. I soon saw the advantage to Hugo and me of having our own personal servant, in the form of Robert as valet, to clean up after us and look after our clothes, which were,, by some feat of prestidigitation, always clean and ranged neatly in the wardrobe and drawers.

Nothing was too much for Robert, who in his diligence at least equalled, if not outdid, that phalanx of monks, friars, knights and squires, who served the Lord Primate on bended knee, in the humorous poem The Jackdaw of Rheims.

Author’s Note: The complete poem is available on the internet.

Visit:  www.bartleby.com/360/9/102.html

The first of what was to become my annual visit to Denton House for the summer, during my entire Churton School career, was idyllic, apart from Hugo’s welcome home beating. As two young lads, Hugo and I roamed freely, over what seemed to me then, a vast paradise in the country. We both managed to be well-behaved, so that after that first thrashing by his father, neither Hugo nor I was ever beaten for misbehaving and Sir Lionel’s cane remained unused. When time to return for our second year at Churton, Robert accompanied us as far as Paddington and saw us safely onto the train for Hereford.

CHAPTER 19.

At the beginning of my second year as a scholarship boy at Churton, as was the custom in School House the first form dorm, replete with its original ten members, was relabelled as the second form dorm. After a year of living together and being beaten, by our overzealous house-captain Hawtry and his cohort of two prefects into a cohesive dorm of ten boys, whose motto was; One for all and all for one, we were now, in our second year, consigned to the tender loving care of the newly appointed house-captain, Simon Stern and his two co-prefects, all of whom, were to prove dedicated to maintaining the tradition of the cane.

By the end of our first year, we had all become phlegmatically impassive to the pain of the cane, which was accepted as a fact of life by boys of all ages throughout Churton College. Were we inhibited by the very real threat of the cane? Of course we were not; the ten members of my dorm were, collectively and individually, no exception to the expression: Boys will be boys. And so over the years, either individually or as the whole dorm, we regularly suffered at the hands of a series of over-zealous heads-of-house and prefects whose favourite pastime was skinning our arses, indulging their apparent love of epicaricacy.

And so my life continued at Churton. I am happy to say that I proved myself worthy of the scholarship, which had brought me to the school. Throughout my career at Churton, I systematically took first place in all subjects without ever appearing to be a swot. Unlike Hugo, my best friend, who made little effort to keep up with his school work, as a result of which, he was a regular monthly visitor to Sir’s study, where his arse and sir’s cane became intimate acquaintances.

Until I left Churton age 18 and went to university at Cambridge I spent every summer with Hugo at Denton House in Dorset. Christmas and Easter each year, I spent with my grandmother in Bolton. But true to my word I never again entered my parents’ house: the very house where I was born: the place I had called home for the first eleven years of my life. During my entire time at Churton, the rift between me and my father never healed. My mother came to see me at her mother’s: my grandmother’s, house; but during my entire time at Churton, I never exchanged a word with my father. He never got over the fact that his dire predictions for me at Churton remained unfulfilled and that I had not come running home before Christmas of my first term, with, as he had out it:  “My tail between my legs.”

But to come back to the numerous, long gone, summers I spent with Hugo at Denton, of which I have  the fondest memories As Hugo was inveterately lazy, his father, Sir Lionel Fenwick-Denton always ranted on, quite justifiably, about his son’s perpetual unsatisfactory end-of-term reports and vented his spleen on Hugo’s arse with his cane. Hugo took in his stride this annual beating, which occurred, like clockwork, on the day of our arrival. It seemed have no effect on his performance at Churton, until he was in the sixth form. He then surprised everyone by suddenly putting his shoulder to the wheel and secured a place for himself at Oxford University.

I guess it was the summer at Denton, when we were both sixteen years old, that our platonic relationship changed from the youthful exuberance of being just best friends to something deeper. Sex education was then totally non-existent in schools.  Indeed sex was considered as a taboo subject and never discussed openly in polite society; however, it was then as now, ever present. Hugo and I had no preconceived ideas about sex or how it would profoundly change our present, innocent relationship. In fact neither of us had given a thought to sex until it spontaneously manifested itself in the form of spontaneous nocturnal emissions – the classic wet-dreams – as our two bodies entered puberty, more or less at exactly the same time.

Both Hugo and I had been discouraged from masturbation; he at prep school and I at council school in Bolton, by Mr Edwards the Headmaster, who gave us boys an apology of an introduction to sex. We were both told, as were the vast majority of boys back then, that if we indulged in what was coyly referred to as playing with ourselves—obviously referring to our penises, we risked ruining the rest of our lives, in some totally undefined way. Self abuse, the term for masturbation, although practically universal among the male population of all ages, was definite no-no for schoolboys. 

This vilification of a natural act was widely preached to the male youth as the gospel according to St. Abstinence, whose creed was: Do as I say and not as I myself do.  The implication that if we played with ourselves was would do untold, undefined damage to an equally undefined aspect of our future lives, was quite off-putting. It was part of the obfuscation about matters sexual in general which then reigned. Anyway, it had had that inhibiting effect on both Hugo and me. When our wet dreams came, like an unexplained bolt out of the blue, neither of us had any knowledge of sex at all.

However, like most boys of our age in the throes of puberty, sex would soon become the most important thing in our lives in our final two years at Churton. That summer in Denton, we mutually saw that we were attracted to each other in a different way and quickly discovered, quite naturally, without any instruction, the untold joys of masturbating together, an act, of which, in our innocence, we had never even heard, when the male hormone, testosterone, started coursing through our veins provoking our wet dreams.

As two naïve, sexually completely ignorant boys stuck in the Dorset countryside for the summer, the question was, whom we to ask about the meaning of what we were experiencing. Hugo’s father was totally remote: a forbiddingly unapproachable, taciturn figure, who appeared only at mealtimes. He was not the sort of person, whom two teenage boys could approach with such a delicately embarrassing problem as ours.

Writing this over seventy years later, I see that even today, when everybody  by the age of twelve, knows everything about sex – or think they do – sexual discussions between children and their parents are still fraught with embarrassing difficulties.  Children often see their parents as idealised asexual beings, with no sex life of their own and no understanding of their children’s worries, even though they themselves probably had experienced similar problems in their youth. Many children, quite understandably, find it simpler to cry on the shoulder of an independent guru: a father confessor figure, to whom they can pour out their problem in an uninhibited way.

And of course, that is what Hugo and I did. No prize for guessing to whom we chose to pose our questions: Robert the second footman, who was, as ever, acting as our valet and whom we could question in the privacy of our bedroom.

On my first visit to Denton, Robert was new to the job as second footman and could not have been more than eighteen years old at the time. Now, a few years later he was probably 21 years old: an age sufficiently close to ours to feel that he was a kindred spirit, who presumably had already gone through the phases of changing from a boys into a man, of which our wet dreams were the first visible sign.

It was one evening in our bedroom, after Robert had picked our clothes which we – to my shame, I had followed Hugo’s bad example – had thrown on the floor as we put on our pyjamas, Hugo said to him: “Robert, if you have a minute, please sit down, as Alan I have something we want to ask you.”

Then followed an awkward silence in which neither of us quite knew how to broach what, even with Robert, was a somewhat embarrassing subject. Finally, with an encouraging nod from Hugo, it was left to me to begin.

“Robert, both Hugo and I, have recently started wetting ourselves in our sleep. When I say wetting ourselves, I don’t mean peeing in our sleep, as what we emit is a sticky sort of liquid, which is caught in the trousers of our pyjamas. I was the first to experience it and thought that something was wrong with me. But when Hugo started to experience the same thing, we both suddenly saw that our bodies were changing. But as we regularly have these wet dreams, which we have talked about between ourselves, we wondered if you, Robert, being a bit older and a man of the world, had ever had such experiences yourself and could tell us why we have suddenly begun to have such nocturnal emissions, which, by the way, we both find extremely pleasant.”

Robert, who, when he was told to sit down had looked very uncomfortable, suddenly relaxed and smiled knowingly at us, as he began: “Young masters, neither of you has anything at all to worry about; there is nothing at all physically wrong with either of you. What you are experiencing right now is the first visible sign that you are changing from boys into young men.”

“Now I suppose you know nothing about the changes, which not only will happen to your bodies and voices, but also to your attitude to people in general, and in particular, of members of the opposite sex, who will rapidly  become increasingly important to you.  At another time, I can lead you through the whole business, of what changing from  boys into men will mean to you, as you discover sex, which has played no part in your lives to date, but which will become the most important driving force in the future. What you just experienced so far in your wet dreams, is a taste of the joys to come.”

If Robert had thought that having whetted our appetite by mentioning that unthinkable, that unspeakable taboo subject of sex, he could put off, to another day, giving us a complete, unexpurgated version of what it meant for Hugo and me and our relationship as best friends, he was quickly forced think again as Hugo said to him:  “Robert, you can’t now duck out of things just when they are becoming interesting. Now is as good a time as any to tell us the whole story. Come on Robert, be a good chap and spill the beans; we are all ears.”

Poor Robert had painted himself into a corner and finally agreed to Hugo’s demand. I don’t know if readers appreciate how difficult it was for an uneducated person such as Robert, with his limited vocabulary, to describe to his young audience, to whom he was a servant, the unspeakable but pleasurable acts of sex indulged in by men alone and with others – uniquely female, in Robert’s eyes.

We listened with rapt attention to all that Robert had to say to us as he unfolded verbally the sexual joys which awaited us as we grew older and more daring in our sexual experimentation. He started with the act of playing with ourselves, which he said all boys of our aged indulged in. He then moved on to the manifold pleasures of solo masturbation and the pleasure which orgasm brings, before describing the untold pleasures of masturbation together with friends. Orgasm, he told us, was the feeling of extreme pleasure, which we felt at the moment of emission of our sperm during our wet dreams.

“No matter how many times you experience it,” he said, “Orgasm will always always give you great pleasure,  you will never tire of it. Orgasm is, I think, the factor which keeps our sex lives alive.”

Robert had obviously given considerable thought to matters sexual; as he went on to tell us in great detail what are normally called the facts of life. As intelligent, seeing boys, we had long been aware that females carried their babies several in their bellies for several months before giving birth. However, given the then silence surrounding sex, like most young schoolboys, Hugo and I had no idea of how the baby got there in the first place. All was now revealed to us in the greatest detail by Robert.

“Sharing the act leading to orgasm with a woman, whom you love, is the greatest act of pleasure you will ever experience in your whole lives. The sexual union of a man and a woman is the source of all life.” Robert gravely told us: “You young masters may not believe it right now, but when you get a few years older,  you will see that the attraction of the opposite sex will become irresistible and you will both wish to what is called, in polite language, make love to a woman.” 

Robert hesitated for a moment before telling us that the urge in men to make love to a woman was vulgarly called fucking. “The urge to fuck is so strong in young men that many of them have sex with young women with whom they are not in love, which the church tells us is a sin.”

“Not for nothing does the English wedding service include the words: It was ordained for a remedy against sin, and to avoid fornication. In case you two young gentlemen are unaware of the fact, fornication means consensual sexual intercourse outside of marriage. The fact of the matter is, that in spite of the church’s strictures, many young men and young women fornicate, as the urge to fuck is just too strong to resist, as you two young gentlemen may soon find out. The world does not come to an end and the fornicators are not stricken dead for their sinful act. Personally, I think the church’s attitude to sex is all a load of humbug.”

Robert had given us a lot to think about. He had in fact given us a complete run down on sex as he saw it, including a full account of the facts of life.  I would not have dared myself to pose the question, but Hugo then had the temerity to ask: “Robert, do you ever commit a sin yourself; I mean do you do what you have just told us men and women do all the time together? Do you yourself ever fornicate?”

Robert looked very sheepish at such a direct and intimate, personal question. He hung his head and did not answer such a pointed question.  However, without saying a word, we knew that he had answered the question. Robert was a normal man who sinned in the eyes of the church, which for some unknown reason I found praiseworthy’ I can tell  you that I was mightily relieved that Hugo did not press Robert with further questions on the subject of his sex life.

CHAPTER  20.

Writing these memories in 1985 at the age of 85, I doubt if Hugo and I then realised that what Robert had told us about sex, was all heterosexual orientated. All the acts that he had described to us in quite graphic detail were between a man and a woman.  The only vaguely homosexual allusion in his entire exposition was in communal masturbation among schoolboys. Not that the lack of mention of homosexual relations would have mattered much to us at that time, as I doubt that as naïve  boys, as both Hugo and I then still were, that we  even knew the word homosexual existed, let alone gay men, as we now refer to them.  Hugo and I were still innocent schoolboys: best friends with no sexual overtones to our relationship whatsoever.

I know that it sounds amazing to readers today, that two sixteen ear old schoolboys were so ignorant about sex.  But back then, people were very tight-lipped about sex, which was not a topic to be discussed in polite society. However, beneath the blanket of silence, sexual practices were as alive and well then as they are today; it was just that no one talked about them. Our ignorance about sex would soon change; our questioning of Robert, brought on by our worries about our wet-dreams, which were the wake-up call heralding the onset of puberty in both of us, would suddenly establish sex as a major force in our lives.

For the moment we contented ourselves with playing with our cocks, which quickly led, as it inevitably does in boys of our age, to full scale masturbation together, as we discovered the real pleasures which masturbation to orgasm brings. In brief, thanks to Robert’s tuition, we had discovered and were able to enjoy, one of the two sex toys, which never fails to please; the other is, of course, sexual intercourse between two people.  But such delights were still still some way down the road for Hugo and me; for the moment we were content to wallow in the delights of so-called self-abuse, which we practised to excess.

We quickly became aware of the fact that Hugo and I were not alone in having discovered the pleasure of what we came to call wanking. Beneath the sheets in every bed in the dorm at night there was covert activity as our dorm mates masturbated as did we, in search one of the greatest pleasures known to man: the male orgasm.

Unfortunately, the male orgasm, whether spontaneous, as in a wet-dream, or self-induced by masturbation, is a messy business, involving, as it inevitably does, the often violent emission of a quantity of sticky sperm. This is definitely a negative aspect accompanying one of the most pleasurable activities of schoolboys.

Whilst a boy can do nothing to mitigate the side-effects of a wet-dream, which is entirely beyond his control, the sperm being automatically deposited in the crotch of his pyjama trousers. However, orgasmic emissions produced by masturbation are another matter. Once discovered, boys are, in general, incapable of depriving themselves of the pleasure of masturbating, as it becomes totally addictive, like drug. At Churton, where every member of my dorm wanked, more or less nightly, we all caught our spunk in what was normally referred to as a wank-rag, which was secreted away from prying eyes next morning and retrieved again for use in bed the following night. However, given that we were forced to change our underwear every day – at Churton, bodily cleanliness came well before good learning –   many of us used our underpants as wank-rags and each morning threw them into the laundry basket.

Inspired by the words of the bawdy limerick about the couple from Aberystwyth, if Hugo and I did not, as we got older, and grew somewhat bolder, unite the things that we pissed with, we certainly familiarised ourselves with each other’s sexual attributes, in the course of which we both realised that we were becoming more than just best friends and were viewing each other in the way in which boys normally view girls. Although our facts-of-life tutorial from Robert had been strictly based on the sexual relations between man and woman, we both realised that we were attracted to other physically and wanted greater intimacy than simply jerking off together.

With no false modesty, I can say that by the age of sixteen, when Hugo and I began sharing a study bedroom together, thanks to the rigorous exercise, to which all boys at Churton were subjected several times each week, we had both developed into muscular, well-equipped-where-it-most-matters, handsome, sexy looking young men which would have given any girl, on whom we had smiled, what is today referred to vulgarly as the hots.  But neither of us was built that way.

We came to realise that both of us had eyes only for other boys; and because we had become best friends as new boys at Churton, it was completely understandable that we drifted together into an ever deeper and more intimate sexual relationship. However, it was not until we were both 16 and sharing a study bedroom together that we became buggers; that word which Oscar, Hugo’s cousin, now in the advanced sixth form at Churton, had first mentioned to us as new boys,, but had deigned to explain what act of buggery really involved.

However, once we discovered the pleasure of having anal sex with each other, Hugo and I fucked each other with the gay abandon abandon of youth. We became practising homosexuals, which were then generally thought of as perverts or buggers; such a brutal officially legal word for men who indulge privately in the act of anal sexual-intercourse between themselves and do no harm or cause offence to others. But the fact is that having regular sex together, gave Hugo and me two glorious sixth form years at Churton together. What we learned from each other would give us a lifetime of infinite, sexual pleasure, each of us subsequently a new partner, whom we each met and fell in love with at university; I at Cambridge and Hugo at Oxford.

But I see I am getting ahead of myself;  Hugo and I had not actually had any physical sexual contact, other than fondling of each other’s cocks in a few, furtive, mutual-masturbation sessions, until, when in the lower sixth at Churton, we shared aged 16, that  study bedroom. At Churton, the problem had been, where to conduct, in private, such initial explorative sexual urges, which not only Hugo and I, but the whole dorm was experiencing.  For regular sexual relief, we were all reduced to jerking-off into wank-rags under the cover of the sheets on our beds in the dorm at night. We all lived a public life as part of a community of ten boys in the same dorm; so nothing remained secret for very long.

The great escape from the strictures surrounding sex, came at age 16, when we all moved into the lower sixth, when, considered as young men, we were allowed to abandon the ten bed dorm and moved into two men sharing a study bedroom.  Obviously Hugo and I, the best of friends, shared a room, which gave us the privacy we craved to explore our burgeoning sexual relationship, I guess that we were the only two, truly gay young men in the dorm; and, as far as I ever knew, we were the only pair to establish a firm, sexual partnership, which was to last until we both left Churton to go to university.

It may seem strange today, when every young man knows everything– or almost everything – about gay sex, but when we moved into the same room together, we had only the rudiments of knowledge of what sex between two males comprised. We had no idea what men actually did to each other. Other than the fact that we both lusted over the other’s body, especially the other’s penis, balls and buttocks, we have never ventured farther than communal masturbation.

 I don’t even think that we then knew that we were both homosexual. I can tell you that as we were both well endowed sexually – over-endowed – as was frequently pointed out to us by some of our schoolmates. But what young man is not proud to possess a big penis, of which his companions are jealous and secretly covet?  Generous sexual endowment and athleticism are generally a matter of pride for those who have them and source of envy from those who don’t.

 However, now that we enjoyed the privacy of a room together, we very quickly linked up the dots of Robert’s teach-in about heterosexual sex. Let’s face it; in simple terms, we wanted to fuck each other. To two young men both desperate for the other’s body, it was as plain as a pikestaff that a man possessed only one hole in his body into which his partner could thrust his dick in emulation of heterosexual intercourse: and that hole was the anus.

In fact, thinking back about how Hugo and I, a pair of unbelievably inexperienced innocents at the age of sixteen, began fucking each other, I have come to the conclusion that man automatically knows how to satisfy his urge for sex with another warm body; he does not need any instruction about what to do; He has an inbuilt instinct, which tells him how to go about assuaging his desire for sex, which at certain moment in his life becomes the be-all and end-all of his existence and has to be satisfied by action. In those who cannot control their own libidos,, it can lead to rape: both hetero- and homosexual We may have been a naïve pair, but we sure made up for lost time, once we had grasped the fundamentals of anal sex.

 I am quite convinced myself that two children abandoned on an uninhabited, desert island, in the unlikely event that they survived and became adults, would ultimately copulate; and this no matter whether the couple was heterosexual or just two men. In the latter case, the one would automatically bugger the other. Every died-in-the-wool gay man, which is what Hugo and I were, is attracted by the cock, balls and arse of every man he fancies, and automatically, on first sight, attempts to judge the possibility of him becoming his sex partner. This why many gay men, hop promiscuously from partner to partner, in the search off the one, with whom he ultimately hopes to spend the rest of his life.

But to come back to Hugo and me, and our first real sexual union when we were just 16 years old, the first night we were alone together in our two-man study bedroom, we were both so psyched up with the anticipation of the hitherto unknown and undefined act, in which we were about to indulge together, that we were barely inside the room before we both begin ripping off our clothes.

Totally naked, we fell of one of the beds and were all over each other, as we began greedily exploring each other’s body in a way which had, until now, been impossible. We needed no instructions as to what to do, for it all seemed to come completely naturally. We both revelled in the way, that for the first time, we were able, in a totally uninhibited way, to explore the other’s body; nothing: absolutely nothing was taboo.

Hugo spontaneously took my already semi-erect cock into his mouth and started sucking me off. This was the most erotic experience of my life to date and I was barely able to control myself.  Totally thanks to Hugo, I quickly climaxed into the most powerful orgasm I had ever had in my life, which knocked for six any self-induced orgasm I had, perforce, achieved through masturbation in the past. I quickly dumped my load of sperm over Hugo’s face.

Then it was my turn. I ran my lips down Hugo’s body, kissing him profusely, until I reached my ultimate goal: his cock, which was, by then, rock hard. I then gave him a return bout of what I was later to learn was called fellatio: oral sex; better vulgarly known as cock sucking. I quickly brought him to orgasm, as he had just done for me.  We then moved on quite naturally to the ultimate sex act, where I penetrated his anus with my hard penis, committing my first act of buggery, thereby, unbeknown to me then, breaking the benighted law of the land and exposing us both of us to prosecution as criminals.

As with my desert island couple, we did not need any instructions to tell us what to do next. What the then law of the land and,  regrettably, most conventionally thinking people– alas, then the vast majority of the adult population – defined what we were about to do, as an unnatural act, and thought of and called likes of  us as perverts. I have to say, that Hugo and I new to the game, as gay young men, found anal sex a completely natural and an agreeable act from the word go.

After I had brought Hugo to his climax with my mouth, it was obvious to both of us what was to happen next, as we both prepared ourselves to commit, for the very first time the act of anal, penetrative, sexual intercourse. I think that we were both trembling at the thought of what the next step would mean to us. This was a unique two phase occasion, in which we would both actively fuck each other and surrender the virginity of both our penises and anuses to the other.

Once completed, there was no going back; figuratively we would have crossed the Rubicon, unleashing not a civil war, as Caesar had done when he crossed that fatidic river, but hopefully achieving a fulfilling and enduring, sexual relationship between us. At that precise moment psyched up by the oral foreplay, we both desperately wanted to fuck each other; so that is exactly what we did.

As Hugo was already on his back, there was no discussion as to who should penetrate whom first. He willingly spread his legs, giving me, for the first time, sight of his tight little anus, the hole into which I was destined shortly to push my cock. I can tell you, as I prepared to fuck Hugo, my very first fuck ever, my heart was already beating nineteen to the dozen that I thought it was going to burst.

Now that push had come to shove, almost literally, in the light of what I was about do to Hugo, I confess that it was with some trepidation, with which I viewed the task in front of me. Imagine how we both felt as two sixteen year old boys, about to have anal sex for the first time, in the knowledge that neither of us would ever be the same after the deed was done. After I had penetrated Hugo, we would both have lost half of our male virginity and if things went ahead, once I had finished fucking him, he would do the same for me.

Author’s Note: To add a touch of realism to the story, I thought that readers might like to see role models of how I envisage Alan and Hugo to have been, aged 16, on the day they first had sex with each other.

As this is a suitable place to view the role models for these two, handsome, virgin, young men as they were before they lost their innocence, please visit: 

http://images.gaypornpics.xyz/43/117068/3b97f4ac8244ca1a048863359c98cc84/2333022.jpg

But this was not the time to be hesitant and have second thoughts about what we were about to do to each other, which we both so badly wanted right then. We had already made our bed and it was up to me, as prime mover on this unique occasion, to go ahead and figuratively lie in it.  My cock, the chief dramatis persona this first act, was rock-hard and raring to go and was already leaking cum, like a tap with a faulty washer, even though Hugo had, just a short while ago, sucked it dry, giving me a most intense orgasm, accompanied by an absolute tidal wave of my sperm.

Knowing that I had to penetrate Hugo’s anus, I first gently pushed the tip of my cock against what seemed a very small, tight pucker giving access to his rectum, into which my cock was eventually to slide. Hugo’s rectum was to become, during a final two years at Churton, both a place of refuge and comfort for my cock, as was mine for his; a sort of a playground  for our cocks, as we fucked each other like rabbits.

At the first touch of my cock against his anus, I felt instantly the automatic reflex tightening of his anal muscles in an attempt to repel all boarders. However with persistent increased pressure, Hugo suddenly relaxed and allowed my cockhead to penetrate what had hitherto been his most private, inviolable place. I waited a few seconds, before adventuring further into the unknown depths of pleasure; then in one smooth movement I sank the full seven inches of my erection inside him. He emitted a slight groan of pain, as my dick brushed past what we both were later to learn was his prostate gland.

I had now achieved the first objective and had sacrificed the virginity of my penis to Hugo’s anus.  What Robert had not told us, was that when a man fucks a woman, she automatically secrets a natural lubricant in her vagina to facilitate the entry of the male organ. Such lubrication is totally absent in anal intercourse and can lead to a rough fuck for both parties the act: the fucker and the fucked – to coin yet another phrase.

Nature was kind to me on my maiden fuck. As I have already said, I was so psyched with anticipation that to slightly misquote the 23rd psalm: my cock was running over. So it was my own, slippery precum, leaking my leaking from my cock, which saved the day, acting automatically as a lubricant.  For my sins, once I started the reciprocating movement, thrusting and withdrawing my cock from Hugo’s rectum, the quintessential motion of all fucking, it was my own pre-cum which made for a comfortable outcome for both of us in our first maiden attempt at sex together.

Whether our maiden attempt at anal copulation could be called a success, I very much doubt. I was unable to control myself; and after a very few thrusts, my cock erupted into a second, full-blown blown orgasm of an intensity, of which I had never before felt the like. For me it was a superb moment; but I wondered how Hugo felt, as I ejaculated almost immediately what seemed like buckets of semen, which I deposited deep inside of his rectum.

It led me to question myself, what satisfaction, if any, the passive partner, in this case Hugo, got from our coupling. In fact, as Hugo was now about to do the same thing to me as I has just done to him, I asked myself what I, as the passive partner, willingly offering my own anus to Hugo, wanted to experience from the act. With a shock, I realised that I did not know the answer to this question. 

The only thing I knew was that when I personally was the active partner, I wanted to achieve orgasm for myself uniquely by the use of my cock, and dump my load deep inside Hugo with no manual assistance. However I had no idea at all what he, the passive partner, had been expecting from the act; nor, when roles were now reversed, had I any idea what I personally expected, other than a rectum filled with his semen.

Let’s face it; Hugo and I, in common with most young, gay studs of our age, had not a clue about the wider implications of anal sex. All we knew was that we wanted to fuck each other as often as possible, in case it was dropped from the social etiquette book and went out of style! The lustful desire to satisfy the pressing demands of our teenage libidos was the sole motivation we had for fucking each other. Forget the lofty ideals about mutual satisfaction and love etc. etc. ad nauseam; at that moment, they did not exist. Lust, lust lust was then our only motivation to fuck each other.

It was in that optic that I then went ahead and sacrificed my anal virginity to Hugo’s then still virgin cock. To give credit where credit is due, my best friend acquitted himself splendidly and managed to climax inside me, filling my rectum with his semen, as I had done for him. To take a word out of its usual sexual context, we had begun our sex life together, by each impregnating each other each with his semen. Ever the romantic, I thought that the fact that we were each carrying a sample of what I fancifully thought of as the seed of life of the other, albeit temporarily inside of ourselves, somehow cemented our initial relationship.

To the best of my knowledge, none of our erstwhile dorm-mates enjoyed the regular sex that Hugo and I did in our shared study bedroom. It was the only one of five similar shared rooms in School House, where sex regularly took place, strictly between Hugo and me; the others preferred the inconvenience of exercising their cocks elsewhere, in order not to sully their joint nests, where the two partners to the deed were not necessarily the two occupants of the room.  But, as with Hugo and me, it was a period of experimentation of the undoubted joys of sex, for us all.

Our initial fall from grace, as I am sure that most of the population of the time would view it, was the prelude to a two year, lust driven sexual relationship between Hugo and me, which was suddenly to disappear at the end of the last summer holidays I spent with him at Denton House, before we both, then aged eighteen, went up to University in September 1918, the year the Great War ended; I to Cambridge and he to Oxford,

That summer of 1918 at Denton marked the end of our sexual intimacy; and indeed, although neither of us realised it at the time, it also marked the ending of our long-term, school-boy friendship. We just drifted apart, without a cross word passing between us, as friendships, especially those established in youth, so often do. I think by this time, after two years of regular, intense, sexual intimacy, based purely on, and maintained only by mutual lust, with no deep love for each other, we had both realised that there had to be more to life as confirmed gay, young men, than simply fucking each other – to use a northern expression –at every verse end! Speaking for myself, I most certainly had.

The fact that we each went to a different university, geographically far apart, provided the final straw to break the camel’s back of our school friendship. That final summer in Denton, we agreed that although far apart we would keep contact; but, of course neither of us did; we just allowed our friendship to wither away as youthful friendships so often do. After we parted at the end of that summer in 1919, we neither saw each other again, nor did we have any contact for over 65 years. It was as if we had never met each other. Yet I still thought of Hugo as a close friend.

I would like to think that, when we left Churton, we were two handsome, muscular, beautifully-ripped young men, well-equipped where it counts most and that we each knew better than ot men of our age, how to use our visually impressive sexual endowments. I think that we were both proud of the two confident, gay young men we had become in our two years in the sixth forms at Churton.

Author’s note: To see role models for Alan Taylor and Hugo Fenwick aged 19 which correspond to Alan’s description above, I think you, as readers, will not be disappointed if you visit:

https://www.eastguys.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Jon-Kael-and-Enrique-Vera-3.jpg

The two young men you will see there, I consider each as primus inter pares: first among equals. Each could be the role model for either Alan or Hugo. Whichever way you look at it,  you see two sexually well- equipped, luscious, young  studs, which is exactly how, as author, envisage our two heroes to be aged 18. The stud on the right is Jon Kael, a Czech porn star, whom I personally think of as the role model for Alan Taylor.

CHAPTER 21.

But I see I have got ahead of myself, for according to my narrative, Hugo and I had already left Churton and so I am obliged to backtrack to our penultimate year at Churton, in the lower sixth, during which Hugo and I shared a study bedroom and truly made sexual hay whilst the sun was shining. We both satisfied our base instincts on the other, with only a suggestion of any consideration for the one, who was bottoming at the moment, to ensure that he received a modicum of satisfaction from our union.

In retrospect, I suppose it was a very superficial, love-free, physical, sexual relationship which we practised. However, as it apparently met the then needs of both of us, we never questioned what we were doing; we simply just enjoyed fucking each other as often and as vigorously as possible.

I suppose that in our status as just best friends, by chance, both of us homosexual, we had just drifted into a sexual relationship as we were both there and available to fuck each other to satisfy our own individual sexual desires. We were not in love with each other; in fact, the word love, as a concept, never was even mentioned in our conversations. Neither of us had any concept of just how exquisite an experience sex can really be, when practised between two people who are really in love with each other.

Like most public school boys of our age, in addition to sex, we experimented with both alcohol and tobacco, both of which, especially tobacco, are as addictive as sex. There was a very strong experimental culture of alcohol and tobacco among sixth formers at Churton and School House was no exception. Although neither Hugo nor I cared much for either, we nevertheless indulged in social drinking and smoking, hoping, I suppose, that we would eventually acquire a taste for both. The desire to fit in with and to be accepted by one’s peer group is very strong and leads us all to do things which we would not otherwise do.

It was not sex, but a combination of alcohol, in the form of a bottle of whisky, which the deep pocketed Hugo had bought illegally, and cigarettes, also acquired illegally – money opens many doors – that led to the most monumentally painful beating either of us had ever experienced. And let me assure you that in view of our earlier escapades at Churton, where the culture of the cane then reigned supreme, we were both peerless judges of what constituted a well-beaten arse.

It was the last Saturday evening before the end of term; on Tuesday of the coming week school would break up – Churton always broke up  on a Tuesday – and we would all disperse for the Christmas holidays. Hugo and I were sitting smoking and drinking in our shared room, when suddenly the door, which we had inadvertently not locked, was flung violently open to reveal the irate figure of Flogger Fogerty, our housemaster, who, fulminating with rage, bellowed at us, through the fog of cigarette smoke and the smell of alcohol; “What do you two boys think you are doing? Stop drinking and smoking immediately! Report to me in my study in fifteen minutes, by which time you will both have changed into your pyjamas. You two boys have a lot to answer for this evening; and let me assure you, answer for it royally, you soon will!”

Smoking and drinking were each considered, along with lying, cheating and dishonesty, as the most heinous of misdeeds a boy could commit at Churton. So, here we were, caught in flagrante, red-handed, committing not one, but two of the worst sins imaginable in the eyes of Mr. Fogerty. The fact that we had been told to report to him wearing only our pyjamas, said it all: we were both, quite justifiably to be flogged. So having been caught in the act, we had no reason to resent or object to being punished. However, there are floggings and floggings and this proved to be the be-all and end-all: the absolute apotheosis: the mother of all school floggings, Hugo and I were ever to experience.

It was with an easily explicable feeling of nervous apprehension that, some fifteen minutes later, we entered The Flogger’s study, wearing the regulation pyjamas, the bottom halves of which, as we well knew, would soon be discarded, as we presented our bare arses to the expert, percussive ministrations of our housemaster. Our nervousness was well founded, for Mr. Fogerty had a formidable reputation of being one of the hardest caners at Churton. Moreover he was the only one of the six housemasters to use the birch, in addition to the cane, to discipline his flock: and he was the only master, other than Sir himself, to administer that most dreaded of punishments: The Churton Double Whammy.

Consisting of a birching, followed by a caning, to reinforce the longevity of the excruciating pain produced by the birch, the Double Whammy was the most feared and painful of any punishment inflicted on boys in any public school in England at the time. As you know, public schools were never shy when it came to flogging their pupils; and Churton College led the pack and was proud of its reputation.

We were treated to a five minutes of furious, vituperative invective for our sins, after which we fully expected one of us to be told to wait in the corridor whilst he thrashed each of us in private. Anyone listening to his haranguing diatribe would have got the impression that the two of us had murdered someone; such was the gravity of our offence in his eyes.  God know what he would have said if he had caught us having sex together, which had he arrived a few minutes he might well have done.

Imagine our astonishment, not to mention consternation, when he said: “Given the gravity of your offence, I should consider expelling both of you. However on reflection I have decided against that course of action. Instead I propose to send you both home for Christmas with a present which you will be with you well into the New Year. You will each receive twelve strokes of the birch, followed immediately by twelve strokes of the cane across your bare bottoms. In my mind, you both deserve more; however, a twenty-four stroke beating is the maximum allowed under the rules imposed upon us by our benighted Board of Governors. You should thank your lucky stars that you are getting off lightly for your misdeeds.”

Our blood ran cold – at least mine did – when The Flogger announced what he had in store for us. But there it was: we were both to be subjected to the dreaded and justifiably feared, Double Whammy; and not just a run-of the-mill Double Whammy, but one involving the maximum number of 24 strokes allowed by the School Governors.  If our housemaster, Flogger Fogerty thought that we were getting off lightly for our sins, what, in God’s name, constituted a severe beating? The man needed his head examining. What he was proposing to visit on our bare arses what just the most excruciatingly painful beating ever conceived. My blood ran cold at the thought of what was about to happen to us.

It was bad enough to think of a twelve cut birching with the super-painful, Churton maple birch: an implement invented almost 40 years ago, by the then youthful head gardener, Mr Prior  and made by him ever since. It was assembled from the dead-straight, whippy shoots of a pollarded maple and was the stuff that legends were made of. But to supplement the excruciating pain resulting from twelve cuts with this diabolically painful implement, with a further twelve swingeing cuts of a senior rattan cane, cutting deep into the flesh of an already inflamed pair of buttocks, was a nightmare scenario, which did not bear thinking about.

But that is precisely what was about to happen to Hugo and me, and we had no way to avoid it; the die was cast. I admit that I was already practically shitting bricks with fear at thought of what was to come.  

However, The Flogger was not yet finished  with his monologue: “As I caught you together, both smoking and drinking, thereby breaking two of the most stringently enforced rules of this school, I have decided, exceptionally, that each of you will be allowed to witness your partner’s atonement for his sins. Therefore you will both remain remain in this room, whilst I give myself the satisfaction of beating you both and setting you, I hope, on the road to redemption.”

Until now, I had never observed a boy having his naked arse beaten whilst I was at Churton; hitherto, punishments, had always taken place in private, between the beater and the beaten. I don’t know if readers of this story realise that for a boy to reveal his all to his schoolmates is commonplace in public school dormitories and showers, where nakedness is taken as a matter of course.  However, it is acutely embarrassing, even for a first form boy, let alone an older boy, who is almost a young man, to expose his private parts: his genitalia; his cock and balls, to the eyes of the master or prefect about to beat his bare arse with a cane.

But this is exactly what happens in every public school practising beatings on the bare, which many do. You can, therefore, imagine how much more embarrassing it is for an older boy, whose genitals have grown apace in puberty and are now totally beyond his control, to have to expose his all to a master in the presence of his best friend.

With good reason are bare arse beatings normally carried out in private, given that both the beater and beaten are equally subject to the undeniable synergy between corporal punishment and sexual arousal.  As a frequent receiver of that public school, cure-all remedy, the well-beaten, arse every time I was beaten. I had observed both the beater – not only the head-boy or a prefect, but also my housemaster and Sir himself – and I myself, the beaten, were equally unable to control our cocks.

In my case, even from the early age of twelve, I naturally emerged from a beating, sporting a rock-hard cock, oozing pre-cum. As my cock was usually demanding immediate relief in the form of a quick wank, I usually repaired, post-beating to nearest lavatory, in a futile attempt to ease my painful arse with cold water and to relieve the tension in my cock.

Whenever I was beaten, which was quite often during my earlier years at Churton, I always noticed the tenting of the crotch of the trousers of whoever was wielding the cane at the time. Evidently, both beater and beaten were subject to the same sexual arousal  Not for nothing is a man’s penis often referred to vulgarly as his uncontrollable meat;  a man’s cock has a mind of its own and much of the time it does what it wants, embarrassing its owner with no regard for his feelings whatsoever.

The point in telling you this is that bare-arse beatings are not only extremely painful, but also a deep source of embarrassment to the recipient.  Our housemaster, Mr. Fogerty, The Flogger, proved himself to be a total bastard on this occasion, as he first ordered us both out of our pyjama trousers. Then, looking triumphantly at us, he added. “And also take of the tops while you are at it; they will just get in my way if they are left on.”

But then, not content with having stripped us naked, he added insult to injury by obliging us to put our hands on our heads and keep that way until he told us otherwise. He thereby took away the last means of preserving a vestige of our dignity: the only way in which we could, in some small way, have protected our modesty; thereby showing himself for the piece of shit he truly was.

Hugo and I saw each other naked several times every day, without any embarrassment; along with our schoolmates, with whom we took showers. We has no problem with stripping off in the privacy of our shared room to have sex with each other: an act to which we had become addicted and which we performed practically every day during our final two years at Churton. However, there is a great deal of difference between group nudity in the showers and nudity in private, when two guys prepare to have sex together and what The Flogger had just ordered us to do To have said that we were embarrassed by the extreme way in which nakedness had been forced upon us by our housemaster, would have been the understatement of the year.

It was unheard of that a master would ever order two sixteen year olds to expose their lower anatomy to him as he had begun by doing; that was embarrassing enough for Hugo and me, as two teenage boys, who jealously guarded their private parts from curious eyes. But then to order us to stand in front of him stark naked, with our hands on our heads, was really going too far.  It showed us what a merciless, mean-minded character our housemaster truly was.

However, we could do nothing but obey The Flogger’s orders; so we stood there in the full frontal position, stark naked, our hands on our heads, totally embarrassed to have to show off our all to a housemaster, whose gleaming eyes said it all. He was clearly enjoying this  moment, relishing our obvious embarrassment at being forced to expose ourselves front of him, just as much as he was shortly about to enjoy taking us to hell and back by subjecting our naked arses to the painful horrors of the Double Whammy.

The atmosphere was electric; supercharged with the sexual arousal that always seems to accompany corporal punishment. Hugo and I were totally embarrassed not to be able to attempt to cover our massive erections, over which we had no control. Both our cocks fully aroused and rock-hard, were pointing menacingly directly at Mr. Fogerty. If they had been guns loaded with bullets, I swear that both of us, at that moment, would have had no hesitation in shooting our loathsome housemaster stone dead. But he too was not immune from the sexual overtones of the situation and was as aroused as we were, as the prominent tenting of the crotch of his trousers visually testified.

As the only master in the school, other than Sir himself, to use the birch, Mr. Fogerty had no specially equipped room for birching. He was forced to content himself, with the classic armchair, already standing there in the middle of the room, as if to welcome us; over the back of which we were both shortly to bend, one after the other, and offer our bare arses to the TLC, first of the birch, followed by the cane.  The Double Whammy was just too awful, even to contemplate; but we were forced to face up to the reality that we were shortly to experience it.

Finally, Mr. Fogerty brought the birch out of the cupboard where it had been standing in its traditional, deep pail of water, waiting patiently for its next client, to whose bare arse it would, in its inimitable. venomous way transmit its painful message.

“I’ll deal with you first, Taylor. Present me with your backside over the back of the armchair over there, put your hands firmly on its arms and keep them there until I tell; you may get up. Do not, I repeat, do not even think about touching your buttocks, whilst I am correcting you. You will call out the number of each stroke as I give it and you will thank me for correcting you and ask me to give you another stroke, which I am happy to tell you that I will be delighted to deliver to you bare buttocks,”

Then referring to Hugo, he said: “I hope, Fenwick, that you were listening, took in, understood and will remember what I have just a said to your partner in crime here, for it applies equally to you, when I shall shortly  give myself the great pleasure of warming your backside too with the birch.”

To my horror, Hugo then figuratively committed suicide as he made the monumental mistake of correcting Mr. Fogerty.  In the most aristocratic of voices he said: “Mr. Fogerty, may I draw your attention to the fact that my name is actually Fenwick-Denton?”

It could not have been worse if Hugo had prefaced his remark by the words: now look here my good man, which are always calculated to raise the hackles of the person to whom the remark is addressed. The effect on Mr. Fogerty was little short of cataclysmic. He erupted in a verbal avalanche of vituperative invective in which he called Hugo all the names under the sun.

He worked himself up into such a rage finally saying: “Taylor; get up from over the back of the armchair. I have changed my mind about whom I will deal first. Master Fenwick-Denton’s backside is obviously in greater need of immediate communion with the birch than is yours. I would hate to disappoint him since he has pleaded so eloquently on its behalf. We can but hope, that, through the purifying pain of rod of justice, he himself learns that manners maketh man.”

Then he said quite vulgarly to the by-now-terrified Hugo, who had realised the terrible mistake he had made in addressing his housemaster in such a rude way: Get your arse over the back of that chair, Fenwick-Denton, as I intend to to make your punishment as painful as possible. In view of your rudeness to me personally, coupled with the gravity of your appalling disregard of the rules of this school earlier this evening, you will now receive 18 rather than the statutory 12 strokes of the birch as the first half of your punishment.  Brace yourself, boy, for I intend to make this birching the most painful prelude to what will be the most painful beating of our young life to date.  Believe me, Fenwick-Denton, when I say that you deserve every stroke which is coming to you.

I had never witnessed a birching – or even a caning – until now; however, having been quite often on the receiving end of the cane myself and having been birched just once in my career at Churton to date, I felt well able to judge the severity of Mr. Fogerty’s present attack on Hugo’s arse. Frankly, he set about punishing poor Hugo’s bum like man possessed of the devil. With eighteen strokes, each interspersed by the obligatory message of thanks by Hugo, the birching took what seemed like forever.

It was made even worse by the fact that before the first stroke fell, with Hugo stretched, arse naked, across the back of the chair, Mr Fogerty rehearsed with him the longwinded sentence of thanks which he insisted on hearing from Hugo after the count of each stroke, He made Hugo repeat several time the following, longwinded sentence, before beginning the beating:

Thank you, Sir, for correcting me. Please give me another stroke, which I know I justly deserve in retribution for my misdeeds.

 Standing there, stark naked, with my hands on my head; I was forced to watch with horror as Mr. Fogerty birched Hugo’s arse as if there were to be no tomorrow. My rock-hard erection was on full view, leaking precum in torrents, due to the additional sexual arousal from witnessing my best friend having his bare arse skinned raw by the birch, wielded by our brutal housemaster. In his relentless, vindictive, over the top punishment of Hugo, The Flogger was now showing himself for what he truly was: an out and out, sadistic monster, who took delight in inflicting extreme pain in the boys in his care, for whom he was acting in loco parentis. 

Watching Hugo being birched, a sobering thought suddenly hit me with a jolt; in a few minutes I would find myself over the back of that same chair again; it would then be my bare arse that was being subjected to the revengeful zeal of our barbaric housemaster; it would soon be me, who was forced to repeat that absurd mantra of thanks after each of the twelve strokes of the birch. There was no way in which I could avoid avoid my arse’s immediate, painful destiny.

The first stroke of the birch landed on Hugo’s bare arse.  I saw his buttocks flex, but otherwise he gave no sign. But the pain delivered by the birch is deceptively insidious. It gradually builds up into the well-nigh unsupportable, excruciating agony, which, over the years has made birching the most feared of all school punishment.

The birch is devoid of the dramatic, explosive crack of the rattan cane mating with the flesh of a boy’s bare buttocks, delivering all the agonisingly painful, kinetic energy of each successive stroke in the form of a series of discrete mini-furrows. Thanks to the spreading nature of its multiple twigs, the birch accomplishes something which is difficult to achieve with the cane alone. It enables the flogger to leave his victim with an arse, every square inch of which is dolorously painful to the touch.

The throbbing pain of the well-birched arse that Hugo was sporting,, when Mr. Fogerty finally told him to stand up and resume his position beside me, was made even worse by the way The Flogger treated him after his transcendental birching, No quarter was given; Fogerty forbade Hugo, under threat of a renewed onslaught with the birch if he did so, even to touch his throbbing arse, let alone massage it, in an attempt to attenuate the pain. With tears of pain running, unsurprisingly,  down his face, Hugo was forced to stand there with his hand on his head and watch me being birched.

I noticed that after an eighteen cut birching, all the stuffing had been knocked out of Hugo’s cock. Gone was the defiant erection that he had been sporting, when he had first bent over the chair to be birched.  Now, that proud cock, which I knew intimately and saw as a close friend, was reduced to hanging down forlornly, between Hugo’s legs, like a limp rag, thanks to our sadistic housemaster’s unconscionable onslaught.

But the show had to go on.  Mr. Fogerty immediately ordered me to assume the appropriate position over the back of the armchair, just vacated by Hugo. If I had self-delusionally thought he might be tired out by the effort he had obviously expended on Hugo’s arse and that my own suffering might, therefore, be attenuated, the first swingeing stroke mated with my bare flesh, disabused me of that fantasy. I knew I had been clutching at straws; I had been dreaming the impossible dream, which was fast turning into a painful nightmare. Although I received only twelve cuts of the birch compared to Hugo’s eighteen, I was forced to admit to myself, when I was finally told to get up by Mr. Fogerty, that the man knew what he was doing; my backside was so sore that it felt as if it had been branded by a red-hot poker.

Ordered to resume my position next to Hugo, my hands on my head as ever, I was pleased, looking down on myself, to see that, despite his sterling performance with the birch, Mr. Fogerty had not beaten my cock into floppy submission; my pride and joy was still arrogantly erect, as if mockingly cocking a snook at our housemaster’s efforts.

Whilst it bolstered my ego to think that I had, in some small way, bested our housemaster, I saw that both Hugo and I were quite justifiably trembling with fear at what was still to come. The birch had been but a painful prelude to the cane, which was to complete the Double Whammy: that absolute apotheosis of corporal punishment. In practice, used only at Churton, where it originated, its very mention, struck terror into the hearts of those who feared that they might one day be forced to submit their arses to it.

But here we were, Hugo and I, faced with that nec-plus-ultra of punishments: twelve strokes of the senior cane applied to our backsides, still wracked by the throbbing pain of the birch. I would not wish our then immediate fate on even my worst enemy. What we were about to undergo was too painful even to think about: and yet it was an imminent reality from which we had no escape.  At that precise moment, I guess that we were both– figuratively on the point of pissing ourselves with fear.; I know I certainly was

The feeling of the pending doom hanging over us was not eased by the theatrical was in which Mr. Fogerty went about choosing a suitable cane, with which to complete his bout of tender, loving care that he was lavishing on our arses. He did not hurry himself, allowing us to suffer the agony he had already put us in. Much of what he did, rummaging around; selecting a cane appropriate to this occasion was probably for show.  Once having selected the one, with which he intended to make his final attack, he could not resist swishing it dramatically through the air, in front of our noses, several times for effect. It was as if he wanted to demonstrate to us his mastery of the cane, which was, in my mind, in no way in doubt.

I suspected Mr. Fogerty knew all along the cane he intended to use on us. Most masters, who regularly flog the boys in their care, as he, in his post of housemaster of School House, most certainly did, usually have their two favourite canes, which they regularly use: to warm the backsides  of their flock: a lighter one for junior boys, and a heavier, senior one, for older boys such as Hugo and me.

Mr. Fogerty had not acquired his nickname, The Flogger, out of thin air, but from the regularity with which he addressed the bare arses of his flock with the cane in his study. Barely an evening went by that some pyjama-clad member of School House, was not to be seen entering his study, before bed, to leave it a few minutes later, vigorously massaging his bum to alleviate the pain inflicted by The Flogger.

But our moment of respite was now over. For our sins, Hugo and I were were about to enter the annals of that rarefied number of Churtonians, who had been subjected to that most dramatic and dire of all punishments: The Double Whammy.

Now that moment had arrived and the cane was chosen, Mr. Fogerty, our arch-torturer, ordered Hugo again to adopt what he now he referred to as the position over the back of the armchair, giving me, for the first time a clear view of the state of my friend’s backside. Now some ten to fifteen minutes after its birching. I can tell you, Hugo’s arse was not a pretty sight; it was an angry red colour all over, flecked with drops of blood, where the twigs of the birch had broken the skin.  Looking at it, I wondered about the state of my own bum, which still felt as if it was on fire.

Frankly, looking at the state of Hugo’s arse, if I had been wielding the cane, I would have called the whole second half of our punishment off; or at least have postponed it to a later date. But Mr. Fogerty had a stronger stomach than me. He clearly wanted his pound of flesh right then and pressed on, regardless of the additional damage he might cause Hugo; and, of course, eventually me too.  I shuddered just thinking about what Hugo’s arse would look like, let alone how he would feel, after twelve cuts of the senior cane, applied across his already painful buttocks. The thought that I was the next in line for the same, really did put the shits up me. I found myself trembling with fear like a leaf at what was to come, as I watched Mr. Fogerty systematically shred Hugo’s arse with his cane.

The relatively gentle swish of the birch was replaced by the pistol-sharp crack of the cane, as it mated with its target of bare flesh, delivering its excruciatingly painful message. At each successive stroke; it left a deep, livid furrow between two parallel, raise edges, as a testimony of its passage. By the time he had finished, Hugo’s arse was an absolute masterpiece of flogger’s art. Not only could you count the individual twelve stripes by eye, but each individual cut had been given with such force that Hugo’s arse now resembled a piece of corrugated paper; a blind man would have been able to count his stripe by touch with his fingers.

Even though I was shortly to receive the same horrific treatment, I found myself admiring, the consummate skill of Mr. Fogerty with the cane, as he unerringly placed twelve swingeng cuts, strictly parallel to each other, from the bottom of Hugo’s back to the top of his legs, thereby ensuring that he would not sit down comfortably for several days.

I confess that I was overtly trembling with fear of what was to come, as I took, for the second time, Hugo’s place, over the back of the armchair. Meanwhile, my heart went out to poor Hugo, who, in absoluter agony, was again forced by Mr. Fogerty to stand there completely naked, with his hands on his head and forbidden to touch his own inflamed backside, whilst he watched me being punished.

I can tell you that although I had admired Mr. Fogerty’s dexterity with the cane when he had been addressing Hugo’s arse, when he exercised himself on me, I saw that he had abandoned all reason and and was in the throes of the utter enjoyment of what he was doing. Every single one of the twelve cuts he gave me with the cane was delivered with the maximum force he could muster. Gone was the gradual crescendo build-up to the final cut, normally the most severe of all. Instead, I was treated to an unrelenting, fortissimo performance from the first cut to the last.

It was by far the worst beating that I had ever experienced in my life. Since my arrival at Churton, I had taken more than my fair share of beatings, and so I felt myself a competent judge. Nothing, absolutely nothing, even vaguely, began to compare with the Double Whammy as delivered to us that evening by our housemaster.

Eventually, after having been made to stand there for fifteen minutes – an age, as we were both in agony – with our hands on our heads,  forbidden even to touch our bums, let alone massage them, we were finally allowed to put back on our pyjamas and limp back to our room to lick our wounds. As we were leaving, Mr. Fogerty said to us: “I hope, boys, you have learned your lesson. Have you?”

Hugo and I jointly mustered a very muted: “Yes sir.”  And do you know what? We both really meant it. As we were hobbling  back to our room, totally out of the blue, the famous biblical quotation from Romans 6:23 suddenly came to mind: The wages of sin are death. I thought to myself: “Death could surely not be worse than what we had just been through.”  The Double Whammy, at least in the hands of our sadistic housemaster, really was a deterrent and I had no intention of ever again risking anything, which might lead me exposing myself to a repeat performance of such a murderous assault on my bare arse.

Later that evening, reflecting on the excessively brutal way, in which we had been treated by Mr. Fogerty, who as our housemaster was charged to look after us in loco parentis, I doubted that even the strictest of parents would have massacred their offspring’s arses as he had just done. So much for the so called, good old days at Churton!

I came to the conclusion that not only did our housemaster rejoice wallowing in epicaricacy, which had led him to make our misery worse by making us stand there for fifteen minutes, completely naked, suffering in agony as we had been, but that he also derived great deal of personal satisfaction from the act of physically beating boys in his charge. It was clear to me that Mr. Fogerty was a fully paid up member of that well-known fraternity of public school masters, who were true sadists and who enjoyed and were sexually aroused, by beating the hell out of the bare arses of the boys in their charge.

As he was himself a bachelor and lived in School House in the housemaster’s apartment, most evenings saw a small group of trembling boys entering one by one his study, to partake, reluctantly, of the arse warming cheer which he regularly and generously dispensed with the cane, free, gratis and for nothing, to any member of his flock who even vaguely merited it!  A boy did not have to do much wrong in School House to find his bum on a collision course with Mr. Fogerty’s cane.

Under his direction as housemaster, I suspect that School House, where the cane was seldom silent for long, led the other five houses at Churton in terms of the number of arses beaten by its housemaster each term, an achievement for which there was no prize, other than the satisfaction of performing the act of flogging itself.

Back in our room Hugo and I commiserated with each other at our bad-luck at getting caught, thanks to our own stupidity of not locking the door. Both of us acknowledged that we deserved to be beaten for our misdeeds. Indeed a twelve cut caning was par for the course at Churton, where the culture of the cane reigned supreme and had become an ingrained and accepted fact of life. But examining each other’s arse, we quickly recognised that what we had received was an over-the-top beating which, even in those very different, today, long-gone, harsh times, had exceeded, by far, any decent norms.

Writing these memoirs well over half a century later, I am quite sure, as a lawyer myself that today Mr. Fogerty would have been convicted by any court in the land for committing grievous bodily harm to two minors in his charge and given a custodial sentence. But then was not today; conditions and public opinion were totally different in those  thankfully long gone days.  Excessively severe beatings of boys at public schools were then the accepted as par for the course. It never even crossed either of our minds to complain: and even if it had done, to whom would we have complained and on what grounds?

The Headmaster, Mr. Augustus Caesar, Sir  himself. was an enthusiastic, almost daily practitioner of the not so gentle art of beating arses. It was he who had conceived, instituted and practised, the Double Whammy, the punishment that Mr. Fogerty had inflicted upon us. And as he was the Headmaster’s most fervent arse licking acolyte, Sir would have dismissed the complaint as frivolous, saying simply that our housemaster had possibly been overzealous in performing what was his duty, enforcing the school rules and punishing the violators, which Hugo and I most certainly were. So we had no grounds to complain if our arses were sore; after all, that was the object of exercise!

To complain to Sir, we would have been playing on a losing wicket from the word go. So we did what countless boys have done in the past and would doubtless do in the future; we licked our wounds and chalked it up to experience. We had no option but to grin and bear it, which is exactly what we did.

Hugo produce a pot of cream which he had bought at the local pharmacy in Denton, which he swore had eased the pain of the beating, which his father mercilessly lavished on his son’s bare bum, each time he came home from Churton for the holidays. We duly lavished generous amounts of this miracle product on our arses, which, frankly, looked like raw, tenderised steaks: tough cuts of beef, which have been beaten to death with a knobbly hammer to make them tender enough to be edible.

Happily, we soon found that the searing misery of our beating, quickly subsided into a not unpleasant glow; so much so that naked as we were, our ever-ready-for-action libidos soon took over our senses and dictated our actions. Our cocks perked up and we spent the time between midnight and two next morning – this time behind a locked door – at our favourite activity: exercising ourselves sexually on each other. For two hours, until we were both exhausted, we savagely fucked each other as if there were to be no morrow.

The way we fucked each other that night, was the nearest thing to anal rape that either of us had ever committed. For some reason, for the very first time, we each fucked the other totally without any consideration for his feelings or satisfaction from what was, as ever, a joint act. That night, what we practised on each other was just raw, uninhibited sex, under the motto:  every man for himself.  In a way, I suppose we each treated the other sexually as badly as Mr. Fogerty had treated us.

The main difference between our being flogged and our sexual excesses, was that the former had been a one way street which we had been obliged to follow; in the latter we had each voluntarily permitted the one to vent his sexual spleen on the other. Other than that, there was no difference; each act allowed one man to exercise his will on the other: with Mr, Fogerty, the desire to flog arse: with Hugo and me, the desire to rape – or, at least to rough-fuck – someone. In both cases, it was the desire of one man to exercise his power over another, which had catalysed the excesses.

I can but say, to my shame that in divorcing myself completely from any mutuality from the sex act that I perpetrated on Hugo several times that evening, giving way to my animal instincts, I discovered a hitherto unknown side to my character: that I loved exercising my power over someone. Although I hated myself for my actions, I admit that I had found the whole episode exhilaratingly stimulating, as I think Hugo also did. I think that the self-centred action of Mr. Fogerty, in the exercise of his power over us, in the form of a very severe beating, initiated a similar desire for power in both Hugo and me; with a much less painful result.

The two acts: flogging for Mr. Fogerty: uninhibited raw sex for Hugo and me, were both manifestations of the same desire in each of us: to exercise complete control over and impose our respective wills on another person.

I was to experience the same dilemma when, next school year, my final year at Churton, I became head-boy. I regret to say, that being human, and living in a school which was ruled by the culture of the cane, I succumbed to the temptation to exercise the unbridled power which came with the position, like every other head-boy I had known in my time at Churton, I lorded it over my schoolmates. I left Churton with the singular distinction of being considered the worst head-boy in living memory, thanks to my regular use of the cane on all comers. But we shall eventually come to that phase of my life.

CHAPTER 22.

As Mr. Fogerty had promised, I had a most uncomfortable journey home to my grandmother’s house in Danube Crescent in Bolton for Christmas; and as he had predicted, the pain of the Double Whammy that he had inflicted on my bum did not dissipate until after my birthday on January 1st.  I presume that Hugo had an ejuqllly uncomfortable train journey back to Denton.

My grandmother was, as ever, pleased to see me, and to hear how well I was doing at Churton. I was proud to be able to tell her that month after month, I regularly came top in all subjects. I omitted to tell her that my bare bum and the cane had become, what, in a flight of fantasy, I thought of as regular sparring partners, from which the cane inevitably emerged the winner. My grandmother made no comment on the fact that when I arrived at her house, I was still limping in the aftermath of the exemplary beating I had received just a very few days earlier,

I wish I could have said that my mother and father were equally pleased to see me.  The strained relations between us, ever since I had moved out and now stayed with my grandmother during my visits to Bolton, became hypertensive that Christmas. I saw them only once during my Christmas holidays, when my grandmother invited them to tea on Christmas Day. I kept to my vow, never again to enter my parents’ house.

Evidently, my father still could not face how wrong he had been about my chances as a scholarship boy at Churton. He could find nothing better to say to me, other than: “From the way you are walking lad, you look as though your arse has been thrashed at your fancy school” He then went to play his old tune, which I had heard so many times that I could almost repeat it verbatim: “I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, until you finally see sense and come home where you belong. You’re a working class lad, bred and born; and you will remain a member of the working class until the end of your days. Just mark my words; you will finish up in a cotton mill in Bolton in spite of your hoity-toity schooling; just see if you don’t.”

My father’s attitude towards me turned on its head the old saying: absence makes the heart grow fonder.  Frankly in view of the reception I had got from him on that visit, I could not have cared less if I never saw him again. I know that is a hard thing to say about one’s own father; but it expressed honestly exactly how I felt about him. He was incapable of saying a kind word to me. I felt sorry for my mother, shackled to such a man. But she was the architect of her own miserable, inward-looking, daily drudge of a life. She slavishly aligned herself with the reactionary views held by her husband on practically everything.

I finally came to the sad conclusion that my parents deserved each other; my mother was incapable of thinking for herself and pandered to every whim of my Herbert, as she referred to my father. But, as my grandmother, speaking of own daughter, was fond of repeating: “She has made her own bed and must now lie in it.”

I did not wish either of my parents ill; but frankly I could not have cared less whether my father sank or swam.  I am sorry if that sounds heartless coming from his son and only child; but that is exactly how I felt as I returned to Churton, which had become my spiritual home.

That cataclysmic Double Whammy beating had taken place just before Christmas in our penultimate year at Churton. If it had been intended by our housemaster to be a deterrent, it certainly had that effect on Hugo and me. We forthwith abandoned alcohol and cigarettes; the bottle of whisky and opened packet of cigarettes, with which we had been caught red-handed had, anyway, been confiscated by Mr. Fogerty.  His painful intervention in our lives had put the fear of God into both of us.

As a result, we became ultra-cautious; secretive, I suppose, in our principal illegal,  nefarious activity: anal copulation, to which we were already totally addicted and from which we would have had great difficulty in abstaining. Illegal sex apart, we became a model pair of diligent sixth-form students in all other respects: so much so that neither of us received another beating for the remaining two terms in the lower sixth of our penultimate year at Churton.

The Double Whammy had its most remarkable effect on Hugo, who suddenly abandoned his former dilettante approach to his studies. In in his final two years at Churton, he surprised everyone, himself included, but especially his father, Sir Lionel Fenwick-Denton. By dint of hard work he got himself a place at Gresham College, Oxford. Sir Lionel, who had long written his younger son off, as a whimpish failure and whom he had beaten very soundly at the beginning of each summer holiday, when he  received his son’s perennially unsatisfactory, end-of-school-year report, was totally amazed and delighted to be proved wrong by Hugo’s conversion.

But the Double Whammy beating, combined with our move into the the upper sixth form in our final year at Churton  coupled with my own surprising nomination as head-boy, changed the nature of the intimately intense sexual relationship which Hugo and I had developed  together since we had begun to share a study bedroom together.

Without a doubt, the physical proximity to each other had contributed to the early blooming of a full-blown, practising gay relationship between two young men, both of whom had basically been homosexual from birth. Our true friendship, coupled with physical proximity, studying and sleeping in the privacy of same room together, had accelerated the mutual practising of anal sex acts with each other; but was as not the root cause of them. Hugo and I were what we were born be: like all men of our ilk, we preferred men over women and nothing would ever change that fact. But sex between us had grown so intense and frequent during our year in the lower sixth at Churton that it had become a drug, to which we had both become addicted; neither of us could live without regular anal sex with the other.

I should just add that both Hugo and I were totally monogamous; we had sex only with each other. No third party cock was ever allowed to penetrate either of our arseholes, even though, inevitably, certain guys tried. Remarkably, for two sexually very active and well-equipped, young men, we were both never tempted to explore with our own cocks any of our schoolmates’ holes even though we had every opportunity to do so. Like the ideal married couple, were totally faithful to each other. I think that we were possibly the only pair of out and out, dedicated gays in our original dorm; certainly we were the only pair to form such a solid and regular sexual relationship.

This is not to say that certain of our heterosexual schoolmates, deprived of access to members of the female sex as they were, did not exercise themselves sexually on the willing arses of certain of their schoolmates. But these were ad hoc acts of buggery, destined to relieve the sexual tension which inevitably builds up in a world of young men in advance puberty with no access to females. On leaving Churton, they would probably all revert to type and would become completely normal members of heterosexual society, which Hugo and I would not. Most of them would forget that they had ever had sex with another man.

Hugo and I, in our shared study bedroom, literally fucked our way through our lower sixth year and the summer holiday at Denton, which followed.

Our cosy arrangement came to a jarring end at the beginning of our final year in the upper sixth, when all boys across all six houses were allocated their own study bedroom.  But this inconvenience was made worse by the fact that in my final year, I became head-boy and found myself obliged to move physically from School House to the main Churton school building, where the head-boy’s study was located at the opposite end of the first-floor corridor to the Headmaster’s study.

Clearly, I was not going to renounce the honour of being named head-boy for my final year. But Hugo and I both needed to maintain our stable sexual relationship. Poor Hugo had not even been named a prefect; so to maintain what I guess was our sexual sanity, we were reduced to grabbing the odd shag during the day, after the end of classes, behind the locked door of the head-boy’s study, just a few paces away from the study of Sir himself.

I think Hugo and I both mourned the end of the year that we had spent sharing room in School House. The fact that we were no longer able to share the same bed for most of the night, tarnished our relationship. The freedom of being of being able to fuck each other, albeit behind a locked door, whenever and for as long as we wanted, was gone. The glitter had been abraded from our sex life together; we were forced to take every chance we had to fuck each other, reducing what had been a successful stable relationship to the same furtive, squalid level of instability, at which our heterosexual schoolmates buggered each other wherever they could.

Our final year at Churton taught both Hugo and me that neither of us could live without regular access to gay sex; not the promiscuous sex which many young gays indulge in; but sex with a stable regular partner on whom one could rely to be there, through thick and thin, come what may. Looking back on our life together at Churton, I think that my elevation to the post of head-boy heralded the start of the what was to prove to be a long, drawn-out end to what had been a close schoolboy friendship between Hugo and me, which had mutated, quite naturally, into sexual intimacy, once we realised that we were both gay.  It was to end when we finally went our separate ways to university; I to Cambridge and he to Oxford.

CHAPTER 23.

But there were compensations aplenty to fill the sexual void created by my forced physical isolation as head-boy. As head-boy of Churton, I was treated almost – but not quite – as a master. I was no longer a member of School House associated with its disciplinary functions; but I still took all my meals, including breakfast, there.

As an honorary member of School House, I sat with the three prefects, one of whom was house-captain, at a small table table apart from the throng. We were served by a rota of fags from the first form, rather than having to fetch our food ourselves from the serving hatch. Strict pecking order was observed; as head-boy, I was always served first, followed by the house-captain and then the other two prefects. But, that apart, day in day out we ate the same dreary food to which we had become accustomed, as everyone else.

The head-boy’s quarters, into which I moved for my final year at Churton school, were spacious; I already knew the study quite well, from several command visits – all painful, I might add – to various head-boys, who over my years at Churton had exercised their power on my bare bum, with one of the two canes – one junior, one senior – hanging menacingly there, each side of the fireplace. All the head-boys who had beaten my arse over the years, had successfully mastered the concept of mercilessness when it came to beating their erstwhile school friends; they never flinched when it came to handing our painful beatings.

Now that I was head-boy, the canes, hanging there, had suddenly taken on a different, more pleasing aspect than in the past. As head boy, I would be using them to warm some miscreant lad’s arse, rather than having my own arse warmed by them. Readers, who themselves experienced a well laid-on cane across their bare bum will realise that in using the word warm, I am speaking purely figuratively. In fact, the pain produced by a well-applied rattan cane on the bare is utter, bloody excruciating for the recipient.

But the study itself was not all; in addition I had my own shower-room complete with lavatory and a bedroom with a hanging wardrobe and a chest of drawers. To my surprise – I don’t know why, considering the almost religious devotion to the cane at Churton – I discovered a large selection of obviously unused canes in the cupboard in the corridor, to which I added the two new canes which Sir had presented to me on my appointment as head-boy in June at the end of the preceding school year. 

Sir had then helpfully suggested that I take the two canes home with me and practise my technique on a suitable cushion during the long summer holidays: “That way you will be fighting fit on day one as head-boy next autumn to deliver an adequate thrashing to the naked bottoms of your erstwhile school-friends. Do not hesitate for a moment to use the two canes which I traditionally give to every head-boy on his appointment; a workman cannot do his job without his tools” 

“The best advice I can a give you, young man is to brook no nonsense from anyone, irrespective of age. Boys, off all ages, throughout the school will test your resolve from the very first day of the new term, to see just how much they can get away with. My philosophy, which I heartily recommend you also to adopt, has always been to strike whilst the iron is hot; in other words, to thrash now and postpone the jaw-jaw until later. No matter what the offence, the entry tariff for a boy to enter into what I think of as the well-beaten bottom stakes, is twelve cuts of the cane. But I would remind you of the fact that as head-boy you have the right to a total of 24 strokes at your disposal for any one offence.”

The Headmaster went on revealing the full depth of his sadistic nature to the full to his new head-boy. “Moreover, Taylor, I would emphasise that the school rules, as dictated by the Board of Governors, quite specifically allow a maximum of 24 strokes of the cane for any one offence. However, quite often you will find that you are correcting boys for two offences committed simultaneously: drinking and smoking, for example, Thus, literally according to the wording of the rule, if needs must, you have  48 cuts of the cane at your disposal, giving you ample means to uphold the Churton tradition that no boy ever leaves the head-boy’s study, other than with a well-thrashed bottom: You do not need me to tell at a young man of your personal experience that a freshly, well-beaten arse, as it is vulgarly called among the boys , is a trophy of which the possessor is proud to show off to his schoolmates.”

I had thought long and hard, about my new position, which I had discussed with Hugo, during the long summer holiday in Denton, in the pauses between our seemingly never ending bouts of sex. We jointly came to the conclusion that if I was to perform my correctional duties as head-boy adequately, I must divorce myself from being one-of-the-boys, together with whom I would still be sitting in class. I had the power to beat every man jack of them, including those who, like me, had been elevated to the status of prefect, with the concomitant power to beat their schoolmates. As such I had to distance myself from them; I was still among them physically, but I was, de facto, no longer one of them in spirit. The fact of becoming head-boy had opened up a divide between us; a divide which had to be maintained if I was to exercise my authority over them.

Hugo, who had not been made a prefect, summed up my position accurately, by invoking the old aphorism, saying: “Alan, as head-boy you cannot both run with the hare and hunt with the hounds. You have to realise than in accepting the post of head-boy, you have yourself become the pack leader of the hounds, made up of your co-prefects. Not one of you can any longer remain one-of-the-boys, which is why when a boy becomes a prefect, he must, perforce, change his attitude towards the very peer group from which he came and among which he still finds himself obliged to sit in class. Frankly, I consider the post of prefect and invidious one; a prefect is neither fish nor fowl.”

I realised that my closest friend was right: “You are quite right Hugo; but you do realise, don’t you, that you yourself are still a hare and as such, can be hunted by the hounds, of which the head of pack is the head-boy, who also happens to be your closest friend and intimate, with all that that implies.”

Laconically as ever, Hugo replied: “Alan, I know full well what that implies and I live in the hope that the worst case scenario will never happen. But if it does and the worst comes to the worst and you are, one day, faced with the unpleasant prospect of beating your closest friend’s bare arse, I hope, for both our sakes, that we each have sufficient sangfroid to realise that as head-boy, you are simply doing your duty; that there is nothing personal about what is happening and that I will not hold it against you.”

“I also sincerely hope that if the worst occurs and you are forced to beat your best friend that will throw your post-flagellation scruples to the wind, lock your study door and fuck the hell out of my arse, in recompense for what you have just done to it. Now, let’s put an end to this depressing subject; I am already beginning to feel sexually deprived and I am need of a rough-fuck right now. So if you can still raise the flag, grand master, my anus is, as always, on such occasions, ready and willing and at your entire disposal. So go to it young man, if you are able!”

Nothing – absolutely nothing at all – raises a man’s blood pressure – mine, in this case – more easily than the implication that he is sexually incapable. Even though I knew that Hugo was just needling me out of fun, his remarks nevertheless, hit home and I went ahead as he had requested and gave him absolute hell. Laughingly adding insult to injury, between the best of friends, he then concluded by saying: “There you are, I knew you could do it if you tried,” leading me to a make a second and, if that were physically possible, more vigorous, attack on his hole.

The above philosophical interchange, which finally firmly crystallised my thinking on how I would handle my final year at Churton as head-boy, had occurred during one of the many occasions when we were in bed together during the summer holiday at Denton House before our final year at Churton. We were indulging ourselves to the limit in our favourite mutual pastime: anal copulation; but when did we ever otherwise? I have no difficulty now, well over half a century later, in recalling the occasion in vivid detail. There are certain things which etch themselves indelibly into the memory and this was certainly one of them.

If the need arose; which, surprisingly, it quite often did, the status of prefect did not render a boy immune from having his own arse thrashed by me, as head-boy; or by his housemaster or even by Sir himself. It testified to the fact that even those nominated to the highest office at Churton were, in spite of their superficial aloofness, still alive and well, and susceptible to succumbing to the temptations of life. It gave credence to the theory that I had held for some time, about the political leaders of our country. Scratch away the veneer of respectability and competence, which they outwardly project to the electorate, and you will find men susceptible to the same temptations as any other.

But more germane to this story and to the matter at hand, although no prefect or housemaster could thrash me, I too, even as head-boy, could find myself presenting my bare arse Sir’s not so tender, loving care, in his incarnation as Lord High Executioner, if I had, in his eyes, blotted my copy book, by using foul language for example. In a word, irrespective of his status at Churton, no boy, head-boy included, was ever immune from the agonising depredations of the cane, literally from the day he arrived at the school as a first former to the day he left the upper sixth.

I am ashamed in retrospect to admit, that I could hardly wait to thrash my first miscreant arse. I wondered how and when I would find the first candidate for my maiden entry into the world of physical castigation, which would be mine for one year only: a year, in which I had every intention of making my mark as head-boy, both literally, by leaving any boy whom I beat with a well-incised arse; and figuratively, as a figure of authority, who was worthy of respect, I reflected on my own first contretemps with the cane; it had been on Monday afternoon in my second week as a new boy at Churton. On that occasion, the same Hedmster, who had just appointed me as head-boy, had not held back; I intended to follow his example and do the same.

CHAPTER 24.

Over my time at Churton, my arse and the cane were to meet very frequently, as I never seemed to be out of trouble and there was always someone on hand to correct me. In the politically correct mealy-mouthed language, boys at Churton were not beaten or caned: they were corrected!  So I found myself at the beginning of my tenure as head-boy wondering when my first opportunity to correct some unfortunate miscreant would present itself. I was practically salivating at the thought of using one of those canes hanging by the fireplace, whose pain delivering power I knew so well from my own too frequent experiences, to make my maiden attempt at correcting some errant boy’s arse an event in both my life and my victim’s.

I did not have long to wait for my frankly shameful desire to whack arse, motivated by my recently discovered by sadistic streak. But Nemesis, the Greek Goddess of Divine Retribution and Revenge, smiled on me and brought me not one, but three, first-form candidates on whose arses I could begin my career as the most strictly severe head-boy ever: an accolade, which I was determined to merit.

It was about one-thirty on Monday afternoon of the first day of term: my first day as head-boy. As I left my study to go to my afternoon class, to my astonishment, I was greeted by the sight of three, obviously new, first-form boys running, one after the other, in the direction of the Headmaster’s study at the other end of the corridor.  The two leaders were already almost out of sight, turning the corner into the adjacent corridor, as I bellowed at them: “You three boys, stop running immediately, turn turn around and walk back whence you came and stand in front of me.”

The two leaders either did not hear my command – being charitable – or chose to ignore it – being more realistic – and vanished from sight down the side corridor, evidently thinking themselves safe from any retribution. Only the last boy heeded my order and slowly walked back to stand, as ordered, trembling like a leaf, in front of me. The young lad was terrified, having been stopped in his tracks and brought back to face an irate and menacing figure, whom he took to be a master and whom he first addressed as Sir, until I informed him that I was the head-boy and that he should, respectfully, call me by my surname: Taylor.

It mattered not whether he had known before he had been apprehended by my call that he and his two companions were breaking one of the most stringent, strictly enforced commandments in the book: Thou  shalt not run anywhere inside any of the school buildings, other than in an emergency when told to evacuate the building. The fact of the fact of the matter was that he had been caught red-handed breaking a golden rule, ignorance of which was no defence.

Adopting my most inquisitorial manner, I glowered down at the young lad and asked him his name, his house and which form he was in. I learned that the first arse I would beat as head boy was the property of a lad called called Stephen Alcott, of Walpole House, and that he was in form 1C, of which the form-master was the selfsame irascible Mr. Thompson who taught mathematics, of whom I had myself fallen foul when I was a new boy myself. 

Mr Thompson was a bad-tempered, sarcastic man who took strictly no nonsense from the boys, either as form-master or in any class he was teaching. He was very liberal in issuing both demerit marks and the dreaded punishment notes, which condemned the recipient, often, in my own experience, undeserving,  to present himself to the Headmaster, for a minimum, twelve-cut beating at 4:30 in the afternoon of the same day.

I should perhaps explain that one of the reasons for Churton’s brilliantly successful academic record, which partly explained its excruciatingly expensive fees, was the fact that class size was limited to a maximum of fifteen boys, with a concomitant large number of teachers. The yearly intake of 60 boys, distributed ten to each of the six houses at Churton, was then for teaching purposes split into four groups, each of fifteen boys, assigned to four different forms called A to D. This structure was maintained throughout the years. Thus there were always four parallel forms progressing through the school, each receiving exactly the same, intense instruction.

The teaching forms were constituted on a cross-house basis. Thus every all boy had two loyalties: the first to his dorm-mates, his school-family, in the house in which he lived: the second to his classmates, in the form to which he was assigned. Alcott, questioned as to why they had all been running down the corridor, volunteered the lame excuse that they had not wanted to be late for the next lesson. Given that they had been caught in the act at half past one and that afternoon lessons began at two, he saw from the look on my face that his excuse did not hold water; which, even I if it had been true, would not have saved him from the painful consequences of his actions: consequences which were as inexorable at Churton, as if they had been engraved in tablets of stone like The Ten Commandments.

I felt sorry for the lad that he had been left carrying the can for the two boys, who had escaped undetected; or at least thought they had. So I said to him: “Alcott, I think you know that running anywhere inside any of the school buildings for whatever reason, is strictly forbidden. If a boy is caught in the act, as you have been, he must face the consequences for his actions, which are, regrettably, very painful.” Then lying through my teeth, I added: “I am sad to tell have to tell you, Alcott,  that on your very first day at Churton, you have qualified yourself, for a twelve stroke caning on your bare bottom.”

In fact, quite the contrary was true; I was very happy to have caught Alcott and his two companions red-handed, committing a beatable offence on my very first day as head-boy. If I played my cards correctly, which I intended to do, it would allow me to beat the bare arses of three new boys on their first day at Churton, but also on my first day in a position of power. The Headmaster, in his pep talk to me, had urged me to brook no argument from the boys and to strike when the iron was hot. Well the iron today was white hot; moreover there were potentially three pieces to forge, of which Alcott was but the first.

“There is no way, young man that you can avoid the beating, which I propose to give you today at 4:30 in my study. At that precise time you will present yourself to me for a well-merited thrashing You will, before you arrive at my study, have changed in the Changing Room, which is the door just to the left of where you are presently standing, into what is known at Churton as the appropriate attire for punishment, which consists of your gym shorts and gym vest only.”

“After your beating you will return to the Changing Room and again don your standard school attire, before returning to your house. Your dorm-mates will probably be waiting there, eager to admire the expert declension of twelve strictly parallel furrows, which I will, by that time, have etched with cane into what I suspect, until then, was your hitherto unmarked bottom.  Allow me to assure you, Alcott, I will not allow you to leave my study with other than, what is known in the Churton vernacular, as a well-beaten arse; an arse, of which we can both be proud; I as creator and you as proud owner and hero of the moment to your dorm mates.”

How I ever had the nerve to make such an over-the-top, florid, self-aggrandising speech, I do not know. I had presented myself as an expert with the cane, capable of placing twelve cuts, strictly parallel down the full length of Alcott’s tail. The truth of the matter was that I would be performing my maiden caning on Alcott’s arse; it would be the first time I had ever caned anyone. But what had been said was said and could not be unsaid.

I could see from the look on Alcott’s face that I had put the fear of God into him, which was no bad thing, provided I could keep my part of, what I had come to consider as a bargain. The lad would spend a very uneasy two hours in class that afternoon with a twelve cut beating preying his mind. However I felt, as he also must have done, that the other two boys should not be allowed to escape unscathed. Moreover, as they had left him in the lurch, they should face retribution, possibly more severe than Alcott himself.

I did not want to force Alcott to snitch on his new classmates, whom he could barely know, as it was, for all three of them, their first day at Churton. And so I said to him; “Alcott, you must feel bitter that you have been thrown to the wolves by your erstwhile friends. If I were in your shoes, I know that I certainly would. I will not embarrass you by asking you to name your other two partners in crime; but as you certainly know who they are, I order you formally, here and now, to tell them that they must do the honourable thing and present themselves yome, along with you, for punishment, wearing similarly appropriate attire, at 4:30 this afternoon.”

“If they decline to present themselves voluntarily to me, to answer for their misdeeds, tell them that I will thrash all members of class 1C, including twelve innocent boys, at the same time tomorrow. I will not allow two guilty boys to escape punishment for their sins, having abandoned their classmate to face the music alone, in such an ungentlemanly manner. Tell them that if they do not own up to their misdeeds, they will have the opprobrium of their schoolmates to live and will probably be branded as lily-livered cowards and sent to Coventry for the rest of their school-lives at Churton.” 

“Moreover, on top of all that, they will have to live with their guilty consciences that by not owning up and taking their just punishment, they were directly responsible for twelve innocent classmates being thrashed. Make it clear to your co-offenders, Alcott, that I am not joking and will carry out my threat if they decline to come forward and take their punishment like the two young gentlemen, whom, I am quite sure, they aspire to become.”

I laid on the feeling of guilt in spades; and it was true what I had said: if they did not own up and take their punishment, they would have the guilt of their actions gnawing at their consciences for ever more; it just would never go away, for conscience is a hard and relentless taskmaster; it never leaves you in peace and reminds you forever of your sins. Additionally, no boy wishes ever to be branded a coward and ostracised by his peer group at school.

My strategy worked; 4:30 that afternoon saw a group of three doleful-looking boys, each wearing the appropriate attire for a beating, waiting nervously outside my study door. I was beside myself that my maiden tentative with the cane as head-boy would be on three bare arses; something which I had never even dreamed of and which somehow seemed surreal. But it was real enough; for here were my first three candidates for the cane, standing at my door. As I was ushering in the three lads, for what, if the look of fear on their faces was any guide, they considered tantamount to their execution, Mr. Augustus Caesar: Sir: the Headmaster, whose study was at the opposite end of the corridor to mine, happened to pass by.

He saw what I was doing, paused for a few seconds, a smile of approval on his face, and said: “I am pleased to see, Taylor, that you have taken to heart what I previously tried to impress on you and that you are making a good and early start in keeping order among the new boys. It is exactly what I like to see in my head-boy; keep up the good work, Taylor.”

With those words of encouraging approbation ringing in my ears, I found my confidence soaring, to do a sterling job in my first attempt at a caning ever. I promised myself that all three lads would leave my study that day each of them with an excruciatingly painful, well-beaten arse as a trophy for their sins that they would be proud to show off, to satisfy their ever salacious curiosity of their dorm-mates. I intended to make my debut with the cane a moment for myself to remember and also for the three recipients.  After all it is not every day that a prefect is presented with three arses to thrash for his first beating ever. It was a moment like the loss of one’s virginity; a unique moment; a moment to make the most of; a moment to savour;  a moment to remember; a moment, which when gone, would be gone forever, never to be repeated.

As policeman, judge, jury and executioner, I settled myself behind my desk with the by-then-visibly-trembling trio standing in front of me, wondering what was going ot happen to them. The two canes were still hanging one each side of the fireplace and the three lads were justifiably nervously glancing towards them, sensing, correctly, that their arses and one or other the canes were on a collision course. I had no incentive to be quick as I wanted to savour the power which being head-boy gave me over the three lads. I intended to enjoy giving my first beating as head-boy to the full and to send the three of them on their way, each with and arse to remember.

In retrospect, now aged  85, writing these reminiscences, which are as clear to me today  as if the events  described had taken place yesterday, I am still ashamed that I allowed my hidden streak of sadism to rule my disciplinary activities as head-boy of Churton.  But, still today, I cannot deny the fact that I enjoyed every moment of wielding the cane and the sexual arousal I personally experienced every time I beat a boy’s bare arse.  For that brief period in my life, the thing I enjoyed most about being head-boy of Churton was the unbridled power it gave me to inflict pain on my school-fellows. Believe me, I made the most of that year, as I whacked every arse I could, on the slightest pretext, as if the supply of that commodity was going out of style.

I opened the new punishment register that Sir had given me, with the strict instructions to complete it fully each time I beat someone. I made my first entry, inscribing Alcott’s name, house, form number and date, together with a brief description of his offence. I then wrote the fatal number 12 in the column headed number of strokes. All this took quite some time, and the three boys were growing ever more nervous, watching me slowly and laboriously – I purposely did not hurry – filling in Alcott’s details.

I admit feeling rather sorry for Alcott, who was what I fancifully thought of as being in a state of suspended, nervous anticipation, conditioned by the fear of what was to come. As I had not yet told him of the severity of his punishment, the boy must have been shitting bricks, waiting to know what was in store for him. I know how nervous I myself had felt on the numerous occasions in the past, in which I had been in the same position as he was now.

As for the other two, who had left Alcott in the lurch, in a vain attempt to save their own skins, they had deliberately ignored my order to stop running, which I am sure they had heard. Well, so be it; the two of them could now stew in their own bitter juice for a while longer, and enjoy the doubtful pleasure of agonising over their own fate.

I finally completed Alcott’s record and turned my attention to the other two. I began sarcastically, laying it on in spades: “In view of your precipitate departure, when I ordered you both to stop running along the corridor earlier this afternoon, I have not had the pleasure of formally making your acquaintance until now. I do hope that neither of you was suffering from an onset of momentary deafness, a distressing condition, which leads to misunderstandings, such as at present, when orders  are given and, for some reason, go unheeded.”

I stared menacingly and unblinkingly at them and saw that they were both figuratively climbing up the wall with embarrassment; they both looked sheepish and were unable to look me directly in the eye. They were both tongue-tied and neither of them could articulate one word of excuse for their appalling behaviour towards their school-fellow.  I knew from their silence, as the saying has it, that they were guilty as charged. They had chosen to ignore my order to stop running, to try to avoid the consequences for their action, not thinking that I would bother come after them. Well they now knew that they had been quite wrong and I had no compunction in throwing the book at them.

I elicited from them that the one was named Anthony Cartwright and the other Charles Hebble: the Honourable Charles Hebble, no less, son of some minor lord. I slowly entered their full details in the punishment register. I had tremendous personal satisfaction in entering the number 18 against both names in the column giving the number of strokes awarded. I had no compunction in increasing the standard tariff of 12 strokes by 50%, in view of their shameful behaviour towards Alcott. I intended to make them both jump through the hoop, before they were much older.

So my first act of punishment as head-boy would give me the enormous satisfaction of placing no less than a total 48 strokes of the junior cane across three separate, well-deserving, bare arses. My debut as head-boy, keeper of daytime order outside of the classroom, exceeded even my wildest dreams. I was beside myself as I felt I was carrying out Sir’s wishes to a T.

I finally stood up from behind my desk, walked over to the fireplace and unhooked the junior cane. I gestured with it for the three boys to go and stand near the wall opposite and said to the trembling trio: “Right boys, the moment of truth is approaching. The three of you go and stand by the wall over; press your noses against the wall and stand with your hands on your heads. Keep perfectly still in that position until I tell you to assume the position for punishment across the back of the armchair in the centre of the room.”

I now let my sadistic side take over and decided to draw out their mental agony, by launching myself into an over-the-top monologue, laced liberally with sarcasm, setting out in detail, what was now about to happen, thereby putting the fear of God into them, as they waited as if the sword of Damocles was suspended above their heads. I also sketched in the painful road they would most likely experience in future, if they continued on the trajectory they had chosen on their very first day at school.

“As you are all new boys, let me explain to you that at Churton, the rattan cane, an example of which I have in my hand right now, reigns supreme as the principal implement of punishment.”

Speaking to them as an older boy, a school-fellow, which, even though I was as head-boy, I still, in fact, was, I used the vernacular common to all boys throughout the school, calling a spade a shovel, in referring to their bottoms as their arses.

“The cane, which is in almost daily use, is always applied directly to the offender’s bare arse, which is what the three of you will shortly experience. Access to this all-important part of your anatomy, is facilitated by requiring the offender to wear what is known as the appropriate attire of gym shorts an gym vest, which you are all three wearing. You will each in turn be required to drop your shorts and present your bare arse to me for punishment with the cane.”

“As you were caught together, breaking one of the most stringently enforced rules of this school, I have decided that the three of you will remain present whilst your partmers in crime are being beaten, one after the other by me. Thus today, you will exceptionally each have the pleasure of hearing, if not actually seeing, your two accomplices being corrected for the error of their ways.”

“Each of you must, by now, eagerly be awaiting your turn to assume the correct position over the back of the armchair over there, to receive your first dose ever, of what at Churton is considered the most reliable, cure-all remedy of all time for all misdeeds: the rattan cane, applied to an offender’s bare arse. In view of your disregard of one of the most stringently enforced rules of this school, on your very first day at Churton, and in no way wishing to be a Job’s comforter (which was exactly what I intended) I suspect that unless you change your ways radically, this first visit to my study might presage many future painful encounters between your bare arses and the cane.”

“Now, let me explain to you, as new boys, what the instruction: assume the correct position means, whenever you are waiting to be beaten in my study. First, you take off your shorts and bare your arse for the cane. In case I have not made it clear enough already, all beatings at Churton are given, without exception, on the offender’s bare arse. You then approach of the armchair in the middle of the room, bend over its back, holding your arse as high as possible, placing your hands on the arms of the chair, with your head pointing down so that you are looking at the cushion on the seat of the chair. You will then have successfully assumed the correct position for your arse to be beaten.”

“You will then remain quite still in that position, as I deliver, to each one of you in turn, your allocated number of strokes of the cane. You will count each stroke out loud, as the cane delivers what I intend unrelentingly to make its agonisingly painful message to your bare arse. After each cut, you will thank me for correcting you and ask me to give you another stroke of the cane. The mantra you will repeat is as follows:”

“Thank you, Taylor, for correcting me. Please give me another stroke of the cane, which I know I richly deserve.”

“Whilst you are being beaten you must remain quite still and refrain from allowing your hands to stray onto your bare arse. I will not tolerate any exaggerated histrionic outbursts from any of you. All three of you, under duress, must learn to behave like the young gentlemen you are supposed to be; a premise which, in both your cases, Carter and Hebble, your recent dishonourable behaviour, raises considerable doubt in my mind.”

“Once you have taken your beating, you will remain over the armchair until I tell you to get up, when you will again resume your former position, with your nose pressed to the wall and your hands on your head. If you wish to avoid accruing additional strokes of the cane, you will all also refrain from massaging your bare arse in an attempt to attenuate the intense pain, which, I assure you that you will, by then, be experiencing. Do not take this threat lightly, as I mean what I say!”

“Whilst you are bent over the chair, you will doubtless note that the seat cushion in front of your very noses, is stained with the tears of countless boys, who, in the past  have met their own private Waterloo, bending  over the same chair, having their arses thrashed. There is is no shame in crying due to the excruciating pain of a beating. If I do my job as head-boy properly, which, I can assure, you, I have every intention of so doing, I shall do my very best to ensure that you add your own lachrymose contributions to an already tear-stained cushion.”

“Rest assured, gentlemen, for your sins earlier today, I will not let you down; you will each leave this room bearing the hallmark of well-beaten arse, which you will be proud to show to your peers in the traditional post-beating viewing. It is a pity that the masterpiece of flagellative art, which you will each be bearing, is only temporary and will quickly fade; as will also the excruciating pain you will shortly endure its creation. As our revered Headmaster, Mr. Augustus Caesar reminds us regularly, when it comes to correcting boys at Churton, pain is the name of the game. But that is the nature of the beast; so you must all make the best of it in view of your grave offence.”

By this time I could see that after my purposely longwinded harangue, which had been destined to put the fear of God into them .and in which I had repeatedly insisted on the fact that their arses would be beaten naked, all three of them were figuratively already climbing up the wall with fear.

“Gentlemen, I am sure that you have all appreciated the pains I have taken to explain to you the different steps in the punishment process to which you will now each submit yourself, in just retribution for your sins earlier today. It now only remains for me to inform each of you of the severity of the beating you are now about to receive.”

“I am going to deal with you Carter and you Hebble particularly harshly. You will each receive eighteen strokes on the bare; nine cuts with the junior cane, followed by nine with the senior cane. You need to be taught a lesson that it is a matter of honour that you face up to your misdeeds. Gentlemen at Churton do not run off from the scene of their crime, as you two boys did to save their own skins, leaving one of their friends in the lurch to carry the can.”

Both boys looked horror stricken when they hear what was in store for them; but neither of them said anything as I told them of the severity of their immediate fate. Quite frankly looking at the severe beating that I proposed to give them, the Headmaster would have praised me for maintaining the Churton standards. Although I was looking sadistically forward to beating the hell out of their two arses, I would personally not have liked to be in their shoes.

 But worse was still to be reveld to them, as I continued:  “You two boys will be beaten together in two consecutive sessions. First, you will each receive nine cuts with the junior cane, followed by a pause. After which you will each receive a further nine cuts with the senior cane. You will then both have ample time, standing there with your noses pressed against the wall, whilst I deal with Master Alcott, to appreciate the very painful state of your respective arses, which you have brought entirely on yourselves by your appalling behaviour towards your fellow classmate.”

“I regret to say, Alcott, that you who were left holding the can by a pair, whom I suspect by now might have become your former friends, are as guilty as they are of breaking one of the most stringently enforced rules of this  school, for which you too must pay the price. However, in view of and the fact that you obeyed my order to stop running and came back to face the music, you will only receive twelve strokes of the junior cane, which is the standard tariff imposed by the Headmaster for all misdemeanours of boys under 13 years of age.”

Judging from the look of relief on his face and the profuse words of thanks he gave me for my leniency  – his word, not mine – one could be forgiven for thinking that the lad had misheard me and that I had allowed  him escape scot-free. But he went on to say that he had feared, listening to the very severe fate of his two erstwhile – again his word – which confirmed that my suspicions had been correct,

that he too had feared that I might throw the book at him. I was, therefore, somewhat relieved to hear that at least one boy was satisfied with his present lot. Whether he would be so sanguine when he felt the cane biting into his bare arse, was another matter; a twelve-cut bare arse beating, even with a junior cane, was, and never will be, a light punishment. But then this was the entry level beating decreed by the Headmaster; so, no boy ever received less.

Why I should have felt sorry for Alcott, I have no idea; but the simple fact of the matter was that I did! I myself had taken numerous twelve-cut beatings across my bare arse; and from the age of fourteen onwards, always with a senior cane; and I had survived, as too would Alcott.

I pointed at Carter the junior cane and said: “Carter, I’ll deal with you first; the moment of truth has arrived for you young man; kindly assume the position over the back of the armchair.” Under my breath, I said melodramatically to myself: “Prepare to meet thy doom, Carter. If anybody deserves what is coming to him, it is thou young man, together with your friend Hebble.”

To my dying shame, as I write these memories years later I knew that I was going to enjoy every moment of thrashing these three young lads; I intended to make my first act of discipline as head-boy, an act to remember for myself and also for them. Even before I had ordered Carter over the chair, my cock had already commenced its upwards journey, confirming – as if any confirmation were needed – the strong relationship between corporal punishment and sexual arousal.  I had let the the sadistic side of my character out of the bottle and I knew that it would be difficult to get it back in there again.

Now that push had come to shove with a vengeance and the stark reality of what of what was about to happen to him was staring him bleakly in the face, Carter showed himself for what he really was; a lad with no back-bone at all: a lad who had turned a deaf ear to my order to stop running and come back and face me, simply to save his own skin.

As he complied with my order and bent over the chair, presenting his bare arse to the not-so-tender loving care of the cane, he was shaking like a leaf and tears were already streaming down his cheeks, before the first stroke had even fallen.  I looked down, with eager anticipation at the first bare arse, which, as the first of my maiden thrashing of three arses, as head-boy of Churton, I had every intention of taking to hell and back.  As I prepared to give Carter his first stroke, my memory flashed back to the first ever beating, which I had suffered at Churton, delivered by the firm arm of Sir himself. I recollect that the pain had been so excruciating that I thought I would never recover; but, of course, I did.

I should tell you that during the long summer holiday, which I had, as usual spent with Hugo at Denton, I had taken the Headmaster’s advice practise my caning technique and brought with me the two canes he had given me when he appointed me head-boy for the coming school year. I had also had the foresight to bring two sticks of white blackboard chalk with me.

With the two canes and the chalk, I assiduously practised my caning technique on an old saddle in the stables at Denton.  I chalked the cane so that I could see exactly where it had landed on the saddle. Little by little, I became expert in placing very single stroke precisely where I wanted it to land. Hugo, who watched my progress, laughingly described my labour as my apprenticeship to the fine, but not so gentle, art of flogging arse. Once I had mastered the technique of caning, he finally added, as a sort of backhanded compliment, that he would not want his arse to be on the receiving end of my cane.

Not surprisingly, given the utter merciless use of the cane, which was undeniably part and parcel of life at Churton and under whose malevolence, I had myself, over the years, suffered many times, I felt on the moral high ground as I prepared to lay my first ever cut of the cane across the bare buttocks of the odious Carter, who was already whimpering before the first stroke had even landed on his arse. When it did, with the characteristic crack of rattan biting into the bare flesh of a boy’s buttocks, Carter let out an exaggeratedly loud cry of pain as if the world were coming to end.

His tears, which had been rolling down his cheeks, even before he had bent over the chair, now increased to Niagaraesque levels, thereby assuring his contribution to the ever increasing size of the tear-stain on the cushion at which he was gazing. I was surprised, not to say amazed, at the speed at which my first ever stroke of the cane made its effect visually manifest on Carter’s arse.  In the space of an appreciation pause of ten seconds, which I allowed between strokes, before my very eyes, I saw the classic raised tramlines develop each side of the crimson-red, raw, agonisingly painful furrow, where the slender rattan cane had bitten deep into the flesh of Carter’s arse.

In the past, I had experienced, but not seen, this phenomenon many times myself, whenever I was beaten. However, this was the first time that I had ever actually seen it happen as a result of my own efforts.  I had to prompt the by-now-wailing Carter to call out the stroke number and to repeat the mantra of thanks in which I had schooled all three boys. In spite of Carter’s exaggerated uncontrolled howling, which I totally ignored, I continued applying the cane with ferocity to his increasingly painful arse and had the satisfaction of seeing the result of giving my very first beating as head-boy; a well-beaten arse, on which the nine strokes were all strictly parallel to each other, before telling Carter regain his position against the wall. As he complied with the order, snivelling with resentment at the severity of his beating, I repeated my warning for him not to even touch his backside in an attempt to massage away the pain.

I ordered the Honourable Charles Hebble to take his place over the chair. He was calmer than Carter had been, and showed considerable backbone as he stoically accepted his nine initial cuts with the junior cane. When Hebble was again with his nose to the wall, I then allowed a five minute break, permitting the two of them to suffer in silence, broken only by Carter’s continued sobbing, before I ordered order him to resume his position over the chair to receive his complement of nine strokes with the senior cane. On metaphorical bended knee, Carter he implored me to spare him the rest, claiming that he had learned his lesson and suffered pain enough; but, as you can imagine, his plea for clemency fell on deaf ears.

I treated both Carter and Hebble equally vigorously to the next nine strokes with the senior cane, each cut of which I placed exactly on the nine, well defined welts left by the junior cane, thereby increasing enormously the severe, relentless pain they were both experiencing. Finally their punishment was over and Carter and Hebble were again standing side-by-side, with their noses to the wall, their hands on their heads, forbidden to touch their excruciatingly painful arses. With some degree of personal satisfaction, I noticed that I had reduced even the stoic Hebble to tears, as he was sobbing quietly to himself.  Carter, meanwhile, kept up his weeping lament, bemoaning what had happened to him, claiming that he had been victimised.

For the benefit of readers of this story, who have never themselves experienced the utter agony a public school, bare-arsed beating, such as Carter and Hebble had just gone through, allow me to assure them, speaking someone who has many times personally experienced the same, that even a moderate bare-arsed caning is not anything to be shrugged off lightly and written down to experience. I knew exactly how Carter and Hebble were feeling, standing there, forbidden to touch their arses arses, which were throbbing with the excruciating pain,  which I had quite deliberately set about to deliver to them.

Was the punishment, which I had dished out to Carter and Hebble, exaggerated: over the top?  By the namby-pamby standards of today, definitely, yes. What I had done to Carter and Hebble, would today be seen as inflicting grievous bodily harm on minors in my care; but back then it was considered as par for the course.  The almost daily use of the cane at Churton, which was just one among many public schools, where the strictest discipline in the form of merciless bare arse beatings, were accepted by the boys as the norm.

No boy ever complained or was unhappy with his treatment or life at Churton. As a frequent recipient of the cane myself – I could never keep myself out of trouble for long. although being beaten was very painful at the time it occurred, it never harmed me long term; neither would it harm the present three.

I still had the third lad, Alcott to deal with. However, I was so sexually aroused by beating Carter and Hebble, that I had to make, what I suppose might best be described in modern language as a comfort break.  to ease the urgent demands of my cock. It had, as usual, asserted its wilful and uncontrollable independence from the very start of the proceedings. By the time I had finished beating Carter and Hebble; it was leaking pre-cum in spades and was threatening to explode into an uncontrolled and equally uncontrollable orgasm with its concomitant emission of sperm, if I did not give it immediate relief.

I was always made acutely aware that my most precious possession had a mind of its own; not for nothing was it often referred to as a man’s uncontrollable flesh. Like most young men, I had, in the past, had embarrassing erections, but never anything remotely like this.  It was as if my cock was blackmailing into doing its bidding, or face a full-scale, embarrassing orgasm in front three young lads, who probably did not yet know which end was up when it came to sex.

My lower underwear was already wet through with my uncontrolled emissions, and I noticed a tell-tale wet path in the crotch of my trousers, which said it all; I was on the road of no return; there was only one way to go that was forward.  I knew that I had to attend to the needs of my cock, or face the ignominy of exploring into a full-scale orgasm in front of the three young lads. If anybody had told me that in beating boys’ bare bums, I admit, possibly too vigorously, I could give myself an orgasm. I would have scoffed at the suggestion. But that, in reality, is precisely what was about to happen; my sexual arousal had been so strong that I was almost on the point of orgasm without ever having touched my cock.

Lying through my teeth, I told the boys that we would have a fifteen minute pause to allow Carter and Hebble to appreciate what they had brought upon themselves by their duplicity. I then disappeared down the corridor to my bedroom, where I picked up some clean underpants and the reserve pair of my school trousers. I then locked myself in the bathroom, where I rid myself of my trousers, which by this time were totally wet in the crotch area and took off my underpants which were totally sodden with the copious, pre-ejaculation emission of my sexual body fluids.

My cock, released from the confines of clothing, sprang immediately to rigid attention. This was by no means the first time I had jerked myself off at the instigation of my cock; but never before under such a set of uniquely bizarre circumstances. I had barely taken a grip of my tumescent member, the veins of which I could see, just beneath the skin, were pulsating in eager anticipation of pleasure to come, when the orgasm, which had been signalling its imminent arrival, like gathering clouds before a storm, suddenly exploded in series of massive, uncontrollable, ejaculative bursts, shooting great gobbets of my sperm into the bathtub.

I thanked God that I had managed to avoid the disaster of climaxing in my trousers, as my cock, super-aroused, had been on the point of doing. It was, I think, the longest and certainly the most intense orgasm I had ever had in my life. I would just remind readers that I regularly enjoyed the self-generated orgasm, when I topped for Hugo, whom, for the past year, in the lower-sixth, I had been fucking – and he me – several times a week. So I considered myself a seasoned judge of the seismic effect of any orgasm, on what I fancifully thought of as a Sexual Richter Scale; my then orgasm touched the cataclysmic maximum on this imaginary scale. Even though it had come on me like a bolt from the blue and had caught me completely unawares and unprepared, I nevertheless found that I had enjoyed the experience immensely.

I am relieved to be able to report that my cock never again behaved in such an outrageously embarrassing manner. That is not to say that it stood idly by whenever I was beating a boy, as it certainly did not. It always raised the flag, indicating its desire to participate in the proceedings: a demand, which I always satisfied in a post-flogging, wanking session in my private bathroom, which satisfied my cock and also enabled me relieving my sexual tensions and desires which were an integral and unavoidable feature of beating boys’ bare arses. But then, given the pleasure beatings always brought me, why would I ever want to renounce performing them?

The realisation suddenly hit me that I must return to my study where I had precipitously left the three boys in a state of suspended animation; Carter and Hebble suffering from not being able to touch their backsides and wishing to escape to the lavatories to sooth, in cold water, the pain raging in their arses; Alcott, no doubt trembling with fear at the thought of the cane, which had still to mate with his own arse.

I quickly put on my clean underpants and a dry pair of trousers. Now that it had had its call of anguished desperation for help, both heard and acted upon, my penis was – for the moment – all sweetness and light. It benignly allowed itself, now flaccid, fleshy, and almost, but not quite, totally malleable, together with my balls, the other half of what I considered  my most  precious bodily possessions, to be stowed into my clean underpants, where they obliging arranged themselves into a most attractive, sexual bulge.

When I returned to my study, I found all three lads still standing there early as I had left them. Not one of them had dared to move an inch during the fifteen minute pause. I had clearly put the fear of God into Carter and Hebble, who, understandably did not want to risk further further attention by the cane to their already painful backsides. I judged Alcott as not wanting push what he thought of as his good luck, to receive only twelve cuts of the junior cane cross his bare backside.

I ordered Alcott to take of his shorts and to assume the position across the back of the armchair. He took his twelve cuts with the junior cane which I laid on with vigour, without a murmur. I did not spare the lad, even though I felt slightly sorry for him. After all, he had been caught breaking one of the cardinal rules of the school, for which he had, quite justly, to be punished. I allowed Alcott to escape immediately to the lavatories after he hadtaken his beating.

To my shame, even to this day, I regret to say that I enjoyed the opportunity, which being head-boy gave me, to exercise my newly self-discovered, sadistic instinct and inflict the cane on my fellow schoolmates. I would like to think that as head-boy I treated all candidates for the cane equally. However, I confess that I allowed my emotions occasionally to dictate my actions, which I admit were not always even-handed.

In my very first beating session as head-boy, I had allowed my negative feelings towards Carter and Hebble to influence the vindictive – there is no other word for my actions – way, in which I treated them after they had each just received a, frankly over-the-top, eighteen-stroke bare arse caning and were in utter agony.

Whereas I had allowed Alcott to escape immediately to the lavatories – the normal place of refuge for post-beating, self-first-aid preferred by most Churtonians – I had made Carter and Hebble stand with their noses to the wall, their hands on their heads, forbidden to even touch their backsides, for another excruciatingly painful fifteen minutes, before I allowed them to leave and lick their wounds.  All in all, including the break of fifteen minutes, when I had absented myself to deal with the demands of my cock, the two boys has been standing there, in dreadful pain, for well over 30 minutes. What possessed me to take such an unconscionable, vindictive action I have no idea. It was definitely not my finest hour.

Yet I had to face the disturbing fact that I had discovered that I truly enjoyed inflicting pain on the arses of my fellow schoolmates; it gave me the greatest pleasure. I realised that I was not immune to throes of epicaricacy – Schadenfreude; I enjoyed the process of making boys suffer, by beating their bare arses; it turned me on sexually. I hated myself for doing what I did to my schoolmates in my final year at Churton as head-boy. But I was on a high, as if addicted to a drug.

And I had to face the unpalatable fact that I had enjoyed every minute of it.

CHAPTER 25

I will not burden readers with an arse-by-arse, stroke-by-stroke record of my caning activities in my year as head-boy of Churton, save to say that the day I left Churton at the end of my final year, according to the punishment register, which I religiously kept, I had in some 280 days, spread across three terms, addressed over 120 arses; I say arses rather than boys, as I had a number of repeat offenders, who like me in my younger days, could not keep themselves out of trouble for long, and whose backsides, therefore, needed regular therapy with the cane. If you consider that this equates to beating a boy every two or three days, you will see that I was quite proud of my year’s contribution to keeping order in a school numbering 480 boys.

I will, however, tell you about the final demerit beating of my career at Churton. I have already explained, in some detail, the hated Churton demerit system, when boys, who had reached an accumulated total of ten demerit marks in that week, were honour-bound voluntarily to present themselves, appropriately dressed for the occasion, at 4:30 to the head-boy for a no-questions asked, twelve-cut beating.  It was the one occasion when I, the head-boy, had no emotional involvement with the boy I was beating, but was merely acting as an executor of the physical act of wielding the cane. 

I never had any idea in advance – no one did – whether, on any given Friday, any boy would hand himself over to me to be beaten; it depended on whether any boy had reached the fatal number of ten demerits that week. I had performed this function as head-boy, every week, throughout my final year. Given my devotion to the benefits, which the pain of the cane brought to my fellow schoolmates, it was a close to the week, to which I looked forward immensely.

In my time as head-boy, the number of candidates for the Friday 4:30 VAS – Voluntary  Arse Sacrifice, as it was vulgarly known to all and sundry, had varied widely; between none (twice) and ten (once); with the average being between four of five boys waiting at my study door, at 4:30 each Friday afternoon; to submit their bare arses to the TLC of the cane. I was hoping for a nice clutch of arses to beat on what would be my final Friday afternoon in June of honour beatings, before I left Churton forever the following Tuesday.

At 4:30 that final Friday afternoon, I opened my study door to find five appropriately attired boys, nervously waiting to be called into my study to be beaten by me. The first four boys were all juniors, whose bare arses it would be a pure pleasure to beat. However, my heart sank into my boots at the sight of the fifth person awaiting my services: it was none other than Hugo, my best friend and sex partner.

As I looked enquiringly at him, he raised his eyebrows, grimaced, shrugged his shoulders, and raised his hands outwardly in that conventional gesture of futility that said there was nothing either of us could do to avoid the consequences of the situation in which we found ourselves. The worst possible case scenario, which Hugo and I had discussed together, at the time I had been appointed head-boy, had in fact, happened. Unbeknown to me, he had obviously reached a total of ten demerit marks during that week, which had obliged him to present himself to me for punishment: a punishment, which I, as head-boy, would be obliged to carry out.

I shuddered inwardly at the thought of beating an arse, which I knew so well and which had been subjected to my own personal rod thrusting into its depths, times without  number, over the past two years, since we had became lovers; I use the word lovers loosely, to describe the act of having  sex with one another. The feeling of love did not really come into our regular sexual couplings, which more and more were driven by sheer lust, with each of us searching, in the other, for our own personal sexual satisfaction.

The four younger boys were quickly dealt with and sent on their tearful way to lick their wounds.  I had been particularly savage with them, as I was psyched up to the gills with nervous apprehension at the thought of what I would shortly be obliged to do to my closest friend.

Hugo and I finally faced one another in my study, under the most unbelievably bizarre of conditions. One of us, namely I, was to be forced to inflict the vicious, cutting pain of the senior cane, on the arse of him, my best friend and sex partner. It barely bore thinking about; but think about it we must as the reality of the situation was staring both of us in the face.

But first I had to understand how things had come to this distressing pass for both of us. Hugo explained to me, how earlier that very same afternoon he had been playing in an end-of-term, friendly match between School house and Walpole House: “School House was fielding at the time and I let fall a catch, for which I cursed myself, and said, out loud, fuck, fuck, fuck; essentially cross with myself for having missed what was an easy catch.”

“Unfortunately, I was overheard by that saintly assistant housemaster of Walpole House, the holier-than-thou, young Mr. Bickerstaff, who was watching the game. He heard me three times use the word fuck which he considered, quite rightly, a swear word, and gave me three demerits, one for each time I had used the word. The fact that I had sworn at myself for missing a catch was no excuse.  As I had accumulated seven demerit marks this year so far, he topped me up to the fatal number of ten; so here I am, presenting, my noble arse, which you know so well, not to as usual to be fucked, but to be beaten: ironically, by my closest friend.”

I wondered if Hugo had remembered the conversation we had had together on my appointment head-boy when he had been passed over for a prefect’s post.  In fact the worst case scenario we had envisaged, that of me beating my best friend’s arse, had come to pass. I recalled exactly what he had said when we had considered the eventuality which neither of us thought would ever happen; but thanks to the overzealous Mr. Bickerstaff it had.

At that moment, Hugo had said: “Alan, I know full well what that implies and I live in the hope that the worst case scenario will never happen. But if it does and the worst comes to the worst and you are, one day, faced with the unpleasant prospect of beating your closest friend’s bare arse, I hope, for both our sakes, that we each have sufficient sangfroid to realise that as head-boy, you are simply doing your duty; and that there is nothing personal about what is happening and that I will never hold it against you.”

I sincerely hoped that he remembered those words, as I had no option but to beat him. Had he been alone that Friday afternoon I could have turned a blind eye, as he was not in Walpole, Bickerstaff’s house. But he had not been alone; he had been one of five boys waiting to be beaten by the head-boy that afternoon. The news that I had caned an upper-sixth- former, one of my classmates, in a Friday afternoon, honour beating, would be all round the school by supper time. Hugo had to emerge from my study, with a credible set of twelve, visible cuts across his arse to show off in the showers that same evening, as proof that no blind eye had been turned. Although we did not broadcast our sexual relationship, everyone suspected that Hugo and I were more than just best friends.

Hugo did not wait to be told to bend across the chair. He stepped out of his shorts and presented his bare arse, which I knew so well, under quite different circumstances, voluntarily to the bite of the cane.  I can tell you that it was with a very heavy heart that I did my duty as head-boy and gave my best friend twelve, parallel cuts, from the bottom of his back to the top of his legs, leaving him with a classic, excruciatingly painful well-beaten arse to show off, in the showers that evening.  Hugo, accustomed to exemplary, severe beatings from his father whenever he went home to Denton, emitted neither a sound, nor did he shed a tear as a result of my efforts that left him with a visibly well-striped, not to mention, excruciatingly painful arse.

No sooner had I delivered the twelve mandatory cuts for a demerit beating, than Hugo heaved himself up from over the armchair; He went across and turned the key in the lock of my study door, before returning to his former position over the back of the armchair. This time, though, he spread his legs invitingly, allowing me to see my old friend, his anal pucker, which my cock knew so well, at the bottom of the cleavage between his gorgeous, alas, now battle scarred buttocks.

“I imagine you want to fuck me hard right now. You must have dreamt of it, even if you never gave into the temptation, to fuck the beautiful young arse of the boy you had just thrashed; I know would have, were I in your position. Well, your dream has now come true; so go on and get to it. You have a ready and willing arse before your very eyes, more or less served to you on a plate. So go ahead and give my hole absolute hell, as that it is what I desperately crave a right now, after that hellishly painful beating you have just given me. Strike now, while the iron is hot and you will turn, what has been an ignominious defeat for both of us, into a glorious victory: a veritable triumph of mind over matter.”

Hugo was quite right, about me wanting to fuck him there and then. He had understood that as a highly sexually active man, I must have been tempted to dip my wick into many of the attractive young arses I had just thrashed; and it was true that I had often been tempted; after all I was only human. But although I had often been excited by the potential sexual pleasures offered by the luscious attraction of the young, virgin arse I was thrashing; I had never succumbed to the temptation. Believe me, I sometimes had to steel myself to say no my worst instincts as I had thrashed many very alluring arses.

Although hard to believe as it might be, Hugo and I, as probably the only pair of practising homosexuals in our year, had a stable relationship with each other as solid as the rock of Gibraltar. And even though we were not madly in love with each other – we had remained best friends through our entire careers at Churton – we had both found sexual fulfilment in our constant, on-going, permanent sexual arrangement. Neither of us needed to search for quick sexual release on an ad hoc basis, We were, what today is referred to as an item; we were both always there and willing to satisfy each other’s  needs and neither of us needed to look elsewhere for sex.

I confess, that Hugo was right in saying that I wanted to fuck him there and then. As it was not only the end of term, but the end of our days at Churton for both of us; and as we were unlikely to be disturbed, I saw no reason not to comply with his wishes.  So I left Hugo waiting eagerly there, bent over the armchair, I went into my bedroom and stripped myself naked, picking up the bottle of baby oil which we used as a cock lubricant whenever we fucked each other. Like a dog pestering it owner to take it out for a walk, my cock, freed from the constraints of my clothes,  stood eagerly to attention, already exuding drops of pre-cum, indicating its readiness for service; when was it ever not?

I went back to Hugo and shuddered as I gazed down on the twelve painful stripes I had just given him. I tried to put out of my mind the fact that the freshly beaten arse on which I was about to realise what had, until now, been but a dream, never to be fulfilled, was being provided me by my regular partner.  I lubed up my cock with oil and then, with no foreplay at all, in one forceful downward movement, thrust the full length of my rock-hard member, figuratively to the hilt, into Hugo’s eagerly awaiting anus.

I had never had sex with Hugo in the standing position before. However, I saw immediately that as my target was firmly supported over the back of the chair, I could use more force than usual in my thrusting. As Hugo had said he wanted a hard fuck and told  me – his very words – to go ahead and give my hole absolute hell, the very least I could do, on this  totally  unique occasion, was to grant him his wish. I do not pretend what I did to Hugo, was purely altruistic to fulfil his request, as it was most definitely not.

Let’s face it; we were two young studs, both of whom liked – better put, adored – anal sex, brought fatefully together today in the most unusual circumstances. By the time I had finished thrashing Hugo, we were both of us super-psyched up for sex; and as sex was what we were both craving at that moment, there was no reason to hold back; and so I did his bidding and gave his hole absolute hell. Caution and restraint were thrown the winds, as I fucked him so hard, in a way, which I had never done in any of our many previous regular couplings.

For the very first time, I allowed my cock the freedom, to go for broke, as it were. I withdrew its full length completely from my partner’s anus on every stroke, then paused in mid-air before plunging it back into his innermost depths, with ever increasing speed and force. What I visited on Hugo’s arse that day was sex at it most brutal: well-nigh rape; I think it was an exhilarating experience for both of us; certainly for me personally, it was my greatest sexual experience ever.

No matter how hard I hammered him, Hugo urged me on to do still more. How I kept up my incessant battering to satisfy him and held back from orgasm myself, I do not know: but I made the effort to please him, as he had made his arse, freshly beaten by me, available to me to allow me to realise my unrealisable dream. Suddenly Hugo reached the critical point of no return and cried out to me: “Yes, yes, yes; that’s it; for God’s sake, go for it now.”

On hearing Hugo’s words, more for his sake than God’s, I withdrew myself for the last time, waited, holding  my cum-dripping dick in mid-air for a moment, before thrusting my full length back inside him, with the maximum combination of force and speed I could still muster. I thereby pushed us both over the edge of the cliff, on which we had been teetering, into that indescribable, exquisite state of feeling, which only the simultaneous orgasm can ever bring to both parties to the anal sex act.

Our two cocks exploded volcanically at the same time: mine to pump my generous emission of semen deep inside of my partner: his to dump great, viscous gobbets of his sperm onto the tear-stained, seat cushion of the chair. Unfortunately, Hugo in his desire to give me perfect, unhindered access to his fundamental orifice had inadvertently allowed his penis to slip over the back of the chair with the rather unwanted consequences that had followed. But anyway, who cared about some grotty old cushion, when we were both in the throes of the greatest sex we had ever experienced.

I am hard pressed to explain the extraordinariness of this occasion. Was it because l had achieved the impossible and fucked the arse I had just thrashed, I certainly had wanted to fuck many of the arses I had thrashed in my year as head-boy; but I had never cheated on Hugo and importuned any of my fellow students, whose bare arses had felt the bite of my cane. Or was it because I had been forced by my position as head-boy, not without some severe misgivings, to thrash my closest friend’s arse, which he had then offered me on a plate to fuck, immediately after I had caned the hell out of him.

 Whatever it was, that had made the present occasion so special, it had exceeded, in sheer sensuality, anything that either of us ever experienced together previously; and as you know we had got through a hell of a lot of sex in the past two years.

No sooner had we pulled ourselves together after our mutual, not only explosive but also exhausting climaxes, than Hugo, pulled himself onto his feet and putting his right hand in the middle of my back, pushed me towards the bedroom, indicating that he wanted to continue what we had just begun together, on the combined principles that one swallow does not make a summer and one cannot get enough of a good thing. His cock, still defiantly erect, said it all; not that there had ever been much doubt as to his inventions, as, with the bottle of baby oil in his left hand, he propelled me into the bedroom.

I had no objection to his giving his own dick its moment of glory and went along with his unspoken desire. He promptly pushed me flat on my back on the bed and lubricated his erection with baby oil. Looking at the aggressiveness of his rock-hard dick, gleaming with oil, I knew that it would brook no interference with its intentions.  Hugo immediately knelt been my legs, which I had spread in readiness for what I knew was about happen. He hoisted them over his shoulders and with no preliminaries, taking a leaf out of my book, thrust his member deep into my rectum. From the way he had begun his attack on my anus, it was obvious that he had every invention in rough fucking me, in the same that I had just done to him.

The orgy of rough sex that I had myself initiated, just a short while ago, by hard-fucking Hugo’s arse, continued, almost nonstop until nine that same evening. It ground to a stop, not because we had had enough of each other, but because by that time we were both physically exhausted. Make no mistake; all anal sexual intercourse is hard work; and rough sex is particularly hard work. By the time we had finished, we were both dripping with sweat and the bedclothes were totally wet, thanks to our efforts.

It would be nice to think that this prolonged session of sex was an expression of the love we mutually felt for each other. Unfortunately this was not the case. It confirmed a feeling, which had now been growing inside me for quite some time that although Hugo and I had been firm friends at our first meeting as new boys at Churton, which we still were, we had each used the other’s body to fulfil our own personal burgeoning sexual needs, because it was conveniently there, love did not enter into our sexual relationship, which was purely physical: it was an up-market substitute for solo masturbation. What it had taught me, however, was that an orgasm developed by fucking a partner was infinitely more intense than one produced by jerking off alone; and that, in itself, was a valuable lesson.

Looking back on that evening, in addition to providing a fitting end to to my days as head-boy at Churton, it had laid bare, I think for both of us, the true nature of the purely physical, sexual relationship which we had enjoyed together for the past two years. I think that both of us had realised by now that we were not destined to be partners for life. I know I certainly had.

It was only afterwards I suddenly realised that Hugo, my very best friend, had provided me, with the very last arse I would thrash in my capacity as head-boy of Churton.

CHAPTER 26.  

On the Tuesday morning of the following week, our final term at Churton ended. For some reason, terms at Churton always ended on a Tuesday morning, which I believe, almost seventy years later, is still the case. As usual I spent what was to be my final summer holiday at Denton. It was to be an extended summer, starting at the beginning July through to the end of September, when we parted company, each of us to go to a different university: Hugo to read Greats at Gresham College, Oxford: I to read law at New College, Cambridge.

Unbeknown to us both at the time, during what was to be our last summer together at Denton – or anywhere else for that matter. Sex between us had changed completely since I had beaten Hugo as my last act as head-boys of Churton.  Our coupling was no longer that of two young school-friends, who had discovered that they were both gay and revelled in the fact that their physical daily proximity allowed to explore the sexual delights of each other’s bodies.  Whilst there had never been a declaration of love between us, our sexual coupling had always had a certain feeling of mutuality about it.

In the sexual coupling which followed Hugo’s beating by me, he had said he wanted to be hard-fucked, to which request I had more than willingly acceded. But that one, single, post-beating, hard fuck changed our sexual behaviour forever. No matter who was topping whom, even the slightest feeling of mutuality between us was gone completely. In what was to be our final summer in Denton together; in fact, what proved to be our final summer anywhere together,  our sexual mores could best be summed up in the phrase: every man for himself. 

Throughout that summer, we regularly hard-fucked each other, using the other’s body merely as an end to our own personal satisfaction.  Whoever was bottoming at the time, his body became the equivalent of an inanimate object, subjected to the pneumatic drill of the top’s dick. Although we both must have been aware of the change in our sexual behaviour towards each other, it passed without comment, for we both enjoyed our new-found toy: the self-centred, hard fuck.

When, after three months together, the end of September arrived and we knew would not see each other until at least Christmas, as we were going to different universities, miles apart, we each each pledged to write regularly to the other; a pledge which was never honoured by either of us. When we parted to go to university, it was still as best friends. There is a saying: absence makes the heart grow fonder; however, more apposite in our case was: out of sight, out of mind. Incredible as it might seem, we were never to see or speak to each other ever again for 67 years: a lifetime!

When we parted, I went to visit my grandmother, my only champion in Bolton, to tell her about my future university studies at Cambridge. I decided then to end what relationship I still had with the rest of my close family – basically none. My relationship with my father had gone from bad to worse, on each successive visit I had made to Bolton in recent years, basically to see my grandmother. My father simply still could not stomach the fact that he had been wrong about my education and that his only child had done so well at school and was now about to go to Cambridge University. I saw him and my mother only once, on what was to be my last visit to Bolton.

The only thing I regretted was that my parents never acknowledged that I had seized the opportunity, offered me by the scholarship I had won to go to Churton and was well on the road, to bettering myself as they would have put it.

CHAPTER 27.

I don’t want to blow my own trumpet, but as I am alone writing these memoirs, it falls to me to give you my version of the facts. I had been awarded the scholarship to Churton by my own innate, academic ability. I think I can claim that I was at the most academically brilliant boy in my class at Churton: in fact in the whole school, during my years there, I effortlessly took first place in all subjects throughout my entire school career.

However, I was also the most mischievous boy there and my academic ability did not save my backside from the bite of the cane. I think that I was caned – corrected, in Churton speak – more often than any other boy in the school, which was mercilessly addicted to the cane for keeping order.  My poor, bare backside, all too often benefitted – a doubtful choice of word given the painful context referred to –from the venomous kiss of the cane. It was applied by the Headmaster, the current head-boy  my housemaster, my current house-captain, and the sundry prefects, all of whom, year in, year out, never missed an opportunity to correct, as the Churtonian expression had it, their school-fellows.

But I also left Churton with what I personally thought of as another string to my bow: that of a highly experienced, practising, homosexual young man. At the tender age of eighteen, with two years of almost daily, practical, cock experience under my belt, I was quite certain of where my sexuality lay.  I did not need to experiment to get my sexual bearings, as I already knew exactly where I now was:; and, more importantly, where I wanted to go now. I knew I needed quickly to find a regular sex-partner, with whom I could exercise my insatiable libido and satisfy my voracious appetite for sex.

 My two years with Hugo had already taught me that I could not envisage life without regular, reciprocal anal sex with another man. The fact that it was generally frowned on, was illegal and could lead to imprisonment if detected by the police was no deterrent. Things were as they were and I was as I was; men like me, had to make the best of life they could, with what theyme had been dished out at birth. I was homosexual and would, God willing, lead a harmonious sex life with another man. Men of my ilk were at the time, generally considered as perverts, committing an unnatural act together, when to me, what Hgo and I had done together seemed completely natural.

Hugo and I had never discussed life without the other, forced on us by the inevitable parting of our ways when we left Churton to go on to university. I think it was a blessing in disguise that we each went on to  different universities,  geographically dozens of miles apart, rather than go to the same place, which would have allowed our already hollow sexual relationship, devoid of any feeling or substance other than physical, to fester on,  leading eventually to a complete rupture  of our  long-term friendship. As it was, we parted as friends.

To me, the way ahead was quite clear; I could not live without having sex regularly with another man; but this time with a man, with whom I shared a mutuality of purpose, beyond just the physical act of copulating with each other. Hugo and I had never, as friends, discussed the hollowness of our sexual relationship, which in that final summer together at Denton had become purely physical.  But I am sure he realised, as did I, that we each needed to make a fresh start with a new partner for the next phase of our lives. What we both needed was a new, stable partner, as neither of us had ever shown any desire to flit from partner to partner in a series of one night stands.

The Headmaster of Churton, Mr. Augustus Caesar, was himself a Cambridge man;  and in spite of the number of times he had thrashed my bare arse – and he was quite merciless with the cane – recognised the fact that I was, at the time, Churton’s star pupil. He therefore took it upon himself to lobby the present Master of New College, Cambridge, a close friend, as they had been students together in the mid-1870s. Not only did he persuade the stinking rich New College to admit me to it hallowed halls, but also to pay my tuition fees to read law and additionally provide me with a generous annual stipend, on which I was able to live a comfortable life during my three years at the university.

CHAPTER 28.

Thus it was, aged eighteen, that I went to up to  Cambridge to read law, at the end of September 1918, just before the  signing of the armistice on November 11th  bringing an end to the war which had raged in Europe for the past four years in Europe.

My College, New College, the smallest of the Cambridge colleges – 200 undergraduates and 50 fellows was, and still is, one of the richest of the Cambridge colleges. Its name, New College, belies its age, for it was founded in the year 1290, only six years after the oldest college in Cambridge, Peterhouse – just Peterhouse and not never ever Peterhouse College – founded  in 1284, which it faces, still today, directly across Trumpington Street.  Therefore, it predates its namesake, New College, Oxford, which was not founded until 1379. Both New Colleges, so appropriately named at the time, today, look distinctly old. 

Unlike most colleges in Cambridge, New College had eschewed embracing mathematics and science and had remained true to its roots based on study of religion, the law and ancient Greek and Roman languages and the Mediterranean culture of those two countries, where love was seen essentially as being between two people, indifferent as to whether it was male-female or male-male.

Homosexual liaisons between two males were not discouraged; especially in Roman society, where a married man fucking another man was seen and approved of, as sign of virility, especially among the upper classes. As the majority of the 50 or so fellows of New College were steeped in the ancient classics and philosophy, homosexuality was generally viewed by the dons in a much more benign light than in the country as a whole.

Although not exactly encouraged among students, homosexual relationships between undergraduate members of the college were not viewed with such a virulently jaundiced eye or proscribed in the manner strictly demanded by then penal law of the land. The feeling of live and let live reigned over the peaceful life of the college. This was something I came to appreciate personally, in view of my own particular need for a permanent sexual relationship with another man. It freed me and my partner – in crime, in the eyes of the law – from the fear of being denounced to the police as men performing indecent acts with each other, forbidden by law.

I arrived at the college in late September 1918. New College was unique among Cambridge colleges, in that it only accepted a yearly intake of new students, which it could accommodate within its walls If I tell you that New College had, at any moment, only 200 undergraduates,  all of whom lived in college, for their entire three years at university, you will see that the yearly intake of new undergraduates was less than 70, of which, in later September 1918, in the final weeks of The Great War as it came to be known, I felt myself  privileged to be one.

New College had three courts – quadrangles at are the other place. They were separated from each other by two huge, immaculately tended lawns, whose pristine quality needed no signs prohibiting undergraduate feet from walking on them.  The first court, imaginatively named First Court – the definite article had been dropped – was dominated on its far side by the chapel and the hall. These were each accessed by separate entrances: on the left, the chapel: on the right, the hall, from a central archway, which led to what, with the same inspired imagination, back in the thirteenth century, was called Second Court. Second Court led into New Court; a relative term, as it had originally been built in 1340,  only fifty years after the founding of the college itself.

The hall, as I learned the dining room was called, was one of the oldest buildings in Cambridge, still used for its original purpose. It had been modernised in 1550 during the brief reign of Edward VI and had been left untouched ever since. I was astounded to find that the whole  college, fellows and undergraduates alike – me included –  dined every evening by the light of shaded candles, held in solid silver candle sticks – the shades descendomg as the candle burned down – as in 1918 electricity had still not been installed in the  hall or chapel.

When I arrived at the porter’s lodge on my first day as a member of New College, I was informed by the porter that my set – the Cambridge expression for one’s private rooms in college, was located on the second floor of D staircase in New Court. As an eighteen-year old young man I was astounded when the porter, who was old enough to be my grandfather, addressed me as Sir; I was entering into a new world of manners and customs, which I had never dreamt existed.

I found D staircase in New Court and saw that my name had already been freshly painted on the wall at the foot of the staircase, identifying me as A. TAYLOR. The name of my neighbour, with whom I would be sharing the second floor was the much grander sounding; T. A. G. DILLON-WESTON. As our two names were the only ones freshly painted, I deduced that the other occupants of D staircase were of longer standing and that we were, so to speak, the new boys n the block.

As I was fumbling with the lock on the heavier outer door of my set, which, opened outwards onto the landing, a voice behind me said: “Hello; you must be Taylor, the other new man on this staircase. My name is Timothy Dillon-Weston; but I’m generally known to everyone as Tim”

I turned to find myself facing a fair-haired, young man of about the same height and age as myself, who was just the most sexually attractive guy I had ever seen in my life. I answered him back saying: “Hello: yes I’m Alan Taylor; and I’m very pleased to meet you.” Although neither of us realise it at that precise moment, I had just greeted, for the first time, the man, together with whom I was to spend the next 67 years of my life.

He continued: “From the looks of things, you are having difficulty in opening your oak,” which, as I had just learned, was what the outer, heavy door of the two doors to my set was called, “So might I suggest that you abandon that task for a moment and that we have a drink together to cement what I hope will be our future friendship; we are, by the luck of the draw, the neighbours on this second floor landing, so I think it is important that we get along together; and I hope that we can also be friends, living cheek by jowl in our eyrie.”

“Look, Alan,” at which I was surprised and relieved how easily he had called me by my Christian name, at a period when mode of address was still strictly formal, “I have a bottle of old Madeira open in my set, so why don’t we imbibe a few glasses together, in an attempt to get to know one another better as neighbours; and who knows, eventually become friends? As the saying has it: in vino veritas. which translates loosely as: many an untrue word is spoken under the liberating influence of drink. So please don’t disappoint me by telling me that you don’t drink and would prefer to have that Englishman’s staple: a nice cup of tea.”

At Churton Hugo and I had not formed part of the illicit alcohol drinking clique, into which many sixth formers had fallen, probably due to the the fact that we had a stable, on-going, sexual relationship between us. So quite honestly, I had no idea whether I drank, as in imbibing alcoholic beverages, or not. I was, however, interested in any means to allow us to get to know one another better as neighbours, as I had realised with a jolt that I would like to have sex with Tim right now, after only a minute of polite conversation together, having been been strongly attracted to him on first sight.

As you might imagine, I agreed to postpone my attempts to open the door of my set until later and followed Tim into his study. In so doing, I had my first sight of his gorgeously inviting buttocks, clothed in a pair of well-cut trousers, which immediately set my uncontrollable man-meat on its ever-hopeful upward journey.

Looking back on the whole unreal occasion of our first meeting, due my desire for immediate sex with Tim, my cock rose uncontrollably in the probabley vain anticipation of pleasures to come.  Tim had already had an immediate effect on my libido, the like of which I had never before experienced. As head-boy of Churton, I had several times thrashed a pair of particularly sexually attractive, bare buttocks. But I always retrained myself from sexually importuning the fellow schoolmate I was thrashing. However, had I never experience so strong an immediate desire to have sex with another man, as just meeting Tim, whom I did not know from Adam had aroused in me.

I was treated to a view of Tim’s beautiful, fuckable arse, as with his back towards me, he busied himself at a side-table pouring two glasses of the Madeira. By the time he turned round to hand me my glass, just viewing his arse had raised my sexual arousal to fever pitch. My cock, as ever completely beyond my control, was by now rock-hard and menacingly tenting the crotch of my trousers, announcing its readiness for service to anyone, who had had eyes to see.

To my immense surprise, not to mention joy and satisfaction, when I saw that Tim too was being embarrassed by the vigorous, uncontrollable behaviour of his man meat, in exactly the same as I currently was by mine. His cock too was thrusting at the crotch of his pants, which being tightly cut, looked just about ready to split wide open.

He looked at me; I looked at him; better put, we each gazed at the other’s crotch, which had made our mutual desire quite plain: we both wanted, there and then, to have sex with the other. Tim had what the French call: la parole facile, which translates loosely into English as: never being short of a word.

He rapidly turned around and put down the two glasses of Madeira he was holding on the side-table. He then went across to the entrance door to his set and opened it, allowing him to  pull firmly shut the heavy oak door opening onto the landing, before again closing the inner of the two doors. I was subsequently to learn that what he had just done was to sport his oak, which signified that although he was there, he did not want to be disturbed.

He then turned to me, looked over at the two glasses of Madeira and said, laughingly: “Sorry for the hiatus, Alan, but not to put too fine a on it, you, or rather your cock, or better put, both our cocks, have just drawn my attention to the fact that I had overlooked a much more important matter staring both of us in the face and which merits our immediate attention.”

“So, might I suggest we take a rain check on the Madeira, which, anyway, I think always tastes better after being exposed to the air for a while, and attend to a more pressing matter, which I think needs our immediate attention. So, if I might suggest that we repair to the adjacent room, which, as you will see, will allow us to tackle the problem, or perhaps I should say, the opportunity facing us, in greater comfort?”

CHAPTER 29.

Taken out of context out, his suggestion that we go elsewhere to resolve an undefined opportunity would have been unintelligible; but with both of us already sporting raging erections, which neither of us could hide, the meaning was quite clear; he was proposing that we go into the adjacent room: his bedroom, and have sex with each other. I had wanted to fuck him from the very first moment that I first set eyes on him, just a few minutes ago; but  never, in a month of Sundays, could I ever imagined that things could have gone so quickly. But a man’s cock never lies; it always tells the truth and goes ahead and trumpets it readiness for sex, no matter how embarrassing the occasion. With both cocks of the same mind, all systems were go.

And so we finally did; exactly as our cocks were telling us to do. Without saying a word, once in the bedroom, we both, with one accord, could not get out of our clothes fast enough. 

If I had been impressed by Tim fully clothed, I was completely gob-smacked at the sight of him naked. I had never seen a more beautiful guy with such perfect muscles: well-defined, but avoiding that overblown look prized by so many professional bodybuilders. I know that beauty is said to be in the eyes of the beholder; all I can say is that in my eyes, Tim’s physique was just perfect in every way.

And as for that supremely important piece of equipment: his cock? Well Tim had a cock to die for; so much so that I could hardly wait to experience it in action. Both Tim and I had been fully aroused and erect, ready for sex, before we stripped off for each other. The potent weapon I saw pointing directly at me, like loaded gun, was a perfectly proportioned, rock-hard piece of uncut man-meat, with its head visible, as the foreskin was partially retracted, or had been pulled back intentionally, ready for anal penetration, for which, I foresaw as the only immediate candidate: my own anus. Tim’s entrancing piece of kit was held above a large pair of balls, held high against his body.  As it was already oozing precum, there was no doubt that its owner was ready for sex and raring to go.

My only fear was that Tim, having seen me naked, would think again about having sex with me. I knew in terms of physique  he outstripped me in every way; but I had a decent sized, attractive looking cock, with which I knew that I could give as good as I could take; Tim, however, did not know of my capabilities. He had to base his decision, as did I, on what he saw; I prayed that what he was looking at, as we gazed on each other’s nakedness, moved him sexually, as much as his appearance had moved me.  I knew at that moment that I had been bitten by love at first sight.

If I had thought about it rationally I would have realised that the sequence of events leading us to where we were at present, predicated against my being rejected as a sex partner. After all, it was Tim who had suggested we abandon temporarily the Madeira, once he had seen the immediate sexually arousing, physiological effet we had visually had on each other. He had ripped of his clothes as rapidly as I had done with mine, thereby exposing his cock, erect and exuding pre-cum, the surest sign that it wanted to exercise itself on the vital part of the subject – namely me – responsible for its arousal. But when, under such emotional, sexually aroused, circumstances, did one ever think rationally?

 Author’s Note: If you visit the two sites below, you will see images of the former porn star, Kris Evans, long the leading light at BelAmi, a leading East European producer of porn videos, who is my role- model for Tim.

Kris Evans is exactly as I envisage Tim to be at the moment when Alan Taylor first sees him naked, and you will see why Alan became immediately so aroused

http://www.welovenudes.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/kris_evans-belami.jpg 

http://www.welovenudes.net/wp-content/gallery/kris_evans-belami-rick-day/kris_evans-belami-rick-day-7.jpg

If you then visit the site below, you will see a naked image of Jon Kael, also a BelAmi mode;, who is my role-model for Alan Taylor at the moment he first met Tim. Even though he is of slightly smaller stature, he has that all important feature: a big, well proportioned penis, with a presence. Just look at the way it curves gracefully over his balls in the photo as if saying: “Look at me; I am alive and well and ready for active service.” What is there not to like about him as role-model for Alan?  I think you will agree with me that Alan has nothing to fear about his sexual attractiveness to Tim

https://freecdn.belamionline.com/Data/Models/Model_2867/BigImage.jpg

I looked at Tim and he looked at me. Then he approached me, took me in his arms and kissed me intimately on the mouth, which I returned fully. I was transported to seventh heaven by that one act which I consider personally to be the most intimate act of love, far surpassing in its significance the act of copulation itself. To me, the kiss is an act of emotional unity, without which copulation, although it assuages our animal instincts, becomes purely physical. The kiss between two homosexuals, is, at least for me, the emotional glue, which hold two guys together and distinguishes true homosexual lovemaking from buggery.

 Although, in the eyes of the law, we are all buggers, to me there is an enormous difference between having sex with Hugo, and the sort of loving relationship I now wanted, and which I was hoping would develop out of the very short acquaintance – I hesitate even to call it friendship – I had had with Tim.  Dismiss me as a romantic, with my head in the clouds, if you will; but as sure as eggs is (sic) eggs, I knew in my heart of hearts, that Tim was the guy for me. I could only hope that the sentiment was reciprocated.

 In fact looking back over two years of active sex with Hugo, I realised now  that what we had had together was, from the start, devoid of love and that we had merely buggered each other to satisfy our need for sex as two precocious, homosexual teenagers wrestling with the hormones transforming their bodies from boys into men. After I had found myself in the invidious position of being duty bound, as head-boy, to thrash my best friend, what we subsequently had together became hard-core buggery, pure and simple.

In retrospect, it was the mutual realisation of this unspoken fact that in spite of two years of almost daily sex together, we were simply not destined to be partners for life; for that all important factor: love, was totally lacking from our friendship. We had somehow both realised that there had to be more to homosexual sex. than what we were each giving to the other, which had made or parting, only a few days ago, still as best friends, painless.

Subsequent to that first loving embrace, I became like putty in Tim’s hands.  He pushed me onto my back onto the bed, opened the drawer in the bedside table, took out a tube of what I divined, from the descriptive name on the label, Anolube, was a specialised anal lubricant, before flinging himself at my side on the bed.  Without saying a word, he then kissed me passionately again on the lips, before systematically working his way down the full length of my body with his mouth and tongue, part kissing, part licking  my bare flesh, until he finally at arrived at his all-important, predetermined destination: my rigid boner of a cock.

Hugo and I, in our two years of intimacy, had never indulged in fellatio: oral stimulation of a guy’s cock by his partner; or rimming; similar oral stimulation of a guy’s anus. We had stuck strictly to the core act of gay sex: straight penetration of the bottom’s anus by the top’s erect penis. I was to be treated to both these delights, .before Tim actually got around to penetrating me, with what, then, the most enormous cock I had ever seen.

By this time I was so aroused and never had been readier for sex than I then was. My cock, like Tim’s was uncut. However the foreskin, stretched tightly over the heavily swollen cockhead had withdrawn, leaving the top half of the head exposed,emitting precum in spades. thanks to the arousing effect Tim had had with his mouth  working down my body towards its ultimate prize. This did not deter him from taking the top half of my dick into his mouth and begin to suck me off. As this was the first time I had experienced fellatio, I found it super-arousing–;as if I need any more stimulation to prepare me for the ultimate act of penetration by Tim’s massive member, for which I could hardly wait.

Tim worked my cock with his mouth until what I thought was the point of no return for me;  a moment longer and I would have been unable to hold myself back and would have climaxed and ejaculated my entire load into his mouth and over his face. However, he suddenly stopped, and rolled me over and returned to his oral work, rimming my anus. Again, it was another first for me, and I was quickly transported by his tongue to heights of readiness for sex which I had never before known could be so intense.

As with his work on my cock, he continued until he could see that my tension had, yet again, well nigh reached breaking point and then suddenly stopped. He flipped me over onto my back again and laid himself down alongside me, putting his arms around me and kissing me passionately on these lips as before. He whispered into my ear: “Can I take it that you are not an anal virgin, Alan, and that you know what comes next? If you do not want to go on from here, just say so now, and I will stop, with no hard feelings; I have never taken and will never take any man against his will.”

I could hardly wait to be penetrated and whispered back to him: “Go ahead Tim and fuck me, for as I alone know thanks uniquely to your efforts, you have made me more than ready for it. Look, Tim, I have I only ever had sex with one man until now; so although you will not have the pleasure of introducing a gay virgin to anal sex, as that is a onetime event. You will, however, have the assurance that the hole you are fucking, has only received one cock other than yours. But had I still been an anal virgin, I would have told you to go ahead, as I can think of no one better than you, to whom I would rather have surrendered my virginity, which, for your information, happened about two years ago, when I was at the tender age of sixteen.”

Author’s  Note: As Alan had never before experienced either fellatio or rimming as foreplay to penetration, at both of which. Tim turned out to be an expert. I thought it might add a touch of reality to the story to include images of the two role models for Tim and Alan, actually engaged in these two acts.

To see Alan’s introduction to the act of fellatio, visit the site below:

https://gaypornpicsgalleries.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/BelamiOnline-gay-porn-young-nude-twink-bareback-ass-fucking-Kris-Evans-Jon-Kael-big-raw-dick-anal-rimming-007-gallery-video-photo.jpg

To see Alan’s introduction to the act of rimming visit one or both of the sites below:

https://nakedgaypornpics.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/BelamiOnline-gay-porn-young-nude-twink-bareback-ass-fucking-Kris-Evans-Jon-Kael-big-raw-dick-anal-rimming-008-gallery-video-photo.jpg

https://nudedudesexpics.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/BelamiOnline-gay-porn-young-nude-twink-bareback-ass-fucking-Kris-Evans-Jon-Kael-big-raw-dick-anal-rimming-009-gallery-video-photo.jpg

In Tim, I had been lucky to chance upon an experienced guy, who knew how to indulge in foreplay such as I had never before experienced, and prepare his partner for the ultimate act of penetration. I sensed that I was about to be subjected to the most intoxicatingly invigorating fuck of my life; and let’s face it, Hugo and I had fucked each other literally hundreds of times over the last two years.

The moment of truth: the crunch time had finally arrived, when I would have that massive cock thrust up my arse. Was I scared at the immediate prospect of taking that nine-inch erection inside me? No, not really, for I was reassured after Tim’s foreplay that he knew exactly what he was doing; he had been down this road before!

Tim now heaved himself to his feet and stood there, completely unembarrassed, proudly flourishing his superb erection in front of him, before anointing it generously with Anolube lubricant. He then did the same to my anus, observing, as he did so, that good lubrication made for good and comfortable fuck.

Then to my complete surprise he fished a latex condom out of the drawer and handed it to me, saying: “Alan, in the interests of good housekeeping, please roll that onto to your dick. You have a big dick and a pair of heavy balls, and you look like the sort who produces a huge amount of spunk when you climax, which I assure you, with my cock at the helm, you probably will. That rubber will catch your emission and hopefully keep the bed from getting soaked. It’s by way of being a damage limitation measure; so kindly be a good chap and please roll it on your dick before we start”.

I had never actually seen a condom before, let alone put one on my own penis. I knew their purpose, which was to avoid unwanted pregnancy and I had seen signs for prophylactic latex, as they were obliquely called, in the barber’s shop, where I used to have my hair cut at Churton. How Tim had had the nerve, as s student, to buy a condom, I had no idea; they were a source of both fascination and embarrassment both to me and to lots of other young men. Even heterosexual sex, for which they were principally intended, was clothed in great secrecy and never discussed in polite society, as if it did not exist.

What Hugo and I had done in the two years, during which we had fucked each other like rabbits, was to lie on a bath towel and hope that that would keep the emission mess down to dull roar. But Tim’s method was an idea of pure genius; and he obviously had the extreme self-confidence to dare to buy the objects, which I would never have had the nerve to do. Come to think about it, at the barber’s I patronised in Great Churton, where one had to sit and wait one’s turn, I have no recollection of ever hearing anyone ask for condoms.

Finally we were both fully prepared for the act of penetration. We had never discussed who would do what to whom. However, as Tim had taken the imitative and we were in his bedroom, it seemed quite natural to me that he should be the active partner in what I hoped would be the first of many couplings  We had not discussed at all our potential sexual relationship as neighbours. I saw now that Hugo was a fast fading memory and that I needed a solid and reliable partner as it had become hard to imagine my life without regular sex. I hoped that Tim would, like Hugo, enjoy playing both the roles of top and bottom – both active and passive partners – as I could not envisage a permanent, long-term relationship, in which I was tantamount reduced to playing wife to him as husband; playing the role of bottom , but never the top.

But first things first; we had not yet even had our first fuck together. With me on my back on the bed, Tim knelt down between my legs, pulled my right leg into the air and held it there; my left leg, meanwhile, was left sprawling on the bed, giving him clear access to that most important point of entry: my anal pucker. Tim wasted no time and proceeded, without any warning, to thrust, to the hilt, his rock-hard rod into my well prepared anus.

Author’s   Note: To see an image of the role models for Tim and Alan, enacting the above scene immediately after penetration, please visit the site below:

https://gaypornpicsgalleries.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/BelamiOnline-gay-porn-young-nude-twink-bareback-ass-fucking-Kris-Evans-Jon-Kael-big-raw-dick-anal-rimming-012-gallery-video-photo.jpg

As soon as the tip of Tim’s formidable tool touched my anus, my anal sphincter muscles reflexively tightened repel all boarders, so to speak. Tim immediately said: “Relax, relax, Alan, and let me enter.”  Then, pressing his cockhead firmly against my anus, he successfully overcame any residual, muscular resistance and smoothly slid his formidable, nine-inch erection deep into my rectum.

The image, in the reference above shows this first act of union between Tim and me exactly as it took place.

Tim’s cock was much longer and of greater girth than Hugo’s and I knew instantly that this was to be a totally different kind of fuck to any I had experienced with Hugo. And I was not to be disappointed in my dream that this was to be a fuck like none other which I had hitherto had. First of all, Tim had shown a great deal of empathy in the form of love and care he had lavished on my cock and anus, in his pre-penetration foreplay; and this was to continue in the  way he went on to fuck me.

There was none of the every-man-for-himself, brutal hammering, which I had experienced being fucked by Hugo.  Instead, Tim was most gentle, as he withdrew, at every stroke, practically the full length of his massive penis, before gently sliding it back into my rectum. Gradually he built up in force and speed, but always using long strokes as he fucked me. But while he, as top, was hogging the gymnastic limelight, which inevitably accompanies the act of the top in anal copulation, he never seemed to forget that it takes two to tango and that his partner, on whom he was exercising his cock, was equally important and should also be satisfied and emerge as joint winner from what was definitely not a contest, but a shared experience. 

 I quickly saw that the difference between Tim and Hugo when they were fucking me was that Tim really cared about what was happening to  me, whereas Hugo did not; as long as he himself was satisfied, that was fine by him. He had always left me to jerk my own way to my climax, after he had withdrawn himself from inside me. Now I come to think about it, he never climaxed inside me, preferring to masturbate himself manually to orgasm, after withdrawing himself from me.  I wondered if he was aware that had he persisted in his endeavour, as Tim was now doing, he could have reached his own orgasm and dumped his load inside me. I know that I certainly did as I  regularly achieved orgasm fucking Hugo and dumped my load deep inside his rectum.

So what we had both learned after two years of regular intense fucking? For my sins, I regret to say that when I was fucking Hugo, I treated him in much the same brutal fashion as he regularly treated me. Far be it from me to criticise Hugo for what, in retrospect, I now see as his – or better put, as both our approaches – to sex, for I am not the gleamingly pristine pot to call the kettle black. At the time, neither of us was aware of the ultimate pleasure, which anal sex could bring to both of us. We were, in fact, naïve beginners, who commencing from ground zero knowing absolutely nothing, had cobbled to together a relationship, which I ultimately perceived was hollow and could not last much longer, only a few weeks before we finally separated.

However, now I had the extreme good fortune to find myself no longer being fucked by Hugo, but by Tim, whom I already hoped would prove to be my new potential, long-term partner. At that moment, I had no idea that my most earnest wish would be granted and that Tim and I would remain together for 67 years.

Inevitably, as Tim became more and more sexually aroused, his actions took on a more frenzied air; but he managed, the whole time, to convey the feeling that he was aware of the importance of satisfying me as well as himself. It suddenly hit me that he was not simply going through the mechanical process of fucking me for his own satisfaction, but that he was, in fact, making love to me

This was confirmed by the fact that he held back on his own orgasm until he saw that I too was on the point of climaxing; then with one last powerful thrust, he took us both into that sublime, Shangri-La of a place, which I had never know existed until that moment: the land of the simultaneous orgasm. Don’t get me wrong; I had always achieved and enjoyed my own independent orgasm in my sex with Hugo. But even when I had been fucking him, I had never succeeded in reaching my own orgasm without withdrawing my cock and treating it to a vigorous dose of manual assistance to complete the act, before pushing it back into Hugo to deposit my load inside of him. 

However, with Tim it was so very different. He had, by his single-mindedness of purpose, not only reached his own orgasm, allowing him to him to pump his load into deep inside my rectum, thereby paralleling heterosexual intercourse, where the man shoots his load into his female partners innermost, vital parts, in the act of insemination; but by dint of acute observation of my sexual arousal and my readiness to climax, I saw that he  had deliberately held himself back and persisted in fucking me, until he had judged that the moment was upon us, before withdrawing his cock completely and, only then, making his final thrust, repenetrating my anus,  thereby taking us both to orgasm at the same time.

Words fail me to describe what had been the most intense orgasm of my life, entirely produced by Tim’s efforts with his cock, without recourse to for any manual assistance from either of us. My own orgasm, in which I had played no part producing, was as ever brief,  but of such an exquisite intense depth of feeling of satisfaction, such as I had never know existed, let alone experienced, until now. Thanks to Tim, and to him alone, I had just had what was the most profound sexual experience of my life; and let’s face it, with Hugo I had had more sex over the past two years than any young man aged between 16 and 18 had a right to expect; so I considered myself a good judge.

Tim finally withdrew his dripping cock and, bathed in sweat due to the effort he had made, flopped onto his back alongside me on the bed. I saw that he had closed his eyes while he regained his breath. I looked down at my own latex clothed penis and saw that the teat at the end of the condom was bulging dangerously; stretched, as it was, to near its breaking limit, holding the huge quantity of semen, which Tim had correctly foreseen I might produce.

I pulled the rubber sheath of my still erect member, which as ever remained rock-hard, eagerly announcing itself ready to play the position as fuck-stick in a return match. But first, I tied a knot in the condom to stop my sperm escaping; not knowing how or where to dispose of it  I placed it on top of the bedside, night-table alongside the tube of Anolube lubricant, which was still lying there.

I glanced back across at Tim, who was lying there, perfectly still, to see that he had dozed off. Not wishing our first union to end so quickly, I took the initiative and opened the drawer of the night-table to find, as I had hoped, the condom I had worn was the first of a packet of six, which Tim had bought and taken one. I rolled back over and kissed Tim firmly on the mouth, which, in spite of his superficial somnolence, I was delighted to see he returned equally vigorously, which indicated that, as far as sex was concerned, we were both singing from the same hymn sheet

I  said: “Come on, wake up, Tim, because as I see it, we are not yet half done ; one good turn deserves another; so, with your  acquiescence, I would now like to do for you what you have just done for me. Frankly, Tim, what you achieved just now, using your dick on me was totally mind-blowing. I never knew until, thanks to you, I had experienced it myself, that it was even possible for a top to induce a climax in his partner just by fucking him. And the foreplay leading up to the orgasm, which you induced in me, was just amazing: and when the climax came, the intensity of the feeling was utterly sublime.”

“Whether I can ever measure up to your high standards or not, is doubtful, as you have set the bar so very high. I can but try and hope that in time I might achieve for you what you have just done for me. I tell you frankly, Tim, in all the many times I have been the top in an anal fuck I have never even managed to bring myself to orgasm, just by effort of fucking my partner’s arse. I have always had to withdraw and resort to masturbation to realise my orgasm; and that goes for my partner too, whenever I was bottoming for him.”

Tim now said: “Alan, you must be aware of the fact, but just in case no one has ever told you before, then let me tell you right now, in my eyes you have the most attractive piece of man-meat that I personally have ever seen. I do not know if you personally realise what the sight of your erect penis – as it now is – does to any prospective partner. Well let me just tell you what it is at present doing to me. It is sending paroxysms of desire coursing through my body. In fact, I can think of no one other than you, with whom I would rather have sex right now. In my view, Alan, you have the most beautiful and desirable cock I have ever seen, and I can hardly wait to take it inside me.”

“However, before you do the dastardly deed and penetrate me, I would be glad if you could clear up some confusion in my mind as to where we stand as potential regular sex partners. Correct me if I am wrong, but you said earlier that you had had sex with only one other man and that mine would be only the second cock ever to penetrate your anus. Yet you have said just now that the many times you had been the top in an anal fuck you had never even managed to bring yourself to orgasm, just by effort of fucking your partner’s arse. Now, as far as I can see, these two statements contradict each other.”

I confess that I felt as if was walking on eggs as I set about trying to explain to Tim, that he had totally misunderstood my comments in thinking that I had had sex only once and with only one guy, before I had allowed him to penetrate me just  a few minutes ago. The fact of the matter was that for the past two years, practically until today, I had been a serial anal copulator.  I think it would be safe to say, that few guys of my age had had sex, both as a top and a bottom, more times than I had.

“Tim let me explain, for you have clearly misunderstood me. You have mistakenly taken the fact that I told you that I had only ever had sex with one other guy, which is quite true, to mean that I had had sex only once until you fucked me just now. The fact of the matter is that from the age of sixteen, during my last two years at school at Churton, until I came here to Cambridge, a classmate, Hugo Fenwick, and I were more or less an item; as such, we had sex pretty regularly together. Hugo and I had been best friends – bosom buddies – from the day we both arrived as eleven-year-olds at Churton. Well, by the age of sixteen, we had both realised that we were gay and the inevitable happened.”

“So, Tim, you have just fucked a young stud, who has had sex with the same one guy, literally dozens of times in the past two years. When you nailed me to the bed just now, you were fucking, what is perhaps best described as the sexual equivalent of an old lag. However, you truly are only the second guy, whose cock has ever penetrated my inner sanctum.”

“But fear not, Tim, for our school boy involvement was really just a physical outlet for sex to satisfy our hormone-conditioned libidos. In all the many times I had had sex with Hugo, I never had one experience to equal the one you  gave me just now, with such an unbelievably intense orgasm induced by your cock alone. The relationship I had with Hugo came to an abrupt end when we left Churton at the end of June his year; I to come here to Cambridge; Hugo to go to Oxford. So for the moment I am footloose and fancy free, as far as sex is concerned. However, after two years with Hugo, I have got to the stage that I cannot contemplate life without regular sex.”

“The question now is, in the full knowledge that the guy, whom you have just fucked, turns out to be a serial, anal copulator, albeit one with only one partner other than you, do you personally want to continue with what, to my mind, promises to be a very rewarding relationship?”

“Look, Alan, I’ve said my piece and you know how eager I was – still am, in fact – to go ahead and sample your wares; the fact that you are an experienced, anal copulator, should add to my enjoyment, when I take your cock up my arse for the first time, as I intend to do right now; so to misquote Shakespeare, as everyone does: Lead on Macduff!  But just one question before you slaughter my arse with your divine dick; is your ex-sex partner’s full name possibly, Hugo Fenwick-Denton?”

I confirmed that it was and asked if he, by chance, knew Hugo.

“No, not personally; but I have heard of him. However, first things first: and as we have important, pressing business to attend to, I suggest that we tackle that first.; Just fuck me, then I will tell you the whole story of how I came to know the name of your lover; or as I fervently hope: your ex-lover.”

CHAPTER 30.

I heaved a silent of relief that the misunderstanding had not led, as it could well have done, to the breakup of what I already considered as a budding long-term sexual relationship. The fact that I had been a serial copulator, in a two year, closer-than-close relationship with Hugo before we met did not seem to concern Tim.  I guessed from the expert way he had fucked me, which had been a revelation for me, that he too was no beginner, who he had had colourful past few years himself. What was absolutely sure was that in our first coupling, he had already taught me a lot about gay sex which was new to me.

Looking back on the two years with Hugo, I suddenly realised that he and I had never even remotely made love to each other; we had just mechanically fucked each other; which is not to say that we both had not enjoyed every minute of our union. But Tim’s use of the word, lover, to describe the relationship between Hugo and me, was a complete misnomer; love had, not even remotely, ever entered into it.

I looked at his flagging cock and said: “Well, Tim, it looks though your  man-tool is in need of refreshing; so let me do that before we get down to the serious stuff.”

Simultaneously, taking the bull by the horns and leaf out of his book, I bent over Tim’s magnificent cock – he really did have a penis to die for – and for the very first time in my sex life, I applied my lips to another man’s meat; I was carrying out my maiden act of fellatio, on the cock of the very man, from whom I had, just a brief while ago, learned the technique. I made haste slowly, savouring my first, somewhat salty, vaguely fishy taste of the remnants of his semen, which he had largely left deposited deep inside me. I felt his cock stiffen, in respond to the touch of my tongue on the exposed tip of his cockhead, over which his foreskin was being stretched ever more tightly due to his erection recovering in response to my tongue,

Encouraged that my ministrations were having the desired effect, I threw my lack of experience to the winds and took his entire cockhead into my mouth and started sucking at it vigorously. To my intense relief, I felt his magnificent member – the biggest cock I had ever seen – stiffening fully in my mouth. Within less than a minute, it was leaking precum again indicating its readiness for sex, although, this time in a subordinate role, as Tim was offering his anus to the TLC of my cock. I can tell you that at that precise moment, I could hardly wait to fuck him. My own cock, acutely aware of the pleasures to come, was behaving impeccably; it was rock-hard and exuding precum in spades, indicating its desire for action; but when did it ever not?

I reached across and took the fresh condom from the night-table, where I had placed it. Then, instead of handing it to Tim, in a spontaneous act of braggadocio, which smacked of lese-majesty, I boldly reached across to Tim and rolled the rubber onto his by now nine-inch boner.

I had already decided that I would take Tim in the same position as he had taken me. Tim indicate his willingness by spreading his legs, giving me my first view of, and easy access to, his all important, tight looking,  anal pucker, which would shortly be forced to yield to the pressure of my cockhead. From the alacrity with which he offered me access to his vital parts, I judged him as being as eager to be fucked by me, as I was eager to fuck him; it had all the air of a being a win-win, situation for both of us. All that remained to do now was, to paraphrase the well-known verse 5 from the 23rd Psalm; to anoint, not my head, but rather my cock with oil, and to ensure that Tim’s anus was the cup that runneth over with the same lubricant and all systems would be go.

This last formality accomplished, I knelt between Tim’s legs, which he had already obligingly spread in obvious, willing anticipation of what was to come. I hoisted both his legs into the vertical position, holding them, one over each my shoulders, giving my cock perfect access to his port of entry. At the first touch of the tip of my cock against his anus, I felt the automatic, reflex tightening of Tim’s anal sphincters, which I ignored, forcing myself gently, but firmly into his innermost, private parts.

As soon as I had sunk my meat into Tim, I sensed somehow that this, my very first time with any guy other than Hugo, would be different. Accuse me, if you will. of wishful thinking; but bear in mind, as you do so, that I had just undergone what had been, for me, a virtuoso master class in  the gentle art of anal sex, which was inspiring me to different, greater things than I had ever dreamed of with Hugo. Call me a romantic, but in fucking Tim for the first time, I had one clear objective in my mind: to stay the course until, by the effort of my cock alone, I managed to climax inside him.

I had this idea in my head that if I were able to impregnate – a highly emotive and doubtful concept, in the context of anal intercourse between two males – his rectum with my load, by climaxing inside him, as he had just done with me, the fact that we each would be carrying – albeit temporarily and to no good purpose – the semen of the other, would, somehow, bring us spiritually closer together.

What my first experience with Tim had taught me was that there was more to sex than self-satisfaction, which had been the leitmotif for both Hugo and me, during our two years of intense and regular copulation together. My first experience with Tim, had moved sex onto a much higher, more spiritual plain, where, as top, he had really shown me that he cared about my feelings and that he took pains to ensure  I was satisfied with the union. Thanks to my first time with Tim, the concept of love had entered into what, for Hugo and me, had, for two years, been a purely physical relationship, into which the concept of mutuality had never crossed either of our two minds. In a word, Tim had fucked me with empathy!

Whilst the above thoughts were coursing philosophically through my head, to take a phrase totally out of its context, back at the ranch, I was stuck with my cock deep inside of Tim, desperately wanting to show to him what I had assimilated from his master-class on the finer aspects of gay sex. I began by withdrawing my cock almost completely, before beginning the reciprocating movement, which is the essence of all sexual intercourse, whether anal or vaginal. I made haste slowly, as Tim had just done in fucking me, treating him to long, languid, loving strokes of my cock. Inevitably, as I became evermore sexually aroused by what I was doing, my rhythm and force built up to levels at which I found myself pounding at Tim’s anus.

Just at the moment when I thought I could hold myself back no longer Tim, who was observing me closely whilst I was fucking him, said: “Stick at it, Alan, don’t give into your instincts just yet; you are almost there. Force yourself to hold for just a little while longer. It’s purely a question of determination: a combination of willpower and single-mindedness of purpose. I know you can do it if you really try. Just at hold yourself back a little while longer and wait until I give you the signal; then withdraw your cock completely from my arse  and with your one last, powerful thrust you will take us together simultaneously into  that mythical paradise brimming with milk and honey, as we explode together into orgasm.”

Without Tim’s words of encouragement, I would almost certainly have thrown in the sponge and allowed myself to climax inside him at the earliest opportunity leaving him to fend for himself and jerk himself to the ultimate conclusion, without which he would have felt totally unsatisfied. Figuratively speaking, I gritted my teeth and with grim determination, clung on with until I reached the point of no return, beyond which, I could hold myself back no longer and would have exploded inside him, when he uttered that magic word: “Now!”|

Reassured that Tim was ready for the ultimate, I did as he had suggested; I withdrew my cock, dripping with anticipative semen, held it for a second, which at that moment, given my extreme state of arousal, seemed like and age, before thrusting it back into his anus, with the most force I could still muster. We both exploded into, what was for me, the most intense orgasm that I had ever known. Brief, as all orgasms inevitably are, at that transcendental moment, it seemed to go on forever.  In an apparently endless series of ejaculative spurts, I deposited my load of semen deep inside of Tim, thereby achieving my objective of leaving him, temporarily, with a most precious part of myself inside him, as he had just done with me.

Deride me, if you will for my treacly mawkishness in implying that the mutual deposition of our respective semen deep within the other us made us the sexual equivalent of blood-brothers, bound together for life. After I had disengaged myself from him, Tim and I took a well-earned breather lying side by side on the bed.  Suffice it to say that I must have done something right, for as soon as we had recovered from our only second bout of sex, Tim pulled off the spunk-filled condom from his still hard cock, which by its rigid readiness for action, was already showing its master its unspoken wish to bury itself again in the depths of my rectum.

Tim suddenly rolled over and hugged me tightly, kissing me lovingly on my mouth.  He then proceeded to repeat his foreplay before penetrating me for the second time within an hour. But there was difference, as when he arrived at my chest, he treated my nipples to a long, erotic session with his expert tongue; my God, did he know how to arouse a guy without even touching his cock. By the time he had worked his magic with his tongue on my nipples and recommenced his journey of descent towards his ultimate goal, both my tits were as hard as iron and my cock was so aroused that it was again leaking precum in buckets.

But, as ever, Tim was not not be rushed, as he now took my entire cockhead, precum and all, into his mouth and started to face fuck himself on my cock. I obliged him by thrusting my cock forward in time to his rhythm. To my great astonishment, he managed to take my full erection into his mouth and part way down his throat, without gagging.  For me it was a moment of utter bliss waiting for the moment to arrive when I would no longer be able to hold myself back and I would explode into orgasm, with the inevitable, accompanying generous emission of sperm, discharged partly into Tim’s mouth and partly all over his face, in a number of uncontrollable ejaculative spurts.  I had then thought that as I was so aroused that I would be called upon to fuck Tim yet again.

But, of course, it was not to be.  Aroused, beyond all telling and with my cock raring to fuck as it was, I was naïve in imagining that I, who was being seduced by Tim, could take the active role in what was to follow, Tim suddenly withdrew his mouth from my cock and told me to adopt the doggy position on the bed. He then handed me another condom, which I dutifully rolled onto my erection. Then without any pre-lubrication either of his cock or my anus, with no hesitation, he thrust his nine inch erection deep into my rectum for the second time in an hour. As he penetrated me, his cock was leaking precum, which served as a lubricant for the vigorous fuck he then visited on me. 

As before, Tim was mightily aroused himself, which was obvious from the vigour he expended on my arse; but he never lost sight of the fact that he had also to satisfy a partner, whom he was basically, not only fucking, but to whom he also was making love. I had been so aroused by the fellatio foreplay to what was now his second fuck that I had been brought almost to the point of orgasm before being penetrated for the second time. It was just as well that I, as bottom at that moment, was a soft touch and hyper-responsive to the sensation of Tim’s cock up my arse. I seriously doubt that he would have been able to hold himself back much longer, had I not been almost ready to climax at the moment he penetrated me for the second time.

However, that is just conjecture; the fact of the matter remains that we both climaxed simultaneously after a very few moments of Tim’s thrusting. Tim’s second seductive foreplay had evidently aroused both of us equally. I only hope that he enjoyed his own ensuing orgasm, as much as I did mine. And that is the thing that I was learning from him; this guy certainly knew how to seduce his partner. It was so very different to being fucked by Hugo

Evidently, after only one fuck by me and two by Tim we had independently reached the same conclusion that we had each found our Mr. Right – that we were both were looking for in or sex lives. And so, for rest of the afternoon, throwing caution to the winds, we indulged a nonstop orgy of the most outrageous anal copulation imaginable, He fucked me and and I fucked him, every which way more times than either of us could remember, as we enjoyed each other’s bodies in a mentally relaxed sort of way; the physical act of copulation, can never be described as relaxing – invigorating, exhilarating, exhausting – but relaxing, never!

 For me personally, that first afternoon with Tim was the apotheosis of the two years of intensive, anal sex, which I had undergone with Hugo. I had subconsciously been searching for the true light, which I had finally found in those few hours with Tim, who, I quite unashamedly admit, had been my mentor to a better sex life, In one afternoon, by his shining example, Tim had taught me so much about sex that I felt I had finally arrived at my destination and was on top of the world. Frankly, rabbits did not hold a candle to Tim and me, in what we subsequently did to each other that afternoon. Had rabbits been able to blush they would have done so, had they observed us at it, as the expression has it.

CHAPTER 31.

Tim suddenly called a halt to our sexual travails, suggesting that we take a shower to wash away the sweat and cum from our, by now, exhausted bodies, as we had to change into formal wear and put on a gown to dine in hall, as all undergraduate member of New College were obliged to do each evening.  I had no idea where the bathrooms were located in the medieval building in which we were lodged on the top floor.

Tim, however laughingly and with an amusing air of mocking cynicism,  which I was to learn was his stock in trade, gave me what he called the good news: “The bathroom, kindly note, young man, the singular form of the word room, as there is only one. However, even that one, so-called bathroom, belies its name, as there is no bath there, only a number of communal showers, which, thanks be to God, or more probably to the maintenance staff of the college, who stoke the boilers, do have constant, running, hot water.”

“Now, here’s the really bad news: the showers are located in the basement of this venerable old building in which we are privileged to be living – or so we are led to believe. So you and I, old son, are obliged to descend four flights of stairs each day, into the windowless bowels of this building to perform our ablutions; and that, my dear Alan, is precisely what we are about to do now, unless you wish to put fresh clothes onto your smelly, sweaty, sexy, cum-soaked body.”

Late in the afternoon, we found ourselves alone in the showers, which were in a starkly white tiled room, spacious enough to allow eight men to shower together. We left our dressing gowns and towels in the adjacent changing room and strode together, stark-naked into the showers. It was good to relax for a few minutes under the running hot water and to wash away all traces of our afternoon sexual gymnastics.

Neither of us could keep our hands off the other for long; we soaped and fondled each other, supposedly to help each other wash, but, in fact, because we both wanted to unite, as it were, our two bodies as one. We were, at that moment, totally in love with each other, although neither had declared his love to the other; we simply did not have to, for our behaviour towards each other said it all.

In spite of having had nonstop sex during the entire afternoon, we both soon became aroused again, with my cock, as usual, rooting for action. As we were totally alone, I saw no reason not to give into the urgings of my cock; with every intention of penetrating him and fucking him standing there under the running hot water, I soaped up my cock by way of lubricant and swung Tim around to gain access to his vital port of entry. 

I had just readied my cock for its first thrust into his anus, when I noticed for the first time, the inimitable traces of stripes left by a cane meeting with the naked flesh of Tim’s buttocks sometime in the relatively recent past, which stopped me dead in my tracks. As ex-head-boy of Churton, purveyor of many well-beaten arses myself during the past year, I saw that whoever had beaten Tim had known what he was about, for the traces of his stripes, although now faint, were still visible.

Tim, sensing my hesitation, turned around to face me, saying: “Well there you are; you have discovered my secret vice, about which I had intended to tell you after dinner this evening, as we had quickly become so close sexually, that, seeing me naked, you would have anyway soon found out.  The fact of the matter is that at the age of   fifteen, I discovered that I was something of a masochist in my own small way; I realised that I actually enjoyed having my bare bum thrashed at school; it tuned me on sexually. And believe me, at Eton, where my elder brother and I were sent to be educated; the cane was an ever present factor in the lives of the boys.”

“Well, to cut a long story short, by the age of sixteen, I had already, had established a reputation at Eton of being not only a willing, but also the most competent cocksman among my schoolmates, to any welcoming arse When I was in my final year at school, to feed my addiction to being caned, I developed a quid pro quo arrangement with my housemaster, who, like many public school masters, was a bachelor and a practising sodomite in his own right. He agreed to beat me regularly, if I, in return, would fuck him. So, every two weeks I would go to his study to have my arse beaten, subsequent to which I would fuck him. And, boy oh boy, did he know how to lay on the cane, the traces you just saw, were the aftermath of my last beating, which took place towards the end of June, a full two months ago.”

CHAPTER 32. 

“Anyway your chance discovery has spoiled the magic of the moment; just look at the sad state of our cocks; they have both given up the ghost for the time being.  Why do we not call it a day for sex, dry ourselves off and drown our sorrow at an opportunity lost, by drinking those two glasses of Madeira, whose consumption earlier this afternoon was waylaid by then more pressing matters?”

We did just that; and as students do, we polished off the rest of the bottle of Madeira, thereby setting me on the road to appreciating one of the finer things that life as to offer: wine. We arrived in hall for dinner, bedecked in all our formal finery, already three sheets to the wind. However, on the motto, nothing succeeds like excess, Tim ordered a bottle of claret from the students’ wine list, which, under the gentle light of the shaded candles, we shared with two guys. whom neither of us knew, but who were sitting opposite to us on the long refectory table.

After dinner, back in Tim’s rooms, matters again took on a serious note, as he said: “Look here, Alan, we have to talk seriously about our nascent sexual relationship. I am, for my age, possibly one of the world’s most dedicated sodomites and in you I confess to have found the ideal partner. For the past year, ever since I realised what an important part of my life anal sex had become – quite frankly I can no longer live without it – I have been dreaming of finding someone to fulfil my very real, sexual needs; and in you, I just know I have found that very person.”

“Crudely put, in which way I am good at expressing myself, I cannot exist without regularly taking a large cock up my arse. But I equally cannot exist without fucking another guy regularly. Correct me if I am wrong, but based your transcendental performance today, I think that in you, I have found the ideal partner; I think that you and I are singing from the same hymn sheet when it comes to sex: we both like equally to give and to take. Speaking quite frankly, which I usually do, I have never enjoyed fucking and being fucked back by anyone as much as I have enjoyed having sex with you today. My conclusion is that the fickle finger of fate has thrown us together as we are just meant for each other. So if you are agreeable, and as we are conveniently neighbours, I would like us to become regular sex partners.”

I was overjoyed to find that Tim, whom I was now completely head over heels in love with, wanted me as his permanent sex-partner. Although he did not then know it, I would have been devastated to have been rejected by him, as I had enjoyed, more than I could ever tell, the time we had spent copulating with each other that very afternoon. I had not one scintilla of doubt that we were perfect together. At that moment of our freshly forged physical sexual relationship, which was soon to become equally spiritual, neither of us knew that we were embarking on a life together, which would endure for 67 years, until the Tim’s demise, at the age of 85.

However, Tim had not finished: “As you discovered in the showers, I have another perversion which I have to live with. I am one of those rare guys who actually enjoys enduring the pain of having his arse beaten. As you probably know at Eton, as at most reputable public schools in England,  the cane and the birch are both in regular use ot correct boys’ misdemeanours. In my time at school, my arse became a regular communicant with both implements of correction, as they are often disingenuously referred to at Eton. Gradually I came to see that I was actually revelling in the whole process of having my arse beaten or birched and that I was actually enjoying the pain being inflicted on my naked flesh.”

“As I told you in the  showers, in the upper sixth, I was fortunate enough to strike a quid-pro-quo deal with my housemaster, a dedicated sodomite himself,  whereby in return for him beating my arse, an accomplishment he had perfected over the years, I then went on to fuck him, So it was sexually a sort  of two thirds win-win situation for me; I got my arse beaten, which was the original purpose  of the arrangement, and I got to fuck him, but he did not care to fuck me as he himself was a dedicated bottom. However, it tided me over until today, when your sterling performance made me realise just how important reciprocity is in any sexual relationship. By not being fucked back by my housemaster, I felt only half the man you have made me feel today.”

“Although we are, on today’s abundantly convincing evidence, admirably suited to each other – even made for one another, one might say – the fact remains that I need to feel the pain of the cane mating with my bare arse from time to time. Believe me, Alan, when I say that it is not going to go away, as I am as much addicted to the pain of a well-beaten arse as I am to the sex act itself. Thus, as I now see it, there has to be a third person, whom I have, as yet, to find, in our proposed sexual relationship, to whom I can, from time to time, turn, to assuage my addiction to physical pain; And I kid you not when I say it has become an addition without which I cannot live.”

“Well, there you have my full story, Alan. I don’t know how you now feel that the libido of your prospective sex partner in life is not fully satisfied by sex with you alone and that he has to address himself to a third party to satisfy his own additional perversion. My addiction to the pain of the cane is most certainly sexually motivated and has become ingrained into my libido. Alas, as the Bible tells us in the Book of Deuteronomy: one does not live by bread alone, which, in its wider context, implies that there is more to sexual fulfilment than copulation.”

CHAPTER 33.

As I was listening to Tim’s vaguely apologetic, mea culpa speech, I was overjoyed by what he was saying, for it was akin to manna from heaven to my ears. What Tim did not yet know, was the fact that until I left Churton for the last time, two months, I had, in my last year. been an utterly merciless, cane-wielding head-boy. As Tim was about to learn from me, there would be no need for him to find a third person to take care of his addiction to the cane, as I would gladly fill that position; our future together looked rosy. It was a new facet to our relationship, which I welcomed; it would allow me, from time to time, to exercise the sadistic streak, which I had discovered I possessed when I started wielding the cane as head-boy at Churton.

The more I thought about the extraordinary position. in which, I by then, completely by chance, had found myself, the more I was convinced that fate had thrown Tim and me together; we were just so very right for one another. On my very first day at Cambridge, I had, quite unbelievably, met and fallen totally in love with the guy of my dreams; and not only that; my love had been reciprocated. But the true icing on the cake, was that, over and above the fact that Tim and I were supremely compatible sexually, as demonstrated by a practically non-stop afternoon of reciprocal anal sex, Tim could provide the arse, on which I could, occasionally exercise my sadistic streak with the cane, to the use of which, I had become attached, if not actually addicted, in my role as head-boy of Churton. 

I had been wondering how, post-Churton, I would cope with the lack of arses to beat. It was just one thing which I thought had ended with my departure from Churton and which I had already resigned myself to accept. Now here was the solution, presented to me on a plate. So what if I only had access to Tim’s arse to beat from time to time; Beggars cannot be choosers and half a loaf is better than no bread.

Tim, of course, was totally unaware of my background, as was I, of his. What we both had realised was that we were made for each other. I began by telling him that I would personally take care of his need for the bite of the cane and that he had no need to look elsewhere for someone else to feed his addiction, I added that as head-boy of Churton until shortly before we met, I was well-qualified to beat him.

I added:  “As head-boy, the senior prefect at Churton, a school where the cane was part and parcel of everyday life, I was charged with maintaining discipline among my schoolfellows. I can tell you that I regularly beat boys without fear or favour, including one mentally painful occasion for myself, when I was obliged to beat my own sex partner, Hugo Fenwick. I never allowed even the slightest misdemeanour, if detected, to go unpunished; so much so that I earned the reputation of being an absolute bastard with the cane: the highest accolade any head-boy can expect, which signifies that he is doing his job. So have no fear, Tim, as you have found a partner, who feels completely at ease with feeding your little addiction.”

Tim’s reaction was positive and immediate and quite took me aback, as he said: “Well let’s start as we mean to go on. My arse feels like it could do with a beating right now; so I suggest that you beat me on the bare immediately. Let’s both strip off for action, as I see no need for either of us to wear any clothes. It will heighten the homoeroticism of the entire occasion if we are both naked and leave us ready for any subsequent actions.”

Was I surprised by Tim’s immediate reaction? No not all; I had by now become accustomed to his manner; this guy was certainly decisive and knew what he wanted. As for me, I was quite ready – even eager – to do as he had requested but as I pointed out to him, I did not have to hand the appropriate rod of justice, a rattan cane, to be able to execute his order. I counted without is resourcefulness, for he immediately replied, that he had his own cane hidden away in a cupboard, to cover just such eventualities.

By now we were both stark naked. He then went across to the cupboard and fished out a long and admirably flexible, school punishment cane: a parting gift from his old housemaster at Eton. He then proceeded to present this bare arse to me for caning, by bending over the back of a chair, thereby preparing himself voluntarily for my onslaught. “Don’t hold back,” he said, “I want to feel the pain of a proper caning. I suggest that you begin by giving me six of your very best, parallel across both buttocks from the bottom of my back to the top of my legs. After I have sampled the efficacy of your handiwork, I will the decided whether I need further strokes.”

I took him at his word and gave his arse six swingeing strokes with the cane, each separated from the following by that important pause, thereby allowing Tim to fully appreciate the pain of each and every stroke and derive the maximum pleasure – in this context, a doubtful concept, if ever there was one – from the beating. My aim was to leave Tim with an arse which looked like corrugated paper to the eye, but so painful that it did bear touching.

I had the great pleasure of seeing each stroke produce a deep well-defined, livid stripe, each side of which was defined by a clear raised welt. At each stroke of the cane, I watched with the epicaricacy of a young man, who had discovered, during his time as head-boy of Churton that he secretly enjoyed inflicting pain on the bare arses of others. Each cut left by the cane coloured up to a vividly raw, red, corrugated stripe, the true insignia of a well-beaten arse.

Since I had left Churton, now three months ago, I suddenly realised just how much I had missed being able to address a pair of naked buttocks, with the cane. My cock, that faithful barometer of sexual preparedness, signalled its approval of what I was doing, by holding itself rigidly ready for action, although it knew full well, that I had never allowed it to penetrate an arse which I had been beating as head-boy.

After six strokes, Tim said: “My God, Alan, you really do know how to handle the cane. I can never remember enjoying a beating quite as much as the one you have just visited on my arse. You have delivered in six strokes, a degree of pain so exquisite that took my housemaster at Eton twelve to achieve. You, Alan, are truly the bee’s knees, the nec plus ultra, of an arse beater. I counted myself lucky to have found a highly competent lover; but now, with your evident talent with the cane, I see that I have backed a winner.”

How Tim even supported the excruciating pain I had inflicted on him, let alone enjoyed it, I shall never know. But there are horses for courses and courses and flagellation, with its obvious overtones of sexual gratification, incontestably ran on his.

The link between corporal punishment and sexual arousal between males is an undisputed fact. However, in my experience as head-boy at Churton, during which period I beat many of my schoolfellows, the one constant feature was that I, as beater, always finished up with a rock-hard cock leaking precum and tenting my pants. Once I was rid of my last subject of each of the beating session, I always repaired to the head-boy’s bathroom to assuage my cock manually of its sexual desire. I never gave into my urge, however strong, to allow my cock to penetrate, however sexually attractive, the arse that I had just beaten.  In a word, although always sexually aroused, I had never had any kind of sex with any boy, whom I had ever beaten. Anal sex, I reserved for my best friend and long term lover, Hugo Fenwick.

But I had never before beaten anyone, who had offered his arse both voluntarily and willingly to the pain of the cane.  Usually what happened was that the boy being punished arrived trembling with fear in my study with his cock hanging there like limp rag; quite understandably, as I had, within the first two weeks of term, established a reputation as being the worst head-boy ever. I basked in the reputation of being universally regarded as a right bastard; as totally merciless with the cane as was Sir himself.  I have to say that it was a reputation that I had cultivated and relished.

Occasionally I beat a boy who, braggadocio-like, silently challenged my authority by defiantly flaunting his erect cock in front of me, as if to say: “Do your worst, and see if I care.” I always rose silently to such provocative, unspoken confrontations, by ensuring that by the sixth stroke of the prescribed minimum of twelve, I had reduced the cock of the jerk, whose backside I was caning, to a limp shadow of its former ostentatious, arrogant self and had beaten him into tears. My message to any bumptiously arrogant boy, who dared to challenge me, was loud and clear: “Do not provoke the bear, as you are likely to get yourself bitten.”

But the well-beaten arse that I had given to Tim was in a different category to the correctional beatings which I had given to all and sundry as head-boy of Churton. I had not beaten Tim into submission; far from it, for he had requested, and was now revelling, in the pain that I had inflicted on his bare flesh.  Whereas the cock of any boy I had beaten had usually been cowed into insignificant flabby obscurity after the sixth swingeing stroke of the cane, Tim’s man-meat, with that unmistakable air of arousal, was readying itself for action. 

CHAPTER 34.  

Whilst I was admiring my handiwork with the cane, from his position still bent across the chair, Tim suddenly said: “Well are you going to do it or not? I cannot wait all night in this ridiculous position for you to make up your mind.”

I did not immediately know what he was talking about, until it suddenly hit me that what he was referring to was staring me directly in my face. He was asking me if I intended to fuck him still bent across the back of the chair him, in the very position in which I had just beaten him. Tim evidently had an insatiable appetite for sex, so much so, that he was offering me another opportunity to ream out his hole with my cock for the nth time that day. As an indication of his keenness to have his anus again stretched by my cock, which, as ever, was stained ready for service – when was it ever not? – Tim had already spread his legs to give me easy access to his anus, which was now clearly visible. I confess that I was flattered by this gesture, for I was obviously doing something right.

I said: “Tim, I have never importuned any of my schoolfellows, whose arse I had just beaten as I felt to do so would be an abuse of my position as head-boy. It’s not that I did not want to, as I was not celibate during my last two years at Churton; but I had made it a rule, which I stuck by, to have sex only with my long-term partner, Hugo Fenwick.”

 “I already know all that,” he replied, somewhat tetchily, “But this time it is different; I am not some schoolboy whose arse you are beating to punish him. I am your newly-found sex-partner – in crime under the law, I would remind you – whose arse you have just beaten at his express request and who is now offering it to you on a plate to fuck, which, as I am sure your cock, with its predilection for criminal activities,  is urging you to do. So, why hesitate a moment longer? It’s what we both want; carpe diem, young man; seize the moment and realise your unfulfilled dream right now.”

“Please don’t tell me that you have never been tempted treat one of the lads, whose arse you have just warmed with your cane, to a dose of tender, loving care from your cock, as we both know know that would not be true. Sexual arousal is not something one can control: but one can ignore its imperious desire for action. But at present, there is no need to ignore what we both want. So go ahead; do the deed and importune me – your disingenuous, mealy-mouthed euphemism for fuck me – and let’s get this show on the road, before I die of sex starvation.”.

I was again amazed by the direct way in which Tim expressed himself; he had no difficulty in calling a spade a shovel. It was becoming increasingly evident I would always know where I stood with him. As I agreed with every word that he had just spoken, I saw no reason to hesitate any longer. I took the tube of Anolube, that indispensable aid to comfortable, anal sex and applied a generous amount to my cock, to ease its passage into innermost depth of Tim’s most private parts.

I then noticed that his cock, pointing straight down towards the floor, was in the steely grip of a dead-straight erection and was already leaking precum like a tap.  From my experience earlier that same day when we had alternatively fucked each other practically to the point of exhaustion, I knew that whenever Tim climaxed, he somehow always managed to produce a veritable Niagara of his own viscous sperm. Consequently, in the interest of keeping the place habitable post coitus, I reached into the drawer of the bedside table, took out another condom. Then kneeling on floor alongside him, I rolled it onto his cock.  Only then did I feel ready to fuck him for the nth time that day.

The fact that I was about to realise my dream and fuck the very arse,  which I had just beaten, had aroused me more than usual and so it was a particularly horny cock exuding precum, the tip of which touched Tim’s anus and requested entry. At the first touch of my cock, I felt the automatic reflex as he clenched both his buttocks and anal sphincter muscles, both of which, a second later, he relaxed, allowing me to penetrate him.  As I had learned from Tim, I slid. in one smooth movement, the full length of my cock deep into his innermost sanctum. Although earlier that same day I had fucked the same hole several times, this time it was different. I somehow felt that I was exploring virgin territory, which I certainly was not.

However, as I prepared to fuck Tim to what I hoped would be a simultaneous ejaculative climax for both of us, I felt him tighten his grip on my penis with his anal muscles, to such an extent that I had to use considerably more force than normal to draw back my cock to begin the thrusting and withdrawing, which are the fundamentals all copulation. I suddenly sensed that Tim, having figuratively handed me his anus on a plate to fuck, meant me to work hard for the ultimate prize of my orgasm. It was possibly because of the increased friction, which his muscular participation brought to the present act, that I did not achieve my goal of bringing us simultaneously to orgasm.

What happened was that Tim, who had been so sexually aroused by by the caning and the anticipation of what was to follow, was already well the way or his own climax before my cock had even touched his anus, let alone penetrated it. Thus, after only five or six, admittedly more powerful than usual thrusts of my cock, he reached his own orgasm, more or less filling the condom he was thankfully wearing with his sperm. When this occurred, I myself was nowhere near my climax; so I fucked on, until a little while later, I too reached my own orgasm for the nth time that day, depositing my load deep inside of Tim.

In 1135, King Henry I of England is reputed to have died from eating a surfeit of lampreys. I am surprised that both both Tim and I did not die that day from overindulging in a surfeit of anal sex: but we did not.  My God, how we fucked each other that day, on which we had first met. By the time we had finished the verb, to fuck, held no secrets from us, as we had exhaustively explored its conjugation in both the active and passive voices. But as I was shortly to discover, where there’s a will there’s a way; the day was not over, as Tim still wanted his last pound of flesh.

He pulled himself to his feet from over the chair, took me in his arms arms around me, smothered my face and lips in kisses and thanked me profusely from what I had just done to him: “I never imagined. Alan, when we first met earlier today, which already seems to me like a lifetime ago, that in meeting you I would find the guy, who would fulfil my most passionate dreams. I think, based on what we have done to each other that fate threw us together. I don’t know what you think, but in my view, we were meant to meet as we are just so right together. Let me show you, one last time, exactly what I mean.” He then edged me towards his bed, onto which we fell; and as my grandmother, back in Bolton, might have said; “He had his way with me yet again.”

CHAPTER 35.

In the post-coital bliss which followed Tim’s last assault on my arse, we then fell asleep in each other’s arms. When we awoke, it was already quite dark and he said: “Well I see no point in your going back to your own rooms right now. So if you have no objection, I think that we should sleep together in my bed, naked as we now are. It will be a bit cramped, but I imagine we can both put up with that and survive. I think it would cement together our intimate, nascent relationship, which I would hate to think, as I hope you do too, was just a flash in the pan. To coin a hackneyed phrase, sleeping together – and I do mean sleeping – I think we shall be as snug as a bug in a rug.”

When I heard Tim’s say the words: if you have no objection, I almost jumped for joy; but as he continued, it suddenly dawned on me that he was more or less begging me to stay. He was now fearful of losing me; whereas, until his declaration, I had been fearful of losing him. What objection could I possibly have had to sleeping with him, even in a cramped single bed?  It was my dream come true; and in record time too.

But ever the worrywart, I saw a difficulty: a fly in the ointment,  which I voiced it Tim.: “What do we do about the gyp who, tomorrow morning, will bring us our hot water for shaving; what will he think if he finds us naked in bed together?”

“Don’t worry about him. Your oak is still firmly closed, as you locked it after you had gone into your set to fetch your dressing gown and towel. You had not even managed to get into your rooms across landing when I waylaid you into what became, under the present law of this blinkered country, an orgy of criminal sex. I hope you do appreciate that what we did together and, if it’s up to me, will probably continue to do, is against the law and could lead to prison sentences for both of us, if a caught in the act.”

Anyway, I will sport my oak before we go to bed together and then we shall not be disturbed. As I told you, when the outer oak door is closed, in this college, a man’s rooms are inviolable; what goes on within is as sacrosanct as a confession to a catholic priest. When the gyp sees both oaks closed, he will just leave our jugs of hot water on the landing. After all, it is no skin of his nose, whether we shave in hot or cold water; he could not care less.

That night, before we finally went to sleep, Tim told me something of his background. He was the second son of second son  of a wealthy landowner in Northumberland, whose estate of some 3500 acres, lay close to the border with Scotland,  The family’s tremendous wealth came from four coal mines which they owned in and around Ashington, about fifteen miles north of Newcastle upon Tyne. However, Tim told me that he was independently wealthy, as his maternal grandmother had been the only child of the some Earl or other, of whom I had never heard. When the noble Earl died, she, an only child, had inherited the family estate and money, but not the title, which lacking any male heir, had become extinct.

Mirroring my own youth, Tim told me that he had been the apple of his grandmother’s eye, and when she had died, he had inherited all her wealth, which even after death duties had left him an enormously rich young man.  He said: “Alan, I really do not have to work to earn a living, but I want to do so, as long-term, the indolent life of a man-about-town seems to me to be utterly aimless. That is I why I am now at Cambridge, to read law and, hope make my mark in some aspect of the legal profession.”

But let me tell you how I come to know of your ex sex-partner, Hugo Fenwick, whom I do not not know personally, but with whom for the past two years you have had regular active relationship, fucking each other, in what I hope was a more moderate way to that, in which, you and I have indulged in today – to excess, I might add.  If I have understood you correctly, Hugo and you have been close friends since your arrival at Churton and aged sixteen you each surrendered your anal virginity to the other and since then mutually sodomised each on an exclusive basis. 

How you both managed to be faithful to each other exceeds my comprehension and beats my own sex career, at Eton, hands down. At Eton, since the age of sixteen, I have indulged in sex with any one of my schoolfellows, who was willing; and I can tell you that plenty were. So my cock has stretched many different anuses and my own anus has equally been stretched by many different cocks. However, I can put my hand on my heart, when I tell you that I have never enjoyed sex so much, or had orgasms as intense as I have had with you today. You have raised my satisfaction from sex to heights which I had never even dreamed of before today.

And to cap it all, you have shown yourself to be an expert with the cane, able to satisfy my one and only perversion: to have my arse thoroughly beaten from time to time.  I do not consider anal sex a perversion; it is for guys like us, just as much a natural necessity of life, as sex between a man and woman is for the majority of the population. There is nothing indecent about sex, whether homosexual or heterosexual, provided it is done in private. It is a necessity of life, without which, not only man, but all living creatures, whether animal or vegetable, cannot live. What makes any form of sex indecent, in man alone, is when it is done in public.

.

I tell you truthfully and, Alan, I beg you believe me, when I say that I believe we were made for each other and fate has thrown us together today, After today’s experience, which I tell you was truly transcendental for me and made me conscious of my growing desire to establish a stable sexual relationship with someone I liked and felt compatible with. Alan, I genuinely feel that we are made for each other. After today, I would hate to lose you. Laying all my cards on the table, I can but hope that you feel that same way about me and will throw in your lot with a man, who is a self confessed former philanderer.

“But I see I have strayed from my story from my story of how I came to know Hugo Fenwick by name. You see my father; Charles Dillon-Weston and Lionel Fenwick, who would, on his father’s death inherit the title and become the fifth baronet, Sir Lionel Fenwick-Denton, were exact contemporaries and were in the same house together at Eton. They became the best of friends, a friendship still endures today. They each came into their inheritance in their early twenties, as both their fathers died relatively young.”

“Although they were ultimately to live about as far apart as they could get in England, as the Dillon-Weston estate was on the Scottish border and the Fenwick-Denton estate was almost on the south coast in Dorset, they were such good friends and as such, that they never lost contact and still see each other in a twice-yearly, shooting ritual, at which they together slaughter a large number of game birds. Lionel always comes north for the opening of the grouse season on the glorious 12th of August with his pair of Purdey’s for a week’s shooting. This is followed, in November, by a return visit by my father to Dorset, toting his pair of Holland and Holland shotguns, to shoot pheasant on the Fenwick estate in Dorset.”

“When I was just sixteen years old, on his annual shooting pilgrimage to the north, Sir Lionel Fenwick-Denton brought with him his son Paul, then aged about 24, for whom he had bought a pair of Purdey’s for his twenty-first birthday. It was Paul’s first and only visit to us for the opening of the grouse season. He introduced Paul to us as his elder son, saying that he had left this younger son, Hugo at home, as each summer he brought with him a friend from school, whom I now suppose to have been you, from what you have told me of your long term friendship with Hugo Fenwick at Churton. So that is how came came to know of Hugo, whom I have never met.”

“But the plot thickens; and this you are not going to believe, although it is completely true. By the age of fourteen I already knew that I was sexually drawn towards members of my own sex rather than girls. I was quite taken by the handsome, physically well-setup Paul Fenwick-Denton, whom I had just met and whom I followed around on his visit like a puppy dog that has lost its mother.”

“Well, attraction, if it is to lead anywhere, has got to be mutual. It turned out that Paul had a somewhat of a roving eye and was himself a very active bisexual, as he subsequently told me, and we inevitably became physically intimate; so, at the tender age of sixteen, two brief years ago, I willingly surrendered my anal virginity to Paul’s highly experienced cock.”

“Sex as you well know, is very addictive and for several nights during his shooting holiday with us, Paul came to my room and shared his cock with my more than willing anus; and, boy oh boy, that guy really did know how to fuck butt. I count myself lucky that I was introduced to one aspect of the joys of anal sex, by bottoming, bareback for an experienced stud with such a big cock.”

 “However, to my extreme disappointment, Paul did not allow me to penetrate him, although my own cock showed that it was ready and eager to have its first experience of gay sex, by stretching his anal muscles and fucking him. That pleasure, I first experienced when I was sixteen, with one of my school friends at Eton. I had never seen, or even heard of Paul, before that shooting holiday; and after he returned home to Dorset, I have never seen or heard from him since. It was as if the sex between us had never happened.”

“There you have the almost unbelievable story that you and I, completely by chance, each had sex, you with the younger and I with the elder of two brothers. What I find most strange is that having been to Eton himself, and having sent his elder son there, Sir Lionel Fenwick chose to send his younger son, Hugo, to Churton, where you and he met and became sex partner in crime. Had he done what was normal and sent Hugo to Eton, you and he would never have met, and Hugo and I might just possibly have become lovers.”

“You know, in one way, I envy you that, at age sixteen, you were able to find your one and only sex partner until today; that when you met me and we had sex together, for two years, you and Hugo both, had managed to reserve your mutual, sexual lust for each other, until literally a few days before you came to Cambridge.  I only hope that the sexual liaison you and I have developed today will endure as long, as I find it hard to imagine a better lover than you, both as a top, or as a bottom.”

I saw immediately that Tim’s use of the word, lover could not be allowed to pass without comment. It gave me an entry to tell Tim exactly exactly how I viewed the relationship I had had with Hugo and how I viewed our our nascent relationship.

“Tim, I have tell you that you are mistaken if you think that the sex I had with Hugo, was based on love. Love, as a concept, never entered into what Hugo and I did together. We simply vented our lustful sexual libidos by fucking each other. At the time, for both of us, the pressure to have sex with another warm body of the male sex had just become too strong to ignore. We had sex together because we were friends. Hugo was, in fact, my best friend at Churton; but, nevertheless, we were just boyhood school friends, who happened to be available for each other at the moment we reached puberty and sex became important.”

“That is why the break with Hugo, which occurred only a few days ago, was inevitable and without rancour on either side. As we had done every year since we first met as new boys at Churton, Hugo and I spent the whole of this last summer together in Denton, fucking each other silly, in a totally loveless relationship. Both of us had seen by then that our relationship was completely hollow and based purely on the availability rendered possible by our proximity, which would, in the near future, no longer exist and force us to part company sexually.”

“The fact that Hugo was about to go to Oxford and I to Cambridge gave us the excuse, for which we both had unconsciously been looking. So we were able to part as friends, promising to stay in touch, which, of course, in spite of mutually good intentions on both sides, neither of us will do. I think we both knew when we parted we had the other’s unspoken agreement that we were free to look for pastures new, in which to sow our seed.”

“I knew, arriving as a freshman at Cambridge that I would have to find a sex partner PDQ, as, at the ripe old age of eighteen, life without regular two-way sex, had become too awful for me even to contemplate. I had not counted on being waylaid by you, on my first day, before I had even managed to open the outer door of my rooms; the rest is history which you do not need me to recount to you. I don’t know, Tim, if you believe in love at first sight, but I was hit, by a coup de foudre: a bolt of lightning, as soon as I saw you; and if not propelled by love at first sight, I knew as soon as I saw you that I wanted to have sex with you there and then – if not sooner!”

“I swear that if you had not made the first move and taken me in hand, when you did, I would have been hard pressed to stop myself from raping you. I can tell you the way that Hugo and I latterly had sex, going at it, hell for leather, our union was savage, and often more like rape, no matter who was fucking whom. We were both equally guilty of caring only about our own satisfaction. What we did was simply bugger each other; mutuality of feelings or that we might be making love, never entered into our relationship.”

“What you showed me, when you fucked me – or rather, made love to me, for the first time in my life,, was to show me, if handled with a little sensitivity what an act of love the reviled act of butt fucking can be. Tim, I learned more in that one session with you, than I had learned in two years of sex with Hugo.”

 “However, in view of what you have just said, I see now that you are just as eager as I am to see our first coupling continue; and I am mightily relieved to hear that desire to develop our nascent sexual relationship is mutual. I personally think, after what has transpired between us today, that we are meant for each other and that fate brought us together today.  You, Tim, have, by your efforts, in one day’s admittedly intense, sexual activity, raised my sexual acuity one hundredfold compared to what it was when we first met, just a few hours ago.  I remind you that you invited me into your room, ostensibly to share a glass of Madeira with you, only to find that I had laid myself open to seduction; and just look at where that has led us!”

“Tim, I am completely in love with you and, for my part, like all persons in love, I am ready to follow you to the ends of the earth; I am ready to do anything to please you; you can do with me what you will.  I can but hope that you might soon feel the same way about me. However, in the meantime, let’s not let grass go under our feet. Let carpe diem be our guiding light and let us enjoy what we have while we have it; let the future, as it often does, take care of itself.”

On that happy note, it was very sexually satisfied Alan Taylor,  who snuggled up naked to his sexual mentor, Timothy Dillon-Weston and slept the sleep of  an ecstatically happy and fulfilled gay young man. 

CHAPTER 36.

Exactly as Tim had predicted, when we awoke at eight, an hour later than usual, thanks to our exhaustive sexual exertions the previous day, sure enough, our gyp had left us each our hot water in front of our firmly closed Oaks. I finally re-entered my rooms, naked of course and had the doubtful pleasure of shaving in what was – to be very charitable – lukewarm water. I suddenly found my dressing gown being draped over my shoulders by Tim, who said: “Come along, lover-boy, move your arse and let’s go and take a shower and introduce ourselves, in all our naked glory, to our companions on this staircase.”

When we arrived down in the shower room, the co-inhabitants of our staircase were long gone, as we were an hour behind the normal morning schedule and had already missed breakfast, which was served for a half hour only, from eight to eight-thirty. We found ourselves alone in the showers. We were again soaping each other  down, when suddenly Tim moved  behind me and I felt him pushing his cock very gently against my anus, seeking access to my rectum, which, of course, I allowed him to do, 

Immediately he began fucking me, I sensed that this time was different; he was very, very gentle with his thrusting and soon reached his climax, at which point he dumped his entire load deep into my rectum. He then whispered into my ear: “Now, Alan, I want you to do the same thing to me.”

The significance of the almost religious quality, with which Tim had managed to imbue the banal act of anal copulation, coupled with the  the fact that he now wanted me to repeat the same on him and deposit my sperm into his innermost private place, suddenly hit me.; without a word having been said by either of us, that first morning after the momentous day on which we had first met, we were in the process of pledging ourselves to each other, in a way analogous to the way a man and a woman exchange their marriage vows in front of a priest. The mutual deposition of our respective seed in the other was the equivalent of the ring which the man places on the woman’s finger, thereby making her his wife.

Although of no legal significance, what we were in the process of doing, in the words of the Church of England marriage ceremony was:  plighting each other our troth. As homosexuals, we were in the process of forging a strictly illegal sexual link between us, which, if acted upon and discovered by the police, could land us both in prison. Besotted as we had become with each other in such a short time, did we care a jot about the law? Of course not!

Overjoyed by what we were doing, I naturally went ahead and played my part in this wordless ceremony, to confirm the mutually, tacitly understood condition of faithfulness to each other, to which, by our voluntary actions, we were both subscribing. For one brief moment as we returned to our rooms, or rather to Tim’s bedroom, into which he shepherded me, I thought that I might have misread what had just passed between us.  However, as immediately we were back in his bedroom, he flung off his dressing gown, tore mine of my back, forced me flat on onto the unmade bed, in which we had slept the previous night together, and prepared himself to penetrate me again, I knew that I had been right.

Luckily our first introductory lecture welcoming us into the law faculty was not until three in the afternoon.  I suppose what we did together was the gay equivalent of what a newlywed couple do on their wedding night;  we fucked each other; or better put: we made love to each other, for the act of copulation had taken on a whole new meaning to both of us. Nevertheless, how we found the energy to do what we did to each other, for almost four hours nonstop, I do not know. But where there’s a will, there’s a way; and we were both certainly very willing.

I should just point out what must be blindingly obvious to most readers; sex between two men has two advantages over sex between a man and a woman. The first is that there is no risk of pregnancy. The second is that whereas sex between a man and a woman is a strictly one-way affair – the man penetrates his female partner with his penis – in sex between two men there are two penises and two anuses available. Thus, if they wish, gay males can penetrate each other; crudely put, they can each fuck their partner, which is exactly the kind of even-sided relationship that Tim and I enjoyed from the very start of our sexual liaison.

We never had any discussion as to whether he or I preferred to fuck or be fucked. It was evident from the start that we both enjoyed each function equally, which was to be the case for the entire time in which we were together, in what today is referred to as being an item. Whenever we had sex together, we never discussed who would do what to whom; we just did what seemed to come naturally at any given moment; we were truly made for each other.

To come back to the four hour honeymoon, as I retrospectively thought of the time, which we spent together in Tim’s bed that morning, we sexually explored each other’s body. By the time we had exhausted ourselves physically – intensive sex is such hard work – we were both dripping with sweat and in need of a shower. So once again we descended to the deserted shower room, to wash away all traces of our travails.

I was so totally contented with the way things had developed between us that morning that I could not stop myself from embracing Tim under the running water of the shower. I kissed him warmly on the mouth and said to him: “In case you have not got the message, Tim, let me just repeat that I am over the heels in love with you.”

His response rendered me deliriously happy;  he returned my kiss warmly and very simply said, as though passing the time of day with me, the momentous words I had been hoping to hear: “And I love you too Alan; however, one cannot live by love alone and I would remind you that we missed breakfast this morning that I am now ravenously hungry; so although I can see from your ever, over-active cock that you would again like to have sex with me right now,  I suggest you hold back your ardour and that we dress and together go and have lunch in the dining hall, like the civilised, young men, whom we purport to be and not like the dedicated sex fiends which we are fast becoming!”

Quite frankly with Tim’s clear declaration of love for me, I could not have cared less about lunch; his unequivocal and unsolicited declaration was all the food I needed at that moment. It finally dispelled the niggling worry at the back of my mind that in spite of his assurances that we were made for each other, our relationship might somehow fall apart.

When we came back from our introductory lecture in the Law Department, I do not think I need to tell you that we again fell on each other like men possessed. On that one occasion, it was if we feared that what we had together might disappear if we did not exercise our libidos on each other to excess. As Oscar Wilde is reputed to have said: Enough is as good as meal; it’s a surfeit that makes a feast. Tim and I took that statement literally to heart that day, as we fucked each other, until the cows came home.

Neither of us realised as we copulated lovingly together, on that second day after we first had first met, that it would be 67 years later, on the sudden death of Tim from a heart attack, at the age of 85 that would separate us from each other.  It was as if that day, under the shower in the basement of New College, Cambridge, we had married each other officially and pledged, in the solemn words of the marriage ceremony, had agreed:  to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, until parted by death. That is, in fact, what we did during the 67 years in which we lived together.

Just for the record, Timothy Dillon-Weston and Hugo Fenwick-Denton were the only two men, with whom I, at the age of 85, writing these memories of my youth, have ever had sex.

Tim and I were so much in love that had we been allowed to do so, we would have taken rooms together in Cambridge outside of college and lived together as an item, during all three of our undergraduate years. However, under then strictly enforced rules of New College, all students were obliged to live in college for their entire undergraduate careers. 

We were lucky in that our rooms were alone on the top floor of our staircase, with only the landing between them. So, late every evening, we were able to enjoy an active sex life on a more or less regular basis, before regaining our respective beds in the early hours. It was not ideal for two guys, who had come as close together as two individuals possibly could; we never spent a full night together, other than night on the day on which we first met. But as Tim observed philosophically:  “Half a loaf is better than no bread at all.”

Let no one tell you that you will eventually tire of sex. Sex is as addictive as the most addictive of narcotics; once it has you in its grip, it never lets you go. Fortunately, sex addiction is free of ill effects for the willing addicts, which Tim and I willingly became, as we had  both been well and truly caught up in its power; so much so that in the 67 years we were together, we never tired of having sex with each other.

I know that readers will find this difficult to believe but until the day before Tim died, with both of us in our 85th year, besotted with each other as we still were, were still able to raise our respective flags and have enjoyable sex together; for sure, in a much gentler fashion than in earlier times; but we were still able to fuck each other: an act which was indispensable to both of us as the air we breathe. Ours was a match made in heaven!  Never was a truer observation made by anyone, than that made by the unknown person who said:  “Fucking is a toy which, no matter how often you play with it, never fails to please.”

I spent the two summer holidays of our Cambridge days with Tim at his home in the north of England. The house was large and we were able to sleep together undisturbed by any of the numerous servants, whom his father still employed.

The two shorter holidays at Christmas and Easter, I spent, each year, with my grandmother in Bolton. The only event of note was that on New Year’s Day 1920, my twentieth birthday, my father got up from his breakfast and without any warning, suddenly dropped dead from a heart attack, at the very young of 45.  He had never managed to accept the fact that I had proved him wrong and died a bitter man.

When he died, we had never reconciled our differences. I cannot say that I mourned his passing. My mother, freed for the burden of living with a bitter, bad-tempered man for over 25 years, sensibly gave up the house and moved in with her mother, just a few doors away in the same street.

CHAPTER 37.

Tim and I graduated from Cambridge in summer of 1921; I with a starred first and Tim with an upper second. The college offered me a research fellowship, which I declined. Tim and I moved to London, where I did my pupillage with a chamber of barristers’ in Lincoln’s Inn. Tim meanwhile, joined a large firm of solicitors’ located in the city of London. However the advantage of being free of the stricture of college life meant that Tim and I were able to live together as two active homosexuals. As members of different parts of the legal profession, we both knew full well, that in so doing we were joining the ranks of the criminal classes; committing what the then iniquitous law considered as unnatural sexual acts, which, if detected by the police, could lead to prison sentences for both of us.

As money was no object to the independently wealthy Tim. in spite of my protestations, he insisted on renting a large flat for us, at his expense, in the very prestigious and fashionable Eton Place in Belgravia, one of the most expensive and exclusive districts in London Although not from a titled family, Tim was, nevertheless, to the manner born and accustomed to a life where he had servants at his beck and call. Accordingly he engaged a wonderful middle-aged lady, called – and I kid you not – Mrs Poppet, as live-in housekeeper and cook and another younger woman, who came in on a daily basis, did the cleaning and laundry, made the beds and generally kept the place ship-shape.

We maintained the fiction of sleeping separately, although most nights we slept together and indulged our perpetual passion for those pastimes,  totally unmentionable in the outwardly, superficially polite society of Eton Place.

But Tim also engaged a live-in young man called Julian, as a general, up-market dogsbody, whose duties encompassed those of several servants in his father’s house: a combination of butler, footman, valet and chauffeur. Oh yes, however could I forget to mention that Tim also bought a car, which was garaged in what had been the stable accommodation which went with our apartment? I hardly dared refer to it as a flat, as it was so spacious and grand and resembled a one- floor house. I quickly accustomed myself to the two live-in servants Tim employed; they made life very easy for us.

I particularly appreciated that each morning, Julian appeared with the car – oh yes; Tim had also bought a car, as traffic was no problem in the early 1920s in London, for few people then possessed a motor vehicle – and drove us to our places of work: me at Lincoln’s Inn and Tim at his solicitors’ offices, which were in nearby Chancery Lane. In the evening, Julian again appeared and drove us back to Eton Place. For two young men in their early twenties, one of whom, me, had not got two pennies to rub together, the other, Tim Dillon-Weston, who was stinking rich, we led a charmed gay life together in London. 

I vowed to myself that when – not if, as I was determined to succeed – I became a successful barrister I would, repay Tim for all the material kindness he had showered upon me. Tim, of course, pooh-poohed the idea, saying; “Money is there to be spent and as I have lots and lots of it, I can think of no worthier cause, on which to spend it, than you and myself. Life can be tragically short; so take my advice lover boy and enjoy it while you can.”

Given our very different social backgrounds, I marvelled at the fact that Tim and I had ever got together in the first place. But sexual attraction is no respecter of rank; and, by now, we were so deeply in love that I knew for sure that only death would ever part us. Neither of us could live without the sexual comfort of the other. If we had been forced to live in garret and survive on bread and water, then so be it.

I was grateful for what the scholarship to Churton had done for me. It had given me a good education, albeit via a very frequently well-beaten, sore bottom, which, in retrospect I usually deserved, and had allowed me to expand my horizon beyond the grimy confines of working-class life in the industrial north.

When I look back at the miserable house in Danube Crescent in Bolton, where I had been both conceived and born, and had spent my earlier life, I marvelled at where I now was. Life had smiled not only kindly but also, beneficently, on me. For the record I will just say that Tim ultimately bought a 99 year lease on the flat in Eton Place, where we continued to  live and make love together regularly for the next 60 years. During that time, we were served by successive replacements of the combination of Mrs Poppet, who died age 75, and Julian who left for greener pastures, shortly after Mrs Poppet’s death.

I was Tim’s sole legatee in his will and I am today, still living in the flat in Eton Place, of which I am now owner of a lease that still has forty years to run.  I am watched over and cosseted by the third – or is it the fourth? – Incarnation of the original duo of Mrs Poppet and Julian, in the form of an elderly and motherly Mrs Turner and a handsome young man called Alex. For my sins, I am ashamed to say that at the age of  85,  now that I am, so to speak, again foot-loose-and-fancy-free after Tim’s death, each time I look at Alec, that personal  sexual  barometer between my legs starts twitching:; a phenomenon, which gives credence to the old saying;  you cannot keep a good man down

As Tim bequeathed his entire estate to me on his death, in addition to the flat, I also inherited his considerable wealth, of which, thanks to my earnings as a leading barrister, I had no real need; so I am now as rich as Midas. By a unanimous  vote of my barrister colleagues, I had also been elected Head of Chambers, where I had served my pupillage and, aged 50, was awarded a knighthood by the king, for my pro-bono services to the Crown, as a criminal defence lawyer. 

Bolton and Danube Crescent are now but distant memories; other than to attend the funeral my grandmother I have not been back there for over 60 years. As I said earlier, my father predeceased my grandmother by dropping dead of a heart attack as he got up from his breakfast on January 1st 1920, my 20th birthday. I was staying with my grandmother over the Christmas period and was able to attend his funeral. I did not mourn his passing, as we had never reconciled our differences; my father died a bitter man.

My mother gave up her house and sensibly moved in with her mother, my grandmother. I shame to say that I stopped visiting them, making with the feeble excuse that there were only two bedrooms in my grandmother’s house. Once I became successful as a barrister, at the barge bar, I tried, unsuccessfully, to assuage my conscience by sending them money, when I knew that a visit by me would have been worth all the tea in China to them.

I offered to buy them a house with constant running hot water and a bathroom, in a better neighbourhood, so that they could live out their lives in what, for them, would have been the height of luxury. But they refused, preferring to stay where they had lived all their lives, and knew people. Looking back, it was perhaps the right decision for them. They had never known the conveniences of modern life; and what eye doesn’t see, the heart doesn’t grieve over.

After my grandmother’s death several years later, I never went back to Bolton to see my mother. I did not even attend her funeral having received notification of her death in a letter from my cousin in my father’s family only weeks after her burial. Thus ended what had become my somewhat tenuous relationship with my home town.

Tim’s death had left a huge hole in my life. His death had made me suddenly aware of my own mortality. I had the wherewithal to live out my life in the greatest of luxury, but no one close to me to whom I could bequeath my considerable wealth.  For several months, writing these memories of my youth filled the void left by Tim.  But when had finished writing them, I suddenly felt very lonely.

POSTLOGUE

To pass my time, I took to shopping; buying things, of which I had no need. One day I had decided that I needed a new tie. I needed a new tie like I needed a hole in the head, as I had already dozens of ties. But  a shopping expedition, even if totally unnecessary, got me out of the flat in Eton Place, where I tended to sit alone, morosely contemplating my navel, becoming increasingly dissatisfied with my present lot in life, leading to outbursts of bad-temper, which I vented on my totally undeserving servant duo of  Mrs Turner and Alec.

I was in Turnbull and Asser’s shop in Jermyn Street, where I had had my shirts made to measure for many years. The only other customer in the shop was an elderly gentleman, who was standing at the counter being served, with his back towards me. I heard the shop assistant say: “Your change, Sir Hugo.” To which came the reply: “Oh I mustn’t forget that must I?” The voice, which I had not heard for over 60 years, was instantly recognisable to me, as being that of my closest school-friend and erstwhile sexual sparring partner, Hugo Fenwick-Denton.

He turned towards me and there was the briefest moment of silence before he recognised me and immediately said: “My dear Alan, how nice to see you again after such a long time; how are you?”

To say that he had not changed after 60 years would be a gross exaggeration; but had we met in the street, I would have recognised Hugo immediately anywhere; as he evidently had just recognised me.

He went on, in th most genteel manner: “My dear fellow, seeing you again after such a long time calls for a celebration. Look here, my club is just around the corner from here, in St. James’s Street; so, if you have nothing better to do, might I suggest that we repair there, when I will give myself the pleasure of treating us both to a bottle of Bollinger.”

 All thoughts of my buying a tie were forgotten, in the mutual euphoria of two former lovers – I use the term casually – meeting up again fortuitously after such a long time. But I found it was as much a pleasure for me to see Hugo again, as it evidently was for him to see me.  I would remind readers that Hugo was the only man, apart from Tim, with whom I had ever had sex. That having been said, during our final two years at Churton, nobody could have had a more active sex life than Hugo and me; we had literally fucked each other like rabbits. As we walked to Hugo’s club, I wondered if he, in his subsequent sex life – he had to have found someone – had been as faithfully monogamous as I had been with Tim.  I was dying to know how many men he had known.

We sat in what in his club was called The Great Room,, which at that hour was practically deserted. The champagne was ordered and served by the waiter, who obviously knew Hugo well, as he said: “I trust this morning finds you well, Sir Hugo.”

Seeing my raised eyebrows at the the honorific, Sir, used by the waiter. Hugo hastened to explain: “You obviously do not know, Alan, that I had inherited the title, the family fortune and the estate at Denton. So you are in the presence the sixth baronet, Sir Hugo Fenwick-Denton. My elder brother, Paul, who was ten years older than me, and should have inherited the title and the estate, was killed, aged 29, in a riding accident. He was riding alone at Denton and either fell from, or was thrown from his horse. When the horse came back alone, a search parry was organised; however, when they found Paul, he was lying there already dead; he had hit his head on a rock in falling.”

“Paul’s death occurred just at the end of my first year at Oxford. Then, more or less exactly one year later, my father, whom you knew, suddenly died of a heart attack aged only 55. On his death, I inherited everything, lock, stock and barrel: the estate, the title and the family fortune, which turned to be much bigger than I had ever imagined it to be and made me super-rich, in spite of iniquitous death duties.”

As Hugo was obviously intent on recounting a potted history of his life since we parted of over 60 year ago, I settled back in my armchair, a glass of Bollinger in my hand, and allowed him to go on.

“So at at the age of 19, I became the sixth baronet: Sir Hugo Alexander Fenwick–Denton. I did not let all this go to my head. I completed my three years at Oxford, and surprised myself by getting a first at Mods and Greats, which fits one for a career as a gentlemen of leisure, And it was at Oxford that I met the love of my life, David Harris, a young man with a philosophical bent and like you a working class lad from the north, who was of the same sexual orientation as you and me.  We remained together and faithful to each other for over 60 years, until David died a year ago. I you can believe it, you and he are the only two men with whom I have ever had sex in my life.”

“Until the age of 70, when we finally retired, David and I, together, ran an ancient manuscript shop which, in its own way I suppose was the leader in its field in the UK.  Thanks to my inheritance we really did not need to earn much money; but the shop proved highly profitable and we earned a tidy sum each year. It made David feel that he was paying his way and not sponging on me.”

“As I had neither heir apparent to follow me, nor ever would have, given my sexuality, nor even any distant relations on the Fenwick side of the family to inherit the title  and the Denton estate, on my ultimate demise, I decided to sell up and move to London and live in sin with David, which is what I did, My only close relative, my first cousin, Oscar, whom you surely remember from our Churton days, was on my mother’s side; so as such, neither he nor his children would have any claim on the title or the estate on my death. So my friend, the man you now see in front of you is the sixth and last man to bear the title of Fenwick-Denton.”

On and on he droned with his reminiscences; one bottle of champagne inevitably became two, before Hugo finally said: “But what about you, Alan? What have you done with yourself since we last saw each other?”

 Over the next half hour, I gave him a verbal sketch of my life, which as far as Tim and I were concerned was remarkably similar to his with David.  David and I, two working-class boys had each attended one of England’s top universities, where we had each met and fallen in love with our rich prince charming; and as the fairy story tells us: we lived happily ever after; even if we did not have any children.

Two things emerged from our chance meeting in Turnbull and Asser’s shop. Most surprisingly, after over 60 years of separation, during which we had both lived vigorous sex lives with different men, who had each been the love-of-our-lives, we discovered that we were still the best of friends, as distinct from being each other’s best friend which we had been together at Churton. But more importantly, we each admitted that we were lonely in our bereavement; we both needed the company of someone we knew and with whom we could reminisce over times past. We were just two lonely old friends, who  had found each other again and now needed each other, like never before, no longer for sex, but to break our solitude.

You will have already guessed the outcome of our reunion.  Hugo gave up his flat in the Albany, possibly the most prestigious address in London’s Wes End, to live with me in Eton Place, where we intended to spend what was left of life together. For the curious, we slept in separate bedrooms.

THE END.