Reminiscences of a Grammar Schoolboy 1945-53

Reminiscences of a Grammar Schoolboy 1945 -53

A Totally Imaginary Short Story

By 

Jason Land

CHAPTER 1

These are the reminiscences of a working class, grammar school boy in the  industrial north of England in the years immediately. following the end of the Second World War in May 1945.

 My name is Jonathan David Robertson and I was born in June 1934 so that in 1945 I was eleven years old.  For those of my readers who are not familiar with the then English state school system, let me explain to you that the age of eleven was then a critical, pivotal point in the life of any working class boy; or for that matter, now I come to reflect on it, for any boy  who was not fortunate enough to have parents who could afford to send him to a private school; that is to say, the vast majority of the population of the country. Of course to confuse things, private boys’ schools in England are known as public schools, whilst the true public schools in the normal sense of the word, to which the vast majority of parents send their offspring, are called state schools. Of course, aged eleven as I then was, and coming from the lower working class as I did, I had no idea of the importance of the exams I was about to take and how success or failure would condition my entire future life.

My parents must have married very young – children born out of wedlock in those long-gone days were a definite no-no – for when the war broke out in late 1939, my father was called up in the first wave of conscription. So from the tender age of three and a half, I rarely saw my father for the next six years. In summer of 1945 when he was demobilised and finally came home to live with us again, I have to say that I really did not like him very much: a feeling which remained with me for much of my adult life until shortly before his death, when we two came to an understanding and I discerned in him qualities which had, until then, escaped me. Prior to that we had been, from my youngest days, always at loggerheads with each other.

Like many working class families in the South West Yorkshire woollen district, both my parents worked in the mill; my father as a weaver and my mother as a spinner. We had been re-housed by the council, in the winter of 1938-39, from the condemned property where I was born, into a brand new council house on a modern estate on the edge of town. And it was in this house that I spent my entire youth until, aged eighteen, I left to go to University; the first of my family ever to experience higher education.

But to come back to 1945 and the fatidic age of eleven, I found myself at the local church-school taking what was then called the “Eleven Plus” exam.  What made this examination so vitally important was that the results determined the entire educational future of those eleven-year-olds, boys and girls, taking it; pass it and you went on to grammar school and, hopefully to university; fail, as most were doomed to do, as there was a maximum of some 150 places for boys available in a town numbering 140,000 inhabitants,  and you were condemned to stay at the elementary school for the rest of your school days until, aged sixteen, you were allowed to leave and seek a job. In a word, the door to higher education was slammed shut: there was no second chance.

Well, as title of this story tells you, I was lucky enough to pass the exam and was offered a place at a local boy’s grammar school. There were no mixed-sex classes then; boys went to one school and girls to another. At the elementary school boys and girls sat together in class, but at break-time were separated: boys in one play-ground and girls in another.  I don’t think I realised the importance of my achievement at that time we received the official notification offering me place at one of the town’s grammar schools.  I was the only person, boy or girl, that year at the church school, to which which I went to pass the exam, and I was more preoccupied with the fact that I would lose my present group of friends and would know nobody at my new school than with the opportunity it offered me.  The fact that this was an important educational opportunity for me, never even crossed my mind.

A load of papers came with the offer and had to be filled in. I had passed what was called “the first list”, which was made up of the top pupils from the entire town; as such I had the choice between the two boys’ grammar schools which the town boasted: Bishop Edmund’s Academy for Boys, usually referred to as Bishop’s and Allerton Grammar School: Allerton being the suburb of the town where I happened to live.  Along with the application came several pages of information, from which my father divined that the cane reigned supreme at Bishop’s.  This fact was made quite clear in the blurb, which said: “Bishop Edmunds Academy is a firm believer in the beneficial effects of corporal chastisement on errant boys; such punishment is normally applied to a boy’s buttocks; usually clothed but occasionally, if the offence merits it, on the bare. Any parents not wishing to subject their sons to the use of the cane should therefore choose Allerton Grammar.  All boys enrolled at Bishop Edmund’s are subject to corporal chastisement when merited.  The School does not allow parents to opt out of this provision; if boys misbehave, they will be caned.”

“Well, that’s all very clear,” said my father, “I’ll put you down for Bishop Edmund’s. I really approve of places at keep lads in order and they seem to have the right idea.  There’s nothing to touch a sore backside now and then to make a naughty boy mend his ways; it never did anyone any harm.”

It was totally horrified in the way that my father was consigning me to a place where I might get caned. I had not really understood the meaning of the words “corporal chastisement,” but I had totally grasped the significance of the word “cane”. What I had, however, not grasped was that it would be my bottom and not my hand which would be the chief beneficiary of this “corporal chastisement”. I shivered with fright as I listened to my father extolling the virtues of the cane. I had been caned a couple of times on the hand by my present Headmaster for some minor offences such as fighting in the playground and I can tell you, I had not much cared even for that. Now here was my own father proposing to send to a school where the masters thrashed boys’ backsides, a practice he clearly understood and of which he approved.

“Dad, please don’t you think we should think about it a bit together before making a decision. After all, Allerton Grammar is not far from here on a direct bus route and I could get there and back without having to change buses. Bishops’ is on the edge of the town centre and it’s quite a hike, dad, from where the bus drops me; it really is, dad, you know. And another thing (a total figment of my imagination) I have heard nice things about Allerton; so please, dad, couldn’t you let me go to Allerton?” I looked pleadingly at my mother, who said nothing and simply smiled at me; as ever “she left it all to Fred” (my dad).

I somehow knew I was wasting my breath and that my father’s mind was made up.  What I could not understand was that he suddenly wanted to send me to a place where I could get my bottom thrashed when he had himself never ever laid a finger on me.  We had quarrelled many times but he had never once hit me.  So perhaps it was payback time. He saw the teacher wielding the cane as a surrogate who would tan my hide in his place. And that was the bit that really worried me, as I could not begin to imagine what it would feel like as the cane landed across my bum.  But then again, thinking on the bright side of things, it might never happen.  I resolved that I would make no mistakes once I got to school; so easy to say, but so difficult to realise as I found out to my repeated cost when I joined the school.

In late summer we got together all the paraphernalia which I needed as a new boy at Bishop’s. The main visible change was in my attire; whereas I had gone to the elementary school in any clothes I wanted; there had been no school uniform;  here at the grammar school I had to wear the school blazer, with the town’s coat of arms emblazoned on the breast pocket, a white shirt and tie and short grey woollen trousers.  This outfit was complemented by something I really hated: a school cap replete with neb and a coloured band indicating of my house colours. I dwell a little on this, as the cap was almost equivalent to the Holy Grail in the eyes of the Headmaster. Pupils were obliged to wear it at all times, weekends included if they were wearing the school uniform when they were outside the school grounds.  To complete the “perfect schoolboy” image, we had to wear brightly polished black shoes and I can tell you right now that ignoring the prescriptions governing caps and shoes were a source of many sore bottoms, mine included.

CHAPTER 2

The first Monday in September, we, the new boys, were told to arrive a little later than the normal starting hour of 8:15 am so that our form masters could see to our proper induction into the ways of the school.  But before moving on to what my first day was like, it is worthwhile to take a look at the school buildings where I was to spend the next several year of my life.

The main building had been built in 1820 and was now totally inadequate to accommodate the number of boys who attended the school; so over the years, the school, had acquired several large terraced houses which stood a little way down the hill from the main building itself and had converted them into classrooms. The original 1820s building itself was an impressive baronial type of structure. Built directly on the edge of the road, it looked to all intents and purposes like a medieval castle. It had only two floors with the main classrooms and laboratories giving off a wide corridor which ran all around the building, which itself was basically a perfect square in plan.  Entering from the main entrance on the road, an act strictly forbidden to the boys, one arrived, via a short internal set of steps, at midpoint of one side of the upper floor corridor. Immediately to the right was the Headmaster’s study.  A corner classroom completed the rooms accessible from that part of the corridor. 

To the left, was the School Secretary’s office; Miss Priston was the archetypal old trout who seem to gravitate to such places and was the Headmaster’s principal aid. She it was who coordinated all the daily attendance and detention chits and prepared the lists of those boys whom the Headmaster wished to see (better put, to thrash) on Fridays at the morning break.  Miss Priston was the only female member of staff other than the “dinner ladies”.  Further along the corridor, beyond her office was a storeroom followed by another corner classroom.

The other classrooms and laboratories led off from the other three sides of this rectilinear corridor, which ran all the way around the first floor.  The classrooms on the opposite side of the building to the road were supported by an arcaded series of arches which were known as the cloisters. Along this side of the building were two classrooms and the chemistry laboratory. My classroom, Class 1A, was the corner room with windows on two sides. Its immediate neighbour was Class 1B with windows above the cloisters. On the internal side of the corridor was the gymnasium/assembly hall. This was a square, towering structure reminiscent of the keep of a medieval castle; with windows on the upper parts of all its four walls, it rose above the rest of school building by quite some height.

Directly adjacent to door of my classroom was a wide staircase leading to the ground floor. It was matched by a similar staircase which arrived at the other end of the corridor on the opposite side of the building. I am telling you all this as the staircases and the corridor were a constant source of what I came to think of as “cannon fodder” for the Headmaster’s cane.  The staircase which was adjacent to my classroom was the “up-staircase” whilst its mirror-imaged twin was the “down-staircase”. So in the morning on arrival we all assembled in the cloisters in lines defining our classes and then as the entry bell rang, the doors were opened and we all entered the building, ascended the up-staircase to retrieve our classrooms, all of which led off from this square corridor system.  But the sting in the tail was that the boys were obliged to walk (never even think of running if you valued your backside at all) clockwise around the corridor.  It was strictly forbidden, under pain of a whacking, to circulate in the opposite direction. And so one had the ludicrous situation that the entire school, other than my class, the door of which was directly at the arrival of the up-staircase, had to walk around practically the entire length of the corridor. And even the adjacent positions of classes 1A and 1B were subject to this rule; if a boy from 1A wanted to go to 1B, then he had to walk all the way around the corridor to get there.

As you might imagine, boys being boys, the up and down and clockwise circulation rules were frequently broken.  The most common infraction was that boys (me included) would, if they thought that the coast was clear, rush down the up-staircase to avoid having to walk around what seemed then like a very long corridor.  I say “what seemed then like a very long corridor” as the whole place seemed huge to me as a boy; but some fifty-odd years later, when I revisited my old school for the first time since I had left it to go to  university, I was struck by how small it all actually was.  But coming back to what might best be called the misuse of the staircases, we miscreants usually escaped punishment as no master was on hand to catch us. But occasionally the Headmaster would sneakily station himself at a strategic time at the bottom where the two staircases met, but out of sight from the top of the stairs, and try to catch errant boys.  I was caught only once myself, along with five other lads and I can tell you that we deeply regretted what we had done, as the Headmaster applied the cane to our backsides with his customary vigour. But in spite of the Headmaster’s underhand strategy, boys still regularly broke the rules and risked a sore arse.  I think that this one-way rule was one of the Headmaster’s most remunerative ideas in providing him with a regular series of arses to whack.

But let’s get back to my first day at the grammar school.  I quickly found that things were much much more regimented than they had been at my elementary church school. The first shock was that there were no female teachers.  At the church school, other than the Headmaster, who was a man, all the teachers, both in the infants and upper school had been women. But now, my form-master was a man called Mr. Allan: Mr A.G. Allan; we all wondered what his Christian names were (we could still refer to first names as Christian names in those days; basically there were no non-Christian immigrants and the concept of political correctness and not been invented; in fact there were no  immigrants at all now I come to think about it.; but we never found out what the A. G. stood for, as along with all the other masters he always signed himself with just his initials before his surname. His nickname was Algy, as he was a slightly rotund, amiable-looking character who wore a pullover under his sports coat.  Looking back on it, I think he was one of the few teachers who did not wear a three piece suit every day.

Amiable he may have looked, but appearances were deceptive, for he brooked no backchat from his pupils, had a sharp and sarcastic tongue and was not at all averse to sending any boy who crossed him to the Headmaster for a whacking. In addition to being my first form master, he taught mathematics: arithmetic, algebra and geometry, to the junior school.

That first day we were allocated our desks, all of which were formally arranged behind one another in rows: individual desks with hard wooden seats. Beneath the sloping top, which was hinged to lift up, was a capacious cavity in which we had to store our books. Each top was fitted with a hasp and clasp and we were all told to buy a padlock to ensure that no one stole any of our things.  There was an inkwell and a grooved flat part for the dip-in nib pens which were then still in daily use; remember ball-points were still in the distant future and fountain pens were very expensive.  I imagine these desks, all of which were ancient-looking, dated from the turn of the century or even earlier. That feeling of the past was reinforced when the various text books were issued.  I can remember that the Latin Grammar and the French Primer were both dog-eared, soft, linen-bound books dating from well before the war. But remember that we were in 1945, and that the war had only just ended and everything was still in short supply. In fact having been told that we had won the war against the Germans, food rationing did not end in the UK until about 1953 or 1954.

The morning routine, which was very important, was that we all arrived in the cloisters for the start of the school-day at 8:15, at which time the entry bell rang and we all trooped up the “up-staircase” to our form-room for roll-call. Algy called the register and ticked off the presence of each boy who answered. He then wrote out on a printed chit the number of boys present, and the names of boys absent.  And then came the sting in the tail, for if you were not present when your name was called out and crept late into the class-room, then your name as a late arrival was noted.  I did not realise at first but each time any boy arrived late, as I, for my sins, did, he received what we would today call a demerit. The class monitor, one of us, was then required to deposit such chits in a letter box outside the school secretary’s office where their contents were assiduously recorded and analysed by Miss Priston and led later to some painful meetings with the Headmaster. But we lived and learned: alas very often the hard way!

Following roll-call, we all then trooped into the central gymnasium/assembly hall were we stood in serried ranks, the youngest of us to the front and the sixth formers to the rear and awaited the arrival of the staff and the Headmaster.  Next to the main entry door was a slightly raised dais on which stood a tall, wooden, teacher’s desk on which the Headmaster deposited his papers.   The teaching staff, all fully gowned, arranged themselves along the wall to each side of this dais, to the left of which, in the corner, was an upright piano.  When we were all assembled, the Headmaster made his entry, always a somewhat dramatic affair, as he was a larger than life individual who totally dominated everyone, boys and masters included.  My first assembly was on the Tuesday, my second day at school, as the first day we had all arrived later in the morning after the assembly had been completed.

For my non-English readers, the daily assembly was a ritual in all English schools and had a more or less standard format. We sang a hymn, heard a lesson read from the Bible and said a prayer. England was then still essentially inhabited only by English people and there was no need to make any allowance for any other religions.  The only deviation as that Catholics were allowed to miss the religious bit of the assembly, which was based on the teachings of the Church of England and could come in when the Headmaster came to his announcements of the day. But as I remember it, there were no catholic boys at all. But two masters were a catholics and always came in after the religious ceremony was over.

But to come back to the Headmaster, Mr. B. A. S. Harris: “Basher Harris”. His entry was always somewhat dramatic; he wore not only a voluminous black gown but also a mortarboard complete with tassel. He also wore a monocle, a three-piece suit and a white shirt with a stiff high wing collar, complemented by a very sober tie. His shoes, always black Oxfords, were always very highly polished. In short Mr. Harris was even then a bit of an anachronism, for he looked more or less like a late Victorian or Edwardian gentleman; post-war England in 1945 was anything but modern, but Mr. Harris looked truly antique.  He seemed very old to me on first sight, but I guess that he must have been in his late fifties as I saw an announcement in the local newspaper that he had retired, aged sixty-five, just a few years after I had left the school and was at university. His nickname, Basher, reflected the unfortunate concatenation of his initials but also described his temperament, for The Basher really laid it on when it came to using the cane.

A gentleman he may have looked, but there was nothing at all gentle about Mr. Harris, for he ruled the school with a rod of iron; or rather with a selection of painful rattan-canes and the occasional birch, noneof which he had the slightest hesitation in applying to the backsides of "deserving" boys throughout my entire school career. All punishment was always applied to a lad’s backside and never to his hands. As the notes we had received had said, Bishop Edmund’s was a school where “corporal chastisement was used when merited”. Well let me tell you they were not kidding, for you did not have to do much wrong to merit a visit to the Headmaster’s study.  There can never have been a greater believer in the beneficial effects of the cane on a boy’s bottom than Mr. Harris. He used the cane regularly; not a week went by without several lads getting their arses whacked; and make no mistake; the cane was used liberally, for no one was exempt from his percussive ministrations. From the first form right through to the final year boys aged eighteen in the upper sixth, Mr. Harris had no hesitation in thrashing backsides vigorously; he never ever held back with the force with which he applied the rod to the unfortunate miscreant’s arse.  For the most part, boys were whacked with their trousers on; but even so, Mr. Harris was such an expert with the cane that he could take any miscreant to hell and back even fully clothed. Rumour had it – and, to my ultimate regret,it turned out to be true – that occasionally lads were required to present their naked backside to him and I can tell you that we all shuddered at the thought of what that might be like.

But to return to the daily assembly; the Headmaster entered and deposited his papers and mortarboard on the desk in front of him.  He then announced the hymn for the day, telling us just which verses we would sing; we must have had hymn books though I cannot recollect that we did; he then stepped down from the dais, seated himself at the piano, his monocle by now dangling there on a silken string around his neck, where he then proceeded to bash out the hymn himself; the man just dominated everything and everybody; he managed to put the fear of god in all of the pupils.

Post the “devotional” part of the assembly, the Headmaster then moved on to his announcements for the day. Usually there was nothing special, except on Fridays when the Headmaster announced the names of those boys whom he wished to see in his study at the mid-morning break. A deathly hush always fell over the gathering when came to this announcement, for it signalled those lads who were going to be thrashed that morning.  You could almost hear the collective sigh of relief once he had finished reading out the list, and one realised that one’s name was not on that day’s list. It was not that this was the only day when boys were caned at the school, for that was not the case. The cane was in regular use throughout the week; but that Friday ritual was something special: something that every boy dreaded. The Friday morning break was the one sure date on the weekly calendar, for barring a miracle, a number of lads would find themselves standing outside the Headmaster’s study, waiting to be called in to be beaten. 

The Headmaster had decreed that the Friday morning break would be of one half-hour rather than the usual fifteen minutes in order to allow him enough time to deal adequately with the boys whom he had convoked for punishment.  So there was a very uneasy atmosphere about the entire school during this long break, as everyone knew that a number of “executions” were being carried out by the Headmaster and that there, but for the Grace of God, anyone of us could be awaiting our fate.  So what was it about the Friday list that set it apart from the regular canings? I think it was that fact that it seemed to be an immutable fact of life. Come Friday, a list of boys to be beaten would be read out. But how was this list made up and what distinguished it from other equally painful occasions?

Well, as I mentioned earlier the school had a system of demerits which could be awarded by the masters for numerous peccadilloes; but additionally, each detention automatically had one demerit attached to it. Any boy receiving a detention was detained for an hour after school that very day; but the date of the detention was noted in the register kept by our desiccated friend, the school secretary, Miss Priston.  Any boy receiving two detentions in one term, which lots did, was obliged to attend a Saturday morning detention.  Now Saturday morning detentions could also be given for what was thought by any master to be a serious offence, but one which did not merit a beating, But get two Saturdays in a term and you were on the Friday list for an automatic beating. So there you have it: it was a sort of on-going “debit” system, as each detention added another demerit to your file.

But, of course, there were countless other “infractions” which led to your file being credited with demerits. Any master who felt that you needed a reprimand for whatever offense you were deemed to have committed would issue you with a demerit slip, which you had then to deposit in that dreaded box for Miss Priston to add to your file.  It is obvious that most lads lost track of just now many demerits they had accumulated at any particular time; and it was precisely this uncertainty that conditioned the atmosphere at the Friday assembly when the Headmaster announced the list of those whom he wished to see at the morning break.  The big question was always on every boy’s mind was whether his name would be called out.

CHAPTER 3

My first day at the school had been the first Monday in September 1945 and the Friday of that first week I became acquainted with the “Headmaster’s List”.  Of course I had no idea at the time what the significance was of what was happening. Very surprisingly as term had only just started, the Headmaster named three older boys whom I did not know. What they had done to merit a beating on what was only the fifth day of term, I do not know; but there it was; they were to present themselves to the Headmaster at the morning break by which time all of us new boys had been brought up to speed on what was to happen. Little did I realise that the next week my name would be read out and I would make the first of what, over my school career, became many visits to the Headmaster’s study.

That second Friday morning I had not the slightest idea that I was to be singled out for punishment, for as far as I knew I had committed no offence.  But I had reckoned without the dreaded system of demerits, which unbeknown to me had accumulated on my file to such a level that the Headmaster had evidently decided that it was high time to address my backside with the cane.  Five names, all of older boys had already been read out to the deathly hushed assembly and then, after a sight pause, the Headmaster said: “And finally I wish also to see Robertson, a new boy in Form 1A”.  I could not believe my ears when I heard my name announced. I had an immediate release of adrenaline which sent a shiver of fear my body. What had I done to be on the list? As far as I could see, nothing at all.  But there it was; along with the other five older lads, I had to go along to the Headmaster’s study at the beginning of the extended break period that very day and await my fate.  That morning I could not concentrate on either of the two classes before the dreaded break and I collected two demerit slips for inattention to my work, one from each of the masters.

So there we were, the six of us, standing waiting in the corridor outside the Headmaster’s study waiting to be called in.  One might have thought that the Headmaster would have shown certain empathy and dealt with me, the youngest first, in order to spare me the agony of an extended wait.  But the concept of empathy seemed unknown to Mr. Harris and I was finally alone in the corridor waiting for the last of the five older lads to emerge and be called in myself. I had no idea what any of the others had done to merit a beating, but evidently three of them had jointly broken some rule or other and the Headmaster called the three of them into his study together, leaving the three of us waiting there in the corridor. 

The door was firmly closed, but one could hear a muffled conversation followed by a short silence which was then broken by a series of twelve hard cracks of the cane mating with a pair of buttocks. After the sixth stroke, the unfortunate recipient clearly could hold himself in control no longer and was howling with pain as each successive stroke landed. There was another pause and the same procedure was followed: twelve well spaced cracks of the cane across the unfortunate lad’s backside, to be followed shortly afterwards by the third victim.  The door opened and three sobbing lads emerged rubbing their backsides. What they had done to merit twelve cuts of the cane I have no idea, but they had paid a very painful price for their misdeeds.

Then each in turn, the other two boys were called into the study and again I heard the same through the closed door. This time however, the lads received only six cuts of the cane each, so I guess their offences, whatever they were, were less serious. But by the time I entered the Headmaster’s study he had already given no less than forty-eight strokes of the cane that morning.  I suppose that I vainly hoped that he might now be tired; of course he was not! The room was quite large; in addition the Headmaster’s desk, on which lay a selection of canes; there were numerous bookcases and in the middle of the room an easy chair and a padded foot-stool. The Headmaster, monocle in his eye and fully gowned sat magisterially and gloweringly behind his desk. It was a frightening site for an eleven year old boy I can tell you.

“Robertson, I think you are fully aware of why you are here today; I have to say that as you are a new boy, I am somewhat surprised that you have accumulated sufficient demerits in such a short time as to oblige me to see you this morning.  So what have you to say for yourself, boy?”

Sufficient demerits? Fully aware of why I was there? I had no idea what the man was talking about.  “I’m sorry sir, but I do not understand why you have called me here today, sir; I was unaware that I had any demerits at all, sir; so perhaps if you could explain to me sir.”

“Robertson, correct me if I am wrong (which, of course, he knew he was not) but it is my understanding that in the ten days which you have been attending this school you arrived late for roll-call on four of them. That young man is at least what the daily attendance chits say. Are they correct?”

And then it suddenly hit me.  I had, in fact, been late arriving at the school on four occasions. My parent both left for work at seven in the morning, leaving me in bed to get up, make my breakfast and catch the bus. And, of course, I had overslept on those four occasions and missed the appropriate bus. I then had had to wait for the next bus which made me just a few minutes late. But at Bishop’s everything was recorded and as I had not answered my name on the first call of the register, form-master Algy, had assiduously noted my name as a late arrival on the daily attendance chit. This had then been dutifully noted on my record by Miss Priston, and, hey presto, I had quickly accumulated the four demerits. How easy it was to accumulate demerits, without ever realising that you had done so.

“I see from your face Robertson, that I have jogged your memory so I think it is now the appropriate moment to give you some help in remembering the hour is which this school commences each morning.   Take of your blazer, boy and place it neatly on that armchair there. Now, kneel on the footstool and bend right over so that your head and hands touch he floor in front of you; stick your bottom well into the air, boy, as it will be the centre of attention for the next few minutes.”

By now I was in a cold sweat and utterly terrified of what was about to happen to me; but there was nothing at all that I could do other than follow Basher’s instructions. And so a few moments later, I found myself in a ludicrously uncomfortable position, kneeling on the footstool, my head and hands on the floor and my arse stuck up into the air, waiting to be thrashed.

The Headmaster went across to his desk and picked up a long thin cane, which he swished through the air a few times; for effect I guess. It certainly put the fear of God into me as I wondered what it would feel like when it landed on my backside. The Headmaster came and stood on my left and laid the cane gently across the midpoint of my buttocks; he then said that I would receive two strokes of the cane for each of the four times I had been late for school: eight strokes in all.  Then the onslaught began; and did the Headmaster know how to lay it on; each and every stroke was placed with precision and was excruciatingly painful.  I could not imagine what it would have been like to take it on my bare skin; even through my trousers and underpants, I felt as if the old boy had skinned my arse. After four strokes he changed sides and gave me the final four backhand, at which he was equally adept.

I managed not to blub until the fifth stroke, but by the the pain had reached such a pitch that I just howled with the increasing pain at each successive stroke and my eyes were a flood of tears. To date this was certainly the most awful experience of my entire life. I mentally cursed my father for having insisted that I enrol at Bishop’s where corporal chastisement was alive and well and very much the order of the day.

“Up you get boy, it’s all, over: that’s it for today.  But Robertson just let me give you a warning. If you are late for roll-call once again this term, I shall have you in here that very day, immediately after assembly and I will give you twelve strokes of the cane. Believe me Robertson you will not sit down comfortably for a full week after I have finished with you. I trust I make myself clear young man!”

I managed to mouth with difficulty a very soft “Yes sir.” and left. So that was how I came to be the first of the new boys to take a beating from the Headmaster.  I was quite a hero among my class-mates who at the lunch hour more or less forced me into the lavatories to inspect the damage; and I have to say that Basher really knew his stuff, for I had eight clear bluish-red, very painful furrows across my backside.  Somehow I felt, being the first to be caned that I was in some way superior to the others; I had arrived; I was part of the system as it were.  But I swore to myself that I would never ever be late for school again: a promise which I was able to keep for my entire career. So perhaps that first beating really did some good. Of course that did not stop my arse from being beaten for a host of other reasons as I seemed to attract the cane in the way a magnet attracts iron filings.

CHAPTER 4

One of the main changes in my life when I entered grammar school was the fact that I was now being taught only by male teachers; there were no women teachers at all on the staff. In fact, as I mentioned earlier, the only woman on the staff, apart from the dinner ladies, was the school secretary, Miss Priston, whereas at the elementary church school all the teachers other than the Headmaster had been women. I also had to accustom myself to being addressed by both my classmates and the masters by my surname only. This was quite shock after the elementary school, where everyone was addressed by their first name. But here in form 1A at Bishop’s we all called one another by our surnames and it was not until I reached the sixth form that we tentatively started using our first names.

Another baptism of fire which I and the others too, I suppose, went through was the fact that we had to start learning two foreign languages:  French and Latin. I have to say that in post-war England of 1945, I saw little point in either, as foreign travel as we know it today was not yet on the horizon.  The French teacher was a crotchety, Welshman, Mr. T. B. Evans, who was approaching retirement but who taught me French for my first two years. French with Taffy, for that was his nickname, seemed to consist of mindless rote learning of how to conjugate the French verbs in all their tenses, of which there seemed to be an endless numbert.  To a working class English lad from the industrial north, all this was incredibly boring and it was this boredom during the French lessons which led me to my second visit to the to the Headmaster.

Taffy was a real martinet and was always threatening boys in his class with a caning, in which he appeared to be a great believer.  He had a horrible habit of coming into the room, flinging down a sheaf of small sheets of paper on the first desk, with instructions for the occupant thereof to hand them around and saying: “Test”. Then we would all sit there and have to write down the answers to the questions he posed on the homework he had set us the previous day.  Typically such questions concerned the grammar and spelling of the language:  “Write down the first person plural of the imperfect tense of the verb ‘to give’ in French.  Or: Write down the French word for ‘still’.” Somehow he always managed to pull out some obscure word from the section of the French primer which we had been supposedly studying at home.

And so we it went on for ten questions, after which we all had to exchange papers with our neighbour and we went through the marking process.  That completed Taffy duly recorded our scores in his register. Any boy who received a low score was called to the front and shown the register from the previous year. “What does it say there next to that name?”  He would say. “You see what it says, don’t you boy; it says warned; and what does that say there? It says caned.” And so by the simple act of brandishing his register under our noses, Taffy put the fear of a visit to Basher’s study into all of us. As far as I can remember, we never had any written homework to do set by Taffy; it was book learning followed by the dreaded tests. And upon the results of these tests, Taffy filled out our monthly assessment report, which was sent to our parents. As you might imagine, none of us made much headway in learning to speak French; but, by hell, did we know how to conjugate the French verbs! In my view Taffy was a bone-idle teacher who, by means of his incessant tests, avoided ever having to correct any written work in his own time.

It must have been in the third or fourth week of my first term at the school that Taffy hauled me before the Headmaster, with all that that implied.  What happened was that I was bored with the lesson and had totally stopped paying attention to what Taffy was saying, as had the boy, whose name I now forget, who was sitting in the desk immediately in front of me.  He and I did not get on at all and that day he did something or other to annoy me, so much so that I dipped my pen into the inkwell and shook the ink from the fully charged nib in his direction, over his shoulder.  The ink splattered everywhere over his desk and and exercise book, which lay there open.  Taffy saw this and in a great rage promptly came across to me. He grabbed me by the scruffs of the neck and there and then, interrupting his class, more or less frogmarched me to the Headmaster.

So in less than a minute after the misdemeanour I had committed, and I have to admit that I had, in anger, acted very foolishly, I once again found myself in that ludicrous position, kneeling on that footstool in the middle of the Headmaster’s study, my head and hands on the floor and my arse stuck in the air, waiting for the Headmaster to beat me. And beat me he did and with considerable vigour. Six swingeing strokes came down across my my backside and I stood finally stood up in utter agony, only to be frogmarched by Taffy back to the classroom, where my class-mates had been waiting with bated breath, not to mention malicious, sadistic anticipation at seeing one of their number being hauled off to be beaten.  The whole episode from start finish could not have lasted more than five or six minutes. Talk about instant justice; well that was it. For the rest of the day I could hardly bear to sit down on the hard wooden seat of my desk. I think that I was the only boy to have been thrashed twice in my first month at the school. But certainly the incident brought home the message loud and clear to my class-mates: Taffy was not to be trifled with.

The Headmaster was the only person in the school actually to wield the cane. But one other master also managed to give lots of us lads sore backsides: Mr. J. Reeves, the physical education instructor. He had a real mean streak and when we were in the gym, which we were twice a week, wearing only a pair of thin cotton shorts, he had the nasty habit of flicking any errant arse with an old razor strop which seemed like an extension of his right arm, to which it seemed permanently attached. This strop had had the metal hanging-buckle removed and was a truly vicious instrument: no gym class ever passed but what several boys felt it applied to their backsides. His main beef was that we were slacking and he had no hesitation at all in applying his strop vigorously to the offending boy’s arse.  In many ways I suppose the strop was equivalent to a poor man’s taws: the renowned Scottish implement of punishment which I never experienced.

But it went further than that, for after gym we all had to descend to the shower room where much against the inclination of many of us, we were forced to strip naked and take a shower.  It seemed to be a fact that as working class lads, we were very shy about exposing our all to our classmates; some lads even refused to strip naked in front of the others and stood there under the shower in their gym shorts. Quite frequently, Mr. Reeves would find fault with some boy or other whilst we were in the showers and would make him bend over dripping wet and naked and grasp his ankles; he would then give the unlucky lad half a dozen cuts with his strop across his naked backside. He was also very fond of referring boys for whom he felt his strap was an inadequate punishment to the Headmaster for caning. We all thought that this man was an utter sadist. But presumably he acted with the Headmaster’s blessing; he certainly was a prime source of cannon fodder for the Headmaster’s cane.

And so, as you have probably gathered by now, my first two junior years at school were punctuated by regular referrals to the Headmaster’s study, where I got my arse thrashed on numerous occasions. But referrals by masters for various misdeeds and the Friday demerit calls were not the only means used by the Headmaster to keep up what we came to call, with apologies to cricket for the pun, his “beating average”.  As far as I was aware the Headmaster taught no class at all throughout my entire school career. But it soon became clear to anyone with half an eye, that the man was addicted to the regular use of the cane: it was like a drug to him; he was totally hooked on the use of the cane.  So to ensure that he had an adequate flow of backsides to beat, he had adopted a number of truly underhand strategies to catch boys out breaking the rules when out of class; at least that is how we the victims saw it.

One of these was his “trawling” of the corridors, on a more or less regular basis throughout the school to see if any boy had been ejected from a lesson for some reason or another.  This was quite a common method used by several masters, who simply turned any lad who did not toe the line out into the corridor and made him stand there before the classroom door until the end of that lesson.  And you may have already guessed that of the new boys in Form 1A, I was the first to be ejected for “rudeness”. 

I have already told you that Algy, the form master of 1A, a superficially agreeable character but actually a right bastard when it came down to it, taught mathematics. Well one day, it must have been about halfway through through my first term, he explained something which I think few of us really understood. He then asked us generally if everything was clear, to which I very foolishly said that I had not understood it at all. Algy looked at me witheringly and said in his most sarcastic voice: “The brains of the class: the dead ones.” Of course my classmates all thought this was extremely funny, but I did not. Smarting with anger and totally without thinking I replied “What wit!”  I think we were all surprised by Algy’s reaction, for gone was any bonhomie which he liked to affect as he shouted at me:  “You Robertson; get out of this class immediately boy.”

As an eleven-year-old lad, there was, of course, nothing I could do but to obey him; a deathly hush fell over the class, all merriment now vanished, as I slowly made my way to the door. “Go on, boy, get a move on and get out of here immediately as I have still got a lot to get through before the end of the lesson.” The fact that this incident occurred early on in the lesson and that I would now miss the major part of what the great man had to impart to us, did not seem to worry him at all; he just wanted me out of his sight.  I have cited this particular incident from among many, where the extreme sarcasm of one or other of the masters often cut the recipient to the quick; it was typical of the bombastic and hectoring sarcastic manner that many teachers of that period behaved towards their pupils.

But to come back to the case in point, there I was fully exposed as an “ejectee” from the class and at the mercy of the Headmaster should he chance to find me there.  And of course he did find me; hardly before I knew what was happening, I found myself once again in his study, kneeling on that bloody footstool, with my arse stuck in the air awaiting the Headmaster’s ministrations with his cane.  There was no inquest into why I had been ejected from the class; it was enough to be there in the corridor.  So once again I was the recipient of six stinging cuts of Basher’s cane.  “Robertson, for a new boy you seem to becoming a regular visitor to my study. I think you need a warning that if things continue in the same way in the future and you cannot keep yourself out of trouble I shall find myself obliged to take a more serious view of your offences. So you have been warned young man.”

CHAPTER 5

I have already told you about the detention system. Two detentions led to a Saturday morning detention, when for three long and boring hours from nine till twelve the detainees were forced to sit in total silence at well spaced desks under the supervision of some master, who was as pleased to give up his Saturday morning as were the boys he was supervising.  And two Saturday morning detentions ensured that you were on the Headmaster’s Friday list of those boys he wished to “see” (for see, read thrash) at the extended mid-morning break. But it was the long boredom of the occasion which got to me.  The “text for the day” was written out by the supervising master on the black board and we, the detainees were simply forced to spend three long and tedious hours, writing and rewriting out this stupid text. I can remember the text of my first Saturday morning detention as if it were yesterday.  It read: “Steppe is Russian word denoting large tracts of treeless terrain covered with useful vegetation.”

I think most of us would have preferred to have been given a thrashing rather than waste our time on this footling exercise.  But worse actually happened to me on that first occasion.  I got so fed up with writing out those stupid words that I just stopped writing.  After a while Mr Baldwin, the master in charge that day, noticed that I seemed to be asleep at my desk, came over to me and saw that I had done practically nothing.  His first reaction was to tell me that he would report my recalcitrance to the Headmaster. But then, by the greatest of bad luck who should walk into the room but Basher, the Headmaster, himself.  What he was doing there on a Saturday morning, only heaven above knows. But he saw that Mr. Baldwin was berating me for my inactivity and immediately took the matter into his own hands: “Robertson, you are proving a very disobedient boy, Stand up boy when I am talking to you. Now kindly step out from your desk and follow me, boy.”

One needed no imagination to see where we were going and what was going got happen next.  Once in his study, that bloody footstool was again pulled into the centre of the room; I was told to take of my blazer and adopt what had now become the usual position for me and once again my arse took six resounding cracks of Basher’s cane. But that was not all, for worse was to follow; the Headmaster decreed that I should attend detention again the following Saturday. The implication of this did not sink in immediately, but when it did, my heart fell to the bottom of my boots.  The following Saturday would be my second Saturday morning detention and as sure as day follows night, I would again find myself, the following Friday, on the dreaded list of boys whom the Headmaster wished to see in his study during the morning break.  So what had been a single Saturday morning detention had now, due to my own stupidity in ignoring the rules, had now escalated into two lost Saturday mornings and two sound and very painful beatings.  I did not keep statistics, but it seemed to me that I was well on the way to becoming the most beaten boy of the year. I wondered if this was an achievement of which I should be proud: possibly not!

Two other sources were regular contributors to the steady flow of bottoms to beat to meet the Headmaster’s seemingly insatiable desire to wield his cane: the school-cap rule and the one- way-no-running along the corridor rule. Each of these were pitfalls into which many boys regularly fell, as a result, of which they found themselves bent over in the Headmaster’s study for a dose of corrective action from the cane.

The cap rule was strict; all boys of the school, from entry to the upper-sixth, were required to wear their school caps when off the school premises; and this included both Saturdays and Sundays if they were wearing the school uniform. If, by chance, they met a master whilst in town, then they had to lift their caps to him. It was quite amazing now many lads fell afoul of this rule and one way or another were caught not wearing their caps. One of the commonest places to be caught was in the morning entering the school grounds when the day master checked all the new arrivals to see that they were correctly attired. Many lads forgot their caps and found themselves faced with a painful visit to the Headmaster. There was never any relief or leniency of any kind: no cap and you were whacked by Basher.

But the regular source of cannon fodder for the Headmaster was the strict enforcement of the one-way-no running rule in the school corridors and staircases.  I can remember it as if it were yesterday. It was end of the day, one Wednesday afternoon and six of the lads from form 1A, me included, of course, decided to chance it and ran down the up-staircase directly adjacent to our form-room door.  Well that day, Basher was waiting at the bottom of the stairs and we more or less ran directly not his arms.  Basher glowered at us and said he would deal with us the following morning. None of us any illusion about how we would be “dealt with” as there was only ever one punishment: the cane. But none of us had any intimation of what the morrow would bring other than a sore bottom for each of us. Now quite unbeknown to any of us, Basher had already culled another group of lads from Form 1B earlier in the day, dashing along the corridor in front of his study. Running in the corridors was, you will recollect, strictly forbidden and like so many other things, was a beatable offence; but then, what offence was not a beatable offence at Bishop’s. 

The Thursday morning dawned and the entire school congregated in the gymnasium for the usual morning assembly. But a deathly hush fell over the entire assembly when the Headmaster entered and along with his usual sheaf of papers, deposited a long thin cane across his desk.  You could feel the unease which went through the assembly as we saw the cane deposited on the front desk. We went through the usual procedure: sang the hymn, listened to the text for the day, said the prayer and listened to the Headmaster’s announcements. He then dismissed everyone as usual but then came the sting in the tail: “However, all boys from forms 1A and 1B will kindly remain in the gymnasium.” He then went on to lecture the two forms, some sixty boys in all, about the evils of running in the corridors and using the wrong staircase.  As he told it, one might have thought that we had committed some capital crime for nothing, apparently could have been worse. 

“I have therefore decided that it is time to make an example of the errant youths involved in this flagrant disregard for the rules of the school and the dangers to life and limb of others which their thoughtless behaviour threatens. Will all the boys whom I caught running in the corridor or rushing the wrong way down the stairs, please step forward. The rest of you please sit down on the floor in neat rows at the back of the gymnasium.”

We now became aware of the fact that Mr Reeves, our sadistic sports master had appeared on the scene and was bringing in a chair, which he placed in the centre of the room in front of the dais.  I quickly counted and saw that together we were a round dozen of lads from the two forms who were to be punished. But then came the totally unexpected shock.

“You twelve boys,” intoned the Headmaster, “Will now take of your blazer and trousers and arrange yourselves in a singling line facing me in alphabetical order from left to right.” As you might well imagine, getting ourselves in order was the least of our worries. Standing there in our shirts and underwear was a new and unpleasant experience for all. We had all heard that occasionally the Headmaster caned boys on their naked arses and this was sort of a halfway house. But all the underwear did was to protect our modesty somewhat, for with the thinness of the material, the cane might just as well have been applied to our naked bottoms. So there we stood whilst the Headmaster glowered at us with what I came to think of as his “Wrath of Basher Face.”

“Right, now that you are all ready and in order, you boy, the first on the left, approach the chair and bend across its back; put your hands on the seat and remain absolutely still whilst I administer your punishment. You will receive six strokes of the cane as will each of you and when I have finished, you will each regain your position in the line where you will once again stand perfectly still with your hands on your head; I will not tolerate any boy rubbing his bottom until every last one of you has been caned. And, let me add, that I will not tolerate any histrionics or dramatics. Cry out if you wish if you cannot bear the pain; and make no mistake; it is going to be very painful for all of you. I intend to teach you all a lesson which, if you are wise, you will not wish to repeat.”

“And your punishment will additionally serve as an example to your classmates, who, if they have the sense they were born with, which is something I sometimes doubt, will realise what will happen to them if they too flout the school rules. Rules, in case the fact had escaped you, are made to be obeyed and breaking them will lead to severely painful consequences for the boys concerned. Make no mistake, I will, have no compunction in thrashing the entire class if I deem it necessary. So the rest of you sitting there on the floor, take heed; you have been warned.”

The whole assembly of forms 1A and 1B, including those of us who were shortly to be caned, were in that state of prurient anticipation which always pervades the atmosphere when boys are to see a classmate punished.  And let us be clear that this was not the punishment of one single lad but the wholesale beating of twelve first formers.  I guess that none of us had ever actually seen one of our classmates being caned until now. I know I certainly had not, although I was very familiar with the horror of a caning due to my own too frequent visit to the Headmaster’s study. But participating visually in the act of seeing a group of twelve lads bend over, one after the other, for a severe whacking, was something very special. It is a fact that for most boys watching someone else receive corporal punishment, even a close friend, sends a shiver of erotically pleasurable excitement through the observer; and let me assure you that this erotic phenomenon exists right through the the entire school from to first form to the upper sixth; and to this has to be reconciled that when the punishment is over, the observers all feel nothing but sympathy for those whose beatings they have just witnessed, from which they derived a great deal of pleasure: such a contradiction!

But to get back to the matter in hand, the Headmaster finished berating us and turned his attention to the first backside which was awaiting his attention. During the entire time he had been speaking, the first supplicant, a poor lad called David Bottomley, had been left bent over the chair wondering if his thrashing was ever going to start. We for our part, the observers, included those of us who were waiting to be caned and the rest of the class sitting there as onlookers, were treated to a view of Bottomley’s lightly clad buttocks. It was clear that the flimsy material of his underpants was going to provide little protection from the rigours of the cane and we all winced as the Headmaster brought down the cane with tremendous force across the equator of the lad’s two globes; but Basher took absolutely no notice and pressed on, giving the lad five more forceful before telling him to get up. The boy was whacked in utter silence apart from the crack of the cane as it landed on the boy’s backside and from the first stroke onwards, there was total silence from the assembled first formers.

“That’s it lad; up you get and go and stand in line with your hands on your head; and don’t touch your bottom until I tell you boy.” He concluded.  Then motioning with his cane to the second lad in the line, he called him across to assume the supine position over the chair.  Martin Collins was the second of the group to be whacked and we could all see that he was trembling with fear as he approached the chair. He hesitated before bending over to present his backside to Basher for his tender loving care. “Come on boy, don’t waste my time; I have got a lot to get through this morning in addition to you; so get across that chair and be quick about it.”

By the time Basher had finished with Collins, the ten of us still waiting our turn in line were all quaking in our shoes at the thought of what we were about to undergo.  As we were thrashed alphabetically by name, I saw nine other boys take a beating before my turn eventually came. Of all the boys being punished that day, I was probably the one who had been caned the most often by Basher; and I can tell you that the pain he managed to give me that day was way beyond anything I had ever experienced knelt on that bloody footstool in his study; this was the hiding of my life to date; my backside hurt like bloody hell and I can tell you that I did not like it at all.

Eventually by the time the twelve of us had all been thrashed, Basher had administered no less than seventy two strokes of the cane in all.  We were then told to put our trousers back on and get back to our lessons, which we did and most of us were in tears, me included. Frankly I would have preferred to have sat through that day’s lessons on my underpants for it as just such an excruciating painful process to get my trousers back on. The Headmaster had been determined to stamp out running in the corridors and using the staircases in the wrong direction and he had clearly succeeded; after that I can remember of no occasion when a boy was caned for either offence for a good number of years.   

And one other chillingly frightening prospect emerged from this mass beating; there was an unconfirmed rumour that Basher occasionally beat boys on their naked bottoms; well here he had made us take of our trousers and had beaten us wearing just our underpants,  which certainly lent credence to this rumour. It was indeed a very disconcerting thought that one day any one of us might be required to present our naked backside to Basher for a caning; it made me sick just to think about it. But as you will shortly now learn it did turn out to be true; not only did I personally witness two lads take a naked arse beating from Basher but I also had the doubtful pleasure of submitting my own naked rump to him for his barbaric attention.

The mass caning of us twelve first-form boys was long talked about in the school.  Looking back on the event some sixty years later, I doubt that the Headmaster would have been allowed to treat his charges in such a brutal manner had the school Governors known what was happening. But Mr. Basher Harris was a law unto himself and none of us ever complained about the way he treated us and so he got away with it.  This incident occurred during my first term at the school, but several years later when, aged eighteen I left to go to university, Basher was still in charge and the cane was still hyperactive as ever. One reads about the liberal use of the cane in public schools in England, but I doubt that any grammar school in the land had such a penchant for beating its pupils as had Bishop’s under Basher Harris.

CHAPTER 6

My reminiscences to date have all been of my first year at Bishop’s. In later years as I progressed through the school I was, alas, a regular fixture on Basher’s list of flagellants. For one reason or another I did not seem to be able to keep myself out of trouble and so I was a regular visitor to the Headmaster’s study. From the second year onwards, we were at least spared the indignity of kneeling on that footstool and had to bend across the back of the chair to give him access to our arses.  And as time passed, I suppose I just came to accept that being caned was part and parcel of my school life. But now let me fast forward now fast forward a few years to the time I was fifteen years old.

I really cannot now remember exactly why on this occasion I found myself bent over a chair in Basher’s study waiting for him to apply a little of his TLC to my backside yet again. Suddenly, before Basher had given me the first stroke, a loud knock came at the door; from my supine position over the chair, I saw the door flung violently open and the hated sports master, Mr. Reeves, entered with two lower sixth-formers in tow.  “Headmaster, please excuse this unannounced interruption, but I felt that you would wish to deal with these two delinquents immediately.” Basher told me to get up from over the chair and stand to attention against the wall. Mr Reeves then went on: “Headmaster, the situation is that I came across this pair, Thompson and Ibbotson, during the afternoon break, hidden in the lavatories and smoking; and knowing your strict views on smoking and your wish to stamp out his pernicious habit, I felt that you would wish to deal with them immediately.”

Basher looked beadily at the two lads, who realised that they were now in for the high jump and said: “You are both aware, are you not, that smoking is strictly forbidden in this school and that to break this rule as you two have just done, leads to the most severe of punishments.  Both of you take of your trousers and under pants for I intend to give you both a beating which you will long remember. I will not tolerate senior boys breaking this no-smoking rule which must remain inviolate. As for you, Robertson, well you can stay there and observe what happens to boys who break the no-smoking rule; let it be an example to you of what you can expect from me if you yourself are ever caught smoking; and you can pass on your experiences of this afternoon to your classmates.   As you can all see, my motto is to strike whilst the iron is hot: and believe me, you two smokers, by the time I have finished with you, your backsides will be red-hot.”

The two lads, ashen faced, slowly obeyed the Headmaster and divested themselves of their lower garments. Completely embarrassed to be standing there with their nether anatomy naked, they instinctively cupped their hands over their genitals in a vain attempt to retain a little modest dignity. “Thompson: you will be first: approach the chair, boy, and bend across the back; stick your bottom well into the air boy, for that is the part of your anatomy which is scheduled to play and leading role in the proceedings.  You will each receive twelve strokes of the cane, but I shall administer them in two doses of six each; after the first six strokes you, Thompson, will make way for your partner in crime, who will then receive his first six cuts. Then we shall repeat the process, by which time I hope that both of you will realise that breaking the rules does not pay.  And make no mistake; if either of you is ever again caught smoking in the school, I shall have no hesitation in birching you. Now Thompson, if you please, get on with it and bend across the chair and keep perfectly still. If I have any resistance from you at all, then Mr. Reeves will have the doubtful pleasure of holding you down.”

So there it was; now I knew for sure; Basher did sometimes thrash lads on the bare and he did also, apparently use the dreaded birch.  As Basher applied the cane to Thompson’s naked arse, I felt my cock rising slowly until I was suddenly aware that I had a complete erection; I then saw that Ibbotson, awaiting his turn to be beaten, had the same and judging from the bulge in Mr. Reeves’s crotch, he too was erotically aroused by the proceedings. I gazed closely as I dared at the Headmaster’s crotch, but he showed no signs of any degree of sexual arousal provoked by what he was doing; and what he was doing was truly horrific.  The cane came down at great speed and with great force and landed with a sharp crack on the awaiting buttocks.  Basher was a consummate expert at his job, and laid on stroke after vicious stroke, all parallel to each other and each of them raising a painful looking, reddish-blue welt across Thompson’s arse. Both Thompson and Ibbotson in turn screamed out in pain as stroke followed stroke; and who could blame them as the Headmaster did not spare the rod that afternoon.

To make matters worse, of course, the fact that Basher had decided to give each lad two sets of six cuts, rather than getting the whole thing over with at one go, increased their agony.  Thompson stood there with his hands on his head whilst Ibbotson took his first six, in the knowledge that in a few minutes time he would again be stretched across that same chair, taking another six, swingeing cuts of the cane across his arse.  By the time Basher had finished with the two lads, both of them were crying profusely; and little wonder, for each lad was now sporting a truly well-roasted arse.  “Well boys, let that be a lesson to you. Now, get your clothes back on and get out of here.”

 And then turning to me, he said: “Well Robertson; don’t think I have forgotten you. Let what you have just seen act as an example to you of what happens to boys who break the no-smoking rule. Now, get yourself across that chair again lad and let’s get on with it; and thank your lucky stars that I am allowing you to keep your trousers on this time.”

Let me tell you, having watched what had just happened to Thompson and Ibbotson, I was truly grateful for this small mercy, for a bare arse whacking from Basher was really something to be feared.  But don’t think that Basher was tired by his strenuous efforts on the other two lads, for he managed to leave me with a six stroke arse which was still  excruciatingly painful even with my pants to protect me.

You will have noticed that on this occasion I first mentioned the  sexual arousal conditioned by watching other lads get beaten, As boys approach puberty, this phenomenon becomes more and more evident and most lads take considerable, malicious pleasure or Schadenfreude in hearing about, or observing as I had just done, their classmates get whacked.  What is it inside us that awakens this feeling? I do not know; but it becomes more and more pronounced as boys approach puberty and as Mr. Reeves’s bulging crotch had shown me, it still continues into adulthood.  So it is not uncommon to see a whole class of lads, watching one of their number take a beating, all sporting rock-hard erections, which can, at times, be very embarrassing.

CHAPTER 7

Sex was a subject about which we, as school boys, in the latter half of the 1940s, knew very little. It was not a matter which was much discussed either among ourselves let alone at home with parents; sex was a subject which was studiously avoided; it seemed still to be regarded as a sin by many people even though it was vital to the propagation the race; but it was ignored; swept under the carpet and never ever discussed in public. To all intents and purposes, as far as we boys were concerned, sex did not exist.  But it did! As we got older, our curiosity our desire to know more grew and as with most things, where there’s a will there’s a way; so little by little we sort of cobbled together a picture of what sex was all about.  And it was sex which got me the biggest thrashing of my life from Basher. It was in my final year in the upper sixth when it happened.

Ronald Arnold Sullivan, Ras as he was called by all his schoolmates in the sixth, had not been one of my close friends until we were thrown together in the sixth form. He and I were from the same year, but until now, I had been in the A stream and he in the B; so although we knew one another casually, we were not close friends.  But all that changed when we entered the sixth form. Typically what happened was that aged sixteen all the boys of the fifth form sat the School Certificate Examination: the precursor of what became the GCSE. At the end of the school year, roughly half the boys would then leave aged 16 to seek some form of employment in the town. The remainder, now reduced to a total of some thirty boys in all, combined from both A and B streams, were then divided between the arts and the science/mathematics sixths.  The idea was then that we should take the Higher School Certificate exam, the passport to university entrance and the brighter lads among us, which included both Ras and me, would also try for a place at Oxford or Cambridge via their then additional and more difficult exams; and that was how Ras and I came together in the lower sixth science.

In spite of his Irish name, there was really nothing Celtic about Ras at all; he was an amazingly handsome dark-blond young man about the same height as me and from the moment we were in the science sixth together, we got on like a house on fire. One the things  I had realised as I came up through the fifth form and talk among my classmates often centred around girls, was that I was not particularly interested in the female sex myself.  This did not bother me unduly as the concept of homosexuality had never crossed mind; in fact, looking back on it now, I don’t think I knew then what a homosexual was. And the idea that men could have a sexual relationship with another man was totally unknown to me.  All I knew was that I liked Ras tremendously: a liking which was clearly reciprocated.

Ras was like me from a low working-class background; he lived alone with his widowed mother in a small house not all that for from us. His father had been killed in the D-Day landings during the war and his mother now worked six days a week, from eight to six each day on a stall in the local covered market to support their very modest level of living. Gradually over that first year in the lower sixth he and I became ever closer; we were both very keen members of the cross-country running team, an activity which we both enjoyed tremendously and what with showering after gym twice a week and after the runs we regularly saw each other naked. So we both knew that the other was well equipped in the nether regions, a fact that we never ever so far discussed or even mentioned. But I confess that the more I saw of Ras, the more I found myself lusting after him. Our knowledge of sex was limited and our knowledge of homosexual sex was nil; yet somehow or other, quite unspoken as yet, I think that we both knew that we wanted to get ever closer together.

But matters did not go any further until we were both in our final year at school and now aged eighteen, when the sexual urge which every young man man feels at that age, led Ras and me to our first tentative attempt at male-male sex.  I think we were the only pair in the combined upper sixth forms of some thirty boys in all, to have had any sort of physical relationship with one another at all; but as such matters were not openly discussed in those days, I could not swear to it.  Our first coupling was at Ras’s house, where he had invited me to spend the Saturday with him; we had the place to ourselves as his mother was working in the market until five. Ostensibly we were supposed to be looking over some of our weekend homework together, but this was rapidly abandoned as for the first time we found ourselves truly alone and were able to allow our mutual attraction for each other to take over with no inhibitions.

We rapidly gravitated to Ras’s bedroom, where without speaking a single word we both stripped off our clothes as it was clear that we each wanted the other’s body. How we both knew what to do, I have no idea, as until this moment our feelings for one another had never been voiced; but we immediately fell into each other’s arms on Ras’s bed.  I started to kiss him, first on the mouth and face and then I descended down his body giving one kiss after the other to his naked skin until I finally took the head of his cock into my mouth and started to suck him off.  By this time I had realised that I wanted to unite our two bodies sexually and my own cock, which I had already realised had a mind of its own, was telling me what it wanted as I was already exuding what I suppose today would be called pre-cum; in a word I really did have the hots for Ras

Ras clearly wanted me to have sex with him as he rolled over and spread his legs to give me access to his anus. Lord only knows how we both knew what we were supposed to do; or I suppose to be more correct, how we knew what we were supposed not to do; but somehow we did and I very quickly pushed the tip of my own stiff cock against what I now know to be called his anal sphincter: the only place of access a male has which allows another male’s penis to penetrate him. Ras moaned with pleasure as I gently thrust my stick against his anal opening and urged me to force myself into him; when his muscle finally yielded and allowed me to enter him I gently thrust my full length erection of some seven inches (no exaggerating!) into his rectum. Ras let out a sharp cry of pain as I touched what I suppose must have been his prostate, but after that all went smoothly and for me it was an utterly heavenly experience to unite myself physically with the classmate I had come to adore.

Then quite naturally, I began to pump my cock in and out of Ras; it seemed the most natural thing in the world to do; and I suppose it was. No one had told either of us what to do and we had not even discussed together the act we were now engaged in; it just happened most naturally through the deep, hitherto unspoken, mutual attraction that we clearly each felt. I suppose it is very simply that the act of copulation, even homosexual copulation, is the most natural thing in the world and needs no formal instruction.

I would like to think that this first time we had sexual intercourse together was perfect for both of us. Certainly it was for me as I very rapidly reached orgasm and shot a huge load of creamy sperm into Ras’s rectum. Ras meanwhile furiously jerked himself off and achieved same effect for himself.  It was only later in life as  confirmed practising homosexual which I became, that I learned the finer points of  sex with my partner: that ability to hold myself back until I was sure that I could bring my partner to his climax at the same time as my own.

That first coupling between Ras and me paved the way to a regular sex life together which lasted for the entire final year at school. Every Saturday, we would spend several hours in mutual sexual gratification. As it turned out, Ras did not wish to fuck me but was content just to let me fuck him. I learned later that I was what was known as a top and he a bottom.  I did not mind at all at first but I to say to say that I became curious and wondered how it would feel to let another man penetrate me; but that pleasure was not to be until I had left school and was at university in Cambridge.  Many people would have called what Ras and I did together an act of buggery between a pair of queers, as we were then called by the general public; the word “gay” then still had its original meaning and was not used in a sexual context at all. But to my mind our coupling was an act of true love. For Ras and me, our coming together was exactly as I imagine the first love a boy has for a girl. It starts off with an intense mutual feeling of affection and then gently fades away with time as each party realises that this is not for them.  And so it was with Ras and me; our passion for each other lasted through the final, year at school but when we finally left, we each went our separate ways.

But now I must come to the utterly horrible event which overtook Ras and me, thanks to our sexual activity and, I might add essentially due to our own stupidity; so at the end of the day, we had no one to thank but ourselves for what happened to us: that fact did not, however, make it less painful. What happened was this. It was towards the end of the final summer term at the end of which we would be leaving the school for ever. I had obtained a place at Cambridge to read chemistry, whilst Ras was going to the “other place” to read physics; and so the two of us were well set to continue with our careers at England’s two best universities.  Over the year our sexual; activity had become ever more intense; it was as if we both realised, which, though unspoken, I suppose we did, that on leaving Bishop’s there would be an inevitable break in our relationship. And so in this “make hay whilst the sunshine” mood, we snatched every opportunity – let  let me put it at its crudest – to fuck.

It was late one Friday afternoon, when we in the science sixth had two free periods, that Ras and I decided to go for quick run together. Well when we got back we went straight to the showers and it was there looking at Ras naked under the running water that I simply could not resist him. So I grabbed him, shafted him with my ever ready erection and proceeded to give him a truly hard fuck with the pair of us standing there under the stream of hot water.  I might add that Ras put up no resistance to my action and we were deeply engaged in gratifying one another when a loud voice said: “What on earth are you two boys doing there; stop what you are doing immediately; dry yourselves off and get dressed for you two are going straight to the Headmaster.” 

As you have probably guessed, it was none other than the hated Mr Reeves, the PT instructor, who had chanced by the showers and caught us in the act. I cursed myself for my stupidity in not exercising greater control over my feelings; had I had the sense I was born with then I would have realised that even though Ras and I were alone, the showers were open to anyone passing by, which is exactly what had happened; and of all people who might have found us “at it”, Mr Reeves was easily the worst, for with the bit now between his teeth he clearly intended to make the pair of us jump through the hoop; we had played with fire and had got seriously burned; but just how seriously, neither of us could ever have imagined.

Basher Harris was in his study; it was approaching four thirty, the time when the school-day ended.  Resplendent in his gown and with that ridiculous monocle in his eye, Basher listened to what Mr. Reeves had to say, before turning his attention to us:   “As you both know, there are two cardinal sins which boys can commit in this establishment, both of which attract very severe punishments.  The first of these is, of course, smoking, which is strictly forbidden; regularly each term I find have to correct several boys who have, nevertheless, decided to break this rule and have been caught smoking on the school premises;  Needless to say such boys leave  this study with very, very sore bottoms; very sore indeed. In fact, I seem to remember, Robertson, that on one occasion you watched me correct two boys whom Mr. Reeves, with his customary vigilance had just caught smoking in the lavatories.”

“But the second sin, which is infinitely more serious, is what Mr, Reeves found you two boys engaged in this afternoon in the showers. Are you aware that sexual acts between men are strictly forbidden, not only in this school, but also by the laws of this country? I can hardly bring myself to say the word which is used to described what you two were doing but I feel I must; you two boys were caught indulging in an act of the most unnatural behaviour: an act which is legally referred to as “buggery”. Are you aware that if the police were to learn of your liaison, then you could both be gaoled for several years? However, the police will not learn about what has happened today, as I intend to deal with the matter myself; I shall nip this affair in the bud before it goes any further.”

Listening to him as he went on and on berating us about our depraved sexual practices, I wondered to myself if he thought that this was the first act of buggery as he so succinctly put it, between Ras and me which we had committed under the showers today. Did he not realise that what he thought he was about to nip in the bud, as he put it, was already in full flower, which would need a lot more than a onetime nip to kill it.

“Unfortunately, I have another pressing appointment for which I must leave shortly, and I therefore do not have time to deal with this matter adequately this evening; you two boys will attend Saturday morning detention tomorrow. That is all for now; you may leave and go home.  Reeves,  before you leave, I have to thank you for your prompt action  in bringing these two debauched  boys to me; their actions have to be stopped as they risk setting a bad example to the rest of the school where an undercurrent of sexual curiosity, as ever, runs strong. I will not tolerate any boys, even those of age, as these two here are, indulging in the sort of unnatural, sexually deviant acts in which you caught them. You truly are to be commended for your vigilance Reeves.”

Ras and I took the bus home together.”Well,” he said, “Is that it? All that we are getting is another fucking Saturday morning where we copy out lines of meaningless rubbish for three hours.”

“Listen Mate,” I replied, “Get your head out of the clouds and put your feet firmly on terra-firma.  If you think that old sod Basher, with his devotion to the curative powers of the cane, is going to be satisfied with giving us a Saturday detention, you are dreaming; you are in cloud cuckoo land my friend.”

“So what do you reckon he’s going to do to us and when?”

“Listen Ras; Basher is going to take the skin off our naked arses, of that I am sure.  I saw him cane two lads for smoking a year or so ago and he really laid into them, and this, as an offence, is much worse. So I think that we are in for high-jump; no let me correct that; I know that we are in for the high-jump and there is not a damned thing we can do to avoid it.  I am afraid that we are just going to have to grin and bear it. What we have just done is like waving a red flag before a bull and believe me, Basher is going to take it out on our arses; once Basher gets the bit between his teeth, there is no accounting for what he might do.  I hate to be such a doomsayer, but in my heart of hearts, I just know that is what is going to happen; we, my friend, are going to get our arses well and truly roasted.”

Ras managed to raise a smile as he looked at me: “Well if you are so sure about our immediate future, then my view is that we might as well be hung for a sheep as for a lamb, so how about you coming around to my place this evening? My mother will not back till late as she is going to a friend’s place and she never gets back before about eleven. So why not come round and let’s finish what we started in the shower this afternoon. If we are going to get our arses thrashed, we may as well have had the full pleasure from the act for which we are to be flogged: the act of buggery as Basher so neatly put it. But listen, it’s just going to be another beating; we’ve both had lots of them in our time at Bishop’s and we’ve always survived; and it will be the same with this one; even if happens as you predict. So anyway, come round tonight and give me a really good hard fuck before we enter the arena tomorrow morning; just bugger my arse good and proper so that and we can both confront Basher bright eyed and bushy tailed if and when it comes to it. “Beaten but not cowed” is my motto in time of such adversity.”

“Ras, I admire your spirit, but something tells me that this time will be the worst beating ever. I think Basher will thrash the living daylights out of us; just let’s hope that I am wrong; but somehow I don’t think I’m going to be; and remember he has our friend, Reeves, hovering in the sidelines and he is such a weasel of a man that I am sure he will egg Basher on in any way he can. As far as I can see, apart from hitting us with his razor strop as hard and often as possible in the gym, there is nothing he enjoys more than watching some lad or other get his arse skinned by Basher.  Anyway, you’re on for tonight; what luck your mother is out for the evening; I’ll be round straight after supper around six thirty and I will endeavour to give you the very best I can.”

Saturday morning arrived to find Ras and me sitting in the front row the of the detention room copying out the “text for the day”.  There were four other much younger boys also in detention that day, dispersed, as ever, thinly across the room. The invigilator that morning was the vinegary old Latin master, Mr. Harding, a man who was approaching retirement and was literally counting the days to the moment when he could leave and take his pension. He managed to make Latin, never a very popular subject for most boys, the most boring thing in the world. From the sour look on his face that morning, one could see that he was sorely displeased to have to give up his Saturday morning to supervise the detention class; but that was the way it was; there was a rota among the masters who, on their appointed day, had to turn up and spend three borings hours looking at a group of boys who were dying equally from boredom. “I will, have no talking at all.” was the only thing he said to us as we settled down to the fascinating task before us. I doubt that he had any idea why two boys from the upper sixth were under his beady eye that morning.

It was about ten and we had all been scribbling away for about an hour when the door flew open and the Headmaster entered totally unannounced.  From then on, things developed much in the way I had predicted. Whenever the Headmaster entered a classroom, the protocol was that all the boys present stood up, which all but one of us did.  Basher looked at the one figure that still remained sitting there and said: “You boy; what is your name and where are your manners? Stand up boy when I address you.”  The lad in question was was a first-former who was clearly unaware of what he should have done; he stood up and said that this name was Keith Lodge, omitting to add the obligatory “sir” to his answer, which was another black mark against him; he just stood there hanging his head, saying absolutely nothing in his defence; not that there was much that he could have said; but Basher clearly had every intention of taking him to task for his deficiency and said:  “I will deal with you little later, Lodge, as I have more urgent matters which demand my immediate attention.  But be assured, boy, I shall not forget you and I will endeavour to set you on the right road before you you leave here this morning. Now Harding, I am afraid I have to ask you to let me take Sullivan and Robertson away from your care for a little while, as we have some very pressing matters to deal with.”  He then indicated that we should follow him to his study.

Things were about to happen in exactly the way I had predicted to Ras;  we were going to be thrashed; that much was abundantly clear; but when we entered Basher’s study, I suddenly realised that things were going to be to be much worse than even I had pessimistically forecast.  The first ominous sign was that our nemesis, Mr Reeves, was also in attendance. A chair was already in place in the middle of the the room and my heart missed a beat as I saw standing nearby two deep bucket of water in each of which a birch rod was soaking. So there it was; we were going to be give a taste of the legendary birch; every schoolboy’s worst nightmare. It has always been rumoured that Basher occasionally resorted to this, the most painful of all methods of corporal punishment, but we had only ever half-believed it; but now, this very day, here it was; and those fearsomely gruesome rods were about to be visited on each of our arses.

Basher began: “Robertson, Sullivan; in view of your abominable behaviour, attention to which was brought to me yesterday through the excellent vigilance of Mr. Reeves, I have decided that I have no option but to punish the two of you very severely: very severely indeed, in fact.  And so, gentlemen it is with great regret (I am sure what he really meant was “with great pleasure”) that I have decided that only the birch rod will suffice on this occasion; I shall begin by giving each of you twelve cuts of the birch across your our naked bottoms. And before I begin I think we should thank Mr. Reeves, for giving up his Saturday morning to assist me in this unpleasant task. It shows an exceptional devotion to duty; and moreover, he came in very early this morning and it is him we have to thank for these excellent freshly made birch rods, which now await you.”

A flash of fear provoked by an instant release of adrenaline coursed through my body as I took in the significance of what the Headmaster had just said: “I shall begin by giving each of you twelve cuts of the birch across your our naked bottoms.”  My God; it sounded as if he was intending to give each of us twelve cuts of the birch as starters; but what was to follow? All indications were now that things were going to be much worse than my direst predictions to Ras. And I was right, for as you will shortly see we underwent the most severe punishment that I can imagine any school boy ever having to suffer.

“Gentlemen, kindly remove your blazers, your shoes and take of both your trousers and underpants, and then stand there facing me against the wall with your hands on your heads” barked Basher, whilst Reeves looked with obvious approval at the proceedings. In all the times I had been beaten by Basher over the years,  I had never ever been required to remove even my trousers; but let me just add that even then, Basher was capable of giving a lad’s arses a really painful leathering through his trousers. But now we were going to be thrashed on the bare and with the birch, which, by general consensus, took pain to whole different level; and moreover, we had to suffer the additional indignity of standing there with our sizeable sex organs exposed to the gaze of both the Headmaster and Mr. Reeves, which added extreme embarrassment to the fear that we both felt.

“I’ll take you first, Sullivan.  Please approach the chair and bend across the back and place your hands on the seat.  Mr Reeves would you oblige me by holding Sullivan down by the shoulders, as I do not wish him to move whilst I apply the birch. And perhaps you would also call out the number of strokes; I shall pause for some fifteen or so seconds between each stroke to enable him fully to appreciate the effect of each individual stroke.”

Ras took up his position over the back of the chair and said to Basher: “It will not be necessary for Mr. Reeves to restrain me sir; I am quite capable of controlling myself without any outside help.”

“As you wish, Sullivan; but just let me remind you that if there is any resistance on your part or movement from the position in which you now find yourself, I shall start again from the beginning and there will be no allowance for strokes you have already received; so young man; on your own head be it to control yourself throughout your punishment; lose control of yourself you will simply add to your pain.”

I looked on in horror as Basher prepared to begin thrashing Ras’s naked arse, the two globes of which were in a totally unblemished and in what might almost have been called a virginal state.  That would soon be changed for it was already abundantly clear that Basher had every intention of giving both our arses a truly awful roasting. He began by tucking the tail of Ras’s shirt up his back, thereby exposing his two buttocks in their full glory; and quite glorious they, in fact, were; Ras was a well built young man and had, by any standard, as I myself knew only two well, a very fine arse indeed.   Basher then picked up one of the of the birches from its pail, of water, shook it vigorously to get rid of the excess, which went all over the tatty carpet on the floor and finally positioned himself on Ras’s left and prepared to deliver his first blow.

He nodded to Mr. Reeves who called out “One”. Then with no warning, Basher brought the birch down with enormous speed and force, landing his first stroke in the centre of Ras’s arse; the twigs of the implement spread out over a good area of the exposed bare skin and Ras, not unreasonably, let out a cry of pain. There was then the long pause of fifteen seconds before Mr. Reeves called “two” and Basher delivered his second cut. Have any of you reading this any idea of what it is like to be bent over a chair, having your naked arse thrashed black and blue with a bundle of birch twigs?  Just pause for a moment and count fifteen seconds; you will see that it is a very long time: a pause which seems even longer, an age, in fact, when you are already in pain and bent across a chair awaiting further strokes of the rod and not even being sure where the next cut will land.  But that was the way that Basher did it; just think of it; twelve stinging strokes one after the other, spaced at fifteen or so second intervals; the full punishment took practically three minutes, during which to his great credit, Ras managed to remain perfectly composed other than for emitting a few cries of pain.

Meanwhile, I was obliged to stand there, with my hands on my head and watch Basher beat my lover’s arse black and blue.  Almost before he had begun, I had a raging hard on and by the time he had finished my cock was already dripping pre-cum.  I hated to think that I was being sexually aroused and even taking a certain pleasure in watching my friend being punished, but the honest truth of the matter was that I was. I felt ashamed of myself as I analysed my feelings; but as we all know it is a feeling which happens to most boys when they see a classmate being thrashed, only then to be followed by an immediate wave of sympathy mixed with admiration for the lad who has been beaten.  But I also saw that Mr. Reeves was displaying a bulging crotch, which showed that he too, as a grown man, was not immune from the erotic overtones of what was happening.  As for Basher himself, there was not the slightest sign at all that he was in any way sexually aroused by his actions; he seemed to me to function as a soulless beating machine.

Basher finally told Ras to get up and go and stand with his hands on his head against the wall. Ras, full of tears and in utter agony, did as he was told and I saw that he too, in spite of the intense pain, was rock hard and had the embarrassment of having to display his erection in front of all of us.  Basher then motioned to me to take my place over the chair, which I did with a feeling of great fear as to what I was about to undergo; but I had no option but to obey.  Mr. Reeves stepped forward and made as if to hold my shoulders down, but I shrugged him away as I had no intention of undergoing the indignity of being restrained whilst I took my punishment, least of all by a weasel of a man like Reeves.

Basher accorded me the doubtful  privilege of using a new birch on my naked arse  and let me tell you that when it actually happened, it was a lot worse that it seemed when I had watched Ras being beaten and even that had looked terrifyingly horrible.  Of all the implements used over the years to punish schoolboys, the birch is easily the worst, or possibly, looked at from the master’s point of view, the best. The pain gradually builds up to well nigh unbearable levels as stroke follows stroke; but stuck there, as you are, over the back of a chair, you nevertheless have to bear the unbearable.  A birching and a twelve stroke birching at that, is easily the worst experience any schoolboy can undergo; it is an absolute nightmare; a nightmare for me perhaps, but Basher pressed on relentlessly giving me a stroke every fifteen seconds or so, with the sycophantic Mr. Reeves, assiduously calling out the numbers. By the time he had finished some three minutes later, I, like Ras, was full of tears; try as  I might, the pain was just so intense that I could not stop myself crying; gone was the stiff upper lip; it had melted away under the intensity of the pain.

Basher motioned to me to regain my place, hands on my head, next to Ras. And there we stood wondering what was to come next. I have to say, that even sporting a rock-hard cock as I still was, I no longer cared at all that itt was on full view; I was in so much pain that I just wanted the whole drama to end as soon as possible. But it was not to be, for I had not been mistaken in the meaning of the Headmaster when he had said: “I shall begin by giving each of you twelve cuts of the birch.”

“Well gentlemen, you have now had the first part of your punishment, but I do not want you to think that it is yet over, for let me assure you that you are not being let off so lightly for your sinful behaviour; (so lightly! A twelve stroke birching; he had to be dreaming to call that light!) The school regulations allow me, as Headmaster, to give any boy up to a maximum of twenty-four stroke of the cane or birch for any one offence, across his naked buttocks if I deem it necessary, which in this case I did.  Now your offence is one of the gravest and I cannot in all conscience allow such unnaturally deviant, sexual behaviour to pass unpunished.  It is my intention to stamp it out here and now, for such activities between boys (were they permissible between boys and masters or between masters, I wondered as he ranted on?) will not be allowed in this school. Your offence is one of the gravest and I cannot and will not allow such behaviour to continue, as I have already made clear to you.  And, therefore, with a view to eradicating such unnatural practices completely, I am now going to give each of you an additional six cuts with the cane as a complement to the birching you have just received. You will,  I am sure, appreciate the leniency with which I am treating you as an additional six cuts will bring your total punishment up to eighteen cuts in all, whereas I could, if I wished, give you a further six to bring the total up to the twenty-four allowed by the school  rules.  However, I hope that with an additional six cuts with the rattan cane, you will realise that you must stop your abominable behaviour immediately.”

Whilst Basher had been addressing us, Mr. Reeves, clearly by prearrangement, as nothing had been said, had moved the chair to the side and placed two lower backed chairs in the centre of the room back to back.  Basher nodded his approval at the new arrangement and turned to us and said: “In my youth I was myself fortunate enough to have been educated the prestigious public school, Rigby, in  Lincolnshire; and it was there that I learned first-hand, how beneficially corrective the vigorous use of the cane on an errant boy’s backside could be; I was myself subjected to such beatings on several occasions and I can tell you that they set me on the straight and narrow path which I have assiduously followed ever since. (It was hard to believe that the Headmaster intended us to take his remarks seriously for it all sounded like a load of sanctimonious hogwash to me.) Now at Rigby School, beatings were given by the Headmaster in what was known as the Rigby Position; and it exactly this position which I now propose to use to administer the next part of your punishment.” 

“Sullivan, if you please, kindly approach the two chairs which Mr. Reeves has positioned in readiness; kneel on the seat of one chair and bend across the backs of the chairs, placing your hands and head on the seat of the second chair.  As you will see, this arrangement places your bottom in a more or less horizontal position, which is generally considered by those experienced in the finer points of the use of the cane, as being the optimum in terms of height and orientation  to allow the very best results to be achieved; it is generally considered  much superior to the normal position, which was that in which I have just birched you, as the cane can descend directly vertically on to the waiting buttocks of the errant boy, in this case, you, Sullivan; but fear not, Robertson, I will not forget you and your turn will soon follow.  As you will see, it allows the caner, in this case me, to position his strokes with extreme accuracy, which is precisely my aim now in adding the six additional cuts to your well birched bottoms. I have every intention of seeing you two boys leave here today with backsides throbbing with pain at a level beyond anything you might have imagined possible when you entered here a short while ago.  But I must again stress that your joint offence is so abominable, that you both deserve the greatest of sanctions.”

The Headmaster went over to his desk where a long thin rattan cane, some half-inch in diameter, lay waiting its first victim. Picking up the cane, Basher went across and positioned himself on the left of Ras, who was in what I can but describe as a sort of higher level position to that which that Headmaster inflicted on first formers when he caned them.  You will doubtless recall, as I told you earlier, that I had myself experienced it on several occasions in my first year at Bishop’s. It was that dreaded footstool on which you were forced, as a first or second former, to kneel and put your head and hands on the floor, whilst Basher shredded your arse with his cane.

The ever obliging Mr. Reeves, stood there ready to call out the strokes; Basher gave the cane a few customary swishes through the air to set the scene for the drama to follow and then gently laid the cane across the midpoint of Ras’s arse; he tapped a few times as if seeking the precise place to start and then Reeves called the first stroke: one! The cane rose into the air whence Basher brought it down with incredible speed and force to land in the dead centre of Ras’s backside, with that inimitable crack which rattan makes when it is stopped dead in its path by a well muscled, naked arse. Such was the force of this first blow that Ras let out a loud cry of pain.  Try to imagine if you can what he must have felt like; he had just had a twelve stroke birching of his backside and upon this self-same area he was now being subjected to the discrete, but very painful cuts of a rattan cane.  And the word cut is well chosen, for when Basher had finished with Ras, there were six well spaced welts cut deeply into the flesh of his arse. And so it was that Ras screamed his way through this hideously painful, complementary punishment. When he finally got up, his birched and beaten arse was a bright cherry-red all over, across which was inlaid a series of six deep furrows ploughed by the cane; furrows which were bleeding slightly and were already turning an unattractive shade between red and blue.

Having been forced to watch Ras undergo his punishment, I shuddered inwardly at the thought of what was about to happen to me as I would now be subjected to the same onslaught: it was truly a horrific occasion. But what made it even worse for me is that having had to watch the caning after the birching, my level of uncontrollable sexual arousal was such that I shot a load of my sperm over the Headmaster’s carpet. It was as if I had just jerked myself off, but I simply had no control whatsoever over my own cock; it just happened. Basher pressed on regardless, even though he must have seen what had happened.  He motioned me across to the two chairs where I spent the next few minutes undergoing the same torture that I had just seen visited on Ras. It truly was the worst beating of my life and I felt as if the pain would never end.

But did it stop Ras and me from doing what we did together? Of course it didn’t.  The Headmaster showed a total lack of understanding of human sexual attraction and behaviour in thinking that he could beat it out of us. As many others like him have found out, both before and since, such efforts are as successful as those of King Canute in trying to stem the tide. He had assuaged his own outrage; he had had the pleasure of giving two of his final year lads a monumental beating; but beyond that he had achieved nothing: absolutely nothing!

But that Saturday morning’s beatings were not yet over.  We were told to get dressed which I can tell you we did with great difficulty as it was almost too painful to pull back our underpants and trousers; but we finally managed it and were sent by the Headmaster back to the detention room where the vinegary Mr. Harding looked at us as if we were aliens from another planet before telling us to sit down and continue writing out the “text for the day”; there was still an hour to go before the detention ended at noon  and we were doomed to spend it there, our backsides throbbing with pain, sitting on the hard wooden seats of the the desks.

CHAPTER 8

The detention room door was suddenly flung opened and in stalked Basher seconded by the ubiquitous Mr. Reeves. We all immediately stood up as protocol demanded and this time the unfortunate boy, Lodge, also rose immediately to his feet, hoping against hope that Basher had by now forgotten his earlier “delinquency”; Basher had his cane in his hand; he looked menacingly at Ras and me waving his stick at us and adding vindictively to what he had just done to us said: “As far as you two are concerned, this Saturday detention counts as a regular detention, in spite of the fact that I have had to deal with you on another matter. Therefore have no illusions; if either of you incurs another Saturday morning detention before the end of term, then I shall once again have no hesitation in beating you in accordance with the school rules.  I trust I make myself clear.”

You could have heard a pin drop as the Headmaster intoned this menacing warning to us in front of all the other lads. He next focused his beady eye on the unfortunate Lodge:  “I see, boy that you have at least learned in the interim that when I enter a room you always stand up; that at least shows that you can learn from experience. However, I think in view of your earlier tardiness in obeying the rules you need a little something to make you sprightlier on such occasions; come forward, boy, to the front of the room. The rest of you sit down again and get on with your work whilst I deal with Lodge.”

A trembling Lodge, who had been hoping against false hope that the Headmaster might have forgotten or even forgiven his earlier minor misdeanour, moved slowly to the front of the class. You could have heard a pin drop as the boy moved towards his immediate fate; a fate not difficult to divine as Basher still had the cane in his hand.

Pointing with his stick to the front desk in the middle row, Basher ordered Lodge to take of his blazer and bend across the desk, grasping the far edge of the lid with his hands. He then proceeded to give the poor young lad six hard cuts of the cane across his backside in front of us all. Lodge howled with pain as the cane landed with great force across his trousered seat; the onslaught was really very severe considering the piffling nature of his “crime”; but six cracking strokes landed on his buttocks nevertheless. Basher never did things by half!

That much you could say for him.

That Saturday afternoon, Ras and I spent naked in bed together round at his house attempting to comfort each other for we were both still in extreme pain from the very severe thrashing we had received that morning.  In those days, no one ever thought of protesting at what was, even by the then standards, outrageously exaggerated and maliciously vindictive behaviour by the Headmaster in his use of the cane and the birch. Today such behaviour would have landed him in court for assault and battery; but we just grinned and bore it as best we could. Neither Ras nor I ever mentioned the incident to our parents; we metaphorically just licked our wounds together as we lay there in bed. Ras pulled me to him and whispered:  “Jonathan could you please do it to me right now?  I really need you right now; in fact, when Basher had finished with the cane on my arse, I really wanted you to come straight over and fuck me there and then, stuck over that two chair job he had thought up; I know it sound silly; but that it the way I felt and that is what I want right now.”

Ever ready to oblige I rolled Ras onto his back and took his legs over my shoulders and fucked him hard in what I have since learned is called the mission position, thereby avoiding as far as possible pounding his still raging buttocks with my efforts. We remained in bed until late afternoon when I left shortly before his mother came home from her job in the market.

That was the last time either of us ever took a beating from Basher. We somehow managed to keep our noses clean and avoided another meeting with him, in spite of the fact that contrary to what I am sure he (mistakenly) believed he had not succeeded in nipping our little activity in the bud.  The results of the Oxford and Cambridge exams came in and both Ras and I were offered places: he at Oxford and I at Cambridge; and it was first then that it suddenly hit me that come the end of the summer vacation, we would both be going to different universities and that we would inevitably be separated.  I wondered what it would feel like no longer to have Ras around as my regular sex partner: my only sex partner, in fact.  But as events turned out, I did not have to wait until I was in Cambridge to find out.

It was half way through the summer holidays, sometime towards the end of July and Ras and I were in bed together up to our usual tricks.  Suddenly as I had just finished giving his arse a tremendous pounding,  Ras turned to me and said: “Jonathan, I have to tell you something; something important; something which you will not like; so please, please, please try not to get mad at me.” After a long pause, he went on: “Look here Jonathan; it’s like this; I recently met a girl and I have been seeing her from time-to-time this summer; and well, you know how things are (I really didn’t) but we have become very friendly; and well, you know how things just happen; like they did with us, in fact; well I guess you know what I am trying to say.”

I was somewhat dumbstruck by the news that Ras had clearly found himself a girl-friend, for so far in our relationship girls had never ever figured in our conversations. But here it was; my best friend Ras had taken up with someone of the opposite sex; and not only was he seeing her, but as I then found out, they were having sex together on a regular basis. “Ras,” I said, “You mean that you are actually fucking this chick; you are doing something to her that you never wanted to do to me in all the time we spent together; you never wanted to fuck me and now you are suddenly doing it with her.”

“Jonathan I know it’s a horrible shock for you, but I thought I had to level with you.  Look,  I have really enjoyed our time together at  Bishop’s  but as time has passed I think it gradually dawned on me that although I liked having sex with you it was not, long-term, anything I would want to continue with. It’s not you, Jonathan; really it isn’t; it’s just that I have gradually come to realise that I am not a confirmed homosexual; what we have had together has been hellish good and I have enjoyed every minute of it, but long term it’s just not for me. I’ve thought about why I never wanted to do the same for you as you were doing for me and I have some to the conclusion that subconsciously I was saving myself for a woman. I didn’t know it at the time, but it seems to me the only rational explanation as to why I never wanted to fuck you, whereas I desperately wanted you to fuck me. The fact of the matter is that I have now realised that I am not a homosexual and that what we have had together has just been a youthful experiment. You see, Jonathan, I see my future as a conventional member of society: a heterosexual: a married man with children, like most others. Now I know that you probably don’t feel the same, but in view of this realisation by me of my true orientation I think it might be best for both of us if we agreed here and now to part as friends. I don’t want to rationalise things, but you must have realised yourself, that at the end of the summer, with you at Cambridge and me at Oxford, we would be parting anyway and that the distance between us would make seeing each other during term time very difficult.”

“So Ras, what you are telling me is that we should break off our relationship right now.”

“Jonathan I know that it sounds brutal, but I think it will best for both of us in the long run.  Our school-time affair has come to an end; it was what it was; a short period of sexually liberating euphoria for both of us; but now that we have left school, it is over; like so many first time affairs, it has come to its natural conclusion and I think we must now both move on. But I want us to part as friends with no hard feelings. Look, Jonathan, what we have had together was a first affair for both of us; I don’t know if things will work out between me and this girl, but for the moment I have the hots for her and she for me so I intend to make hay whilst the sun is shining. At the moment she seems the perfect girl for me, but that feeling may ultimately cool once we have got to know one another better and we too shall both move on to a new partner until we  both find the right one; that is the way of life.”

Listening to Jonathan trying to soften the blow he had just given me, which, frankly had cut me to the quick, I then realised that what he was saying made good sense. If he had decided that he did not want a male-male relationship, then there was no way that I or anyone else would make him change his mind. Just as Basher had not stopped us in our sexual tracks in spite of his painfully strenuous efforts with the rod, I too would not stop Ras from ploughing a new furrow; I knew there was no way I would prise him away from this girl: it was futile to try; sexual attraction is such a strong force, that it dominates our thinking and has to be accepted. And so I gracefully acquiesced to his suggestion and with a heart heavy with sadness, but not with anger, we did end or relationship that very afternoon. But as Ras had wanted, we parted friends.

We did not see much of each other for the rest of that summer; there seemed little point as that physical bond between us had been broken. The fact that by the end of the summer we would anyway have been parted somewhat softened the blow. Of course, when I got to Cambridge, I soon made lots of like minded friends so that my sex-life at university took on a new dimension and was both varied and exhilarating. In my final year, I found myself in a deep relationship with another student, a relationship which has held the two of us together for nearly sixty years. I have written these memories of my schooldays as if they were yesterday; but aged nearly eighty as I now am, I am still as much in love today with the man I met at Cambridge all those years ago.

THE END