Willy Wagstaff's Double Whammy

This is the first of four short stories, which should be read in the following order:-

Willy Wagstaff’s Double Whammy

William Edward Wagstaff, the hero – well let us call him that, although, in fact, there was nothing particularly heroic about Willy Wagstaff – of our story today, was the only son of Edgar and Mavis Wagstaff. Willy was the younger of the Wagstaff’s two children and had an elder sister, Enid, with whom he quarrelled perpetually. Edgar Wagstaff was the proprietor of a largish, retail ironmongery-business in Manchester and had three employees. As such, although part of the working class population of the country, Edgar Wagstaff’s status as A Business Owner already placed him in the upper echelons of the working-class with which he, by habit, accent and the part of the Manchester in which he had been born and had always lived, truly felt at ease.

As the income from Edgar’s ironmongery business was sufficient to meet the family’s needs, Mavis Wagstaff did not herself work in the family business. In fact, she did not work at all and felt herself somewhat superior to her immediate neighbours, all of whose womenfolk worked to make two ends meet. And so, the very fact that she alone, among what I suppose we must call her peer group, did not go to work every day, was a source of envy and slight friction whenever she talked to her neighbours.

Edgar Wagstaff, himself, was more down to earth than his wife, and went out each Friday night to the local Working Men’s Liberal Club for a game of cards or dominoes and a pint, and would regularly drop off at the local fish and chip shop on his way home and bring something home for a late supper. Like most of his friends at the club in the late 1940s, he assiduously filled in the weekly coupon of the football pools, universally called the pools, in the vague hope that one day he would hit the jackpot and become rich; and that is exactly what happened.

Edgar religiously posted off his weekly pools coupon together with the obligatory postal order covering his few shillings stake. And each Saturday evening, after the matches were over, he sat with his ear glued to the radio – television had not yet arrived – checking the results one by one against his predictions on his coupon, as they were announced in the then cultivated, elite tones of BBC English, which at that time had not yet realised that the real world was not at all as gentlemanly as it evidently saw it.

Usually after the first few results were announced, Edgar threw in the sponge, accompanied by mild show of exasperation, as he, like he vast majorities of the millions of football pools’ punters, had again got it wrong. But this evening things were different. As result after result was announced: Tottenham Hotspurs 2/Manchester City 3: Arsenal 2/Chelsea 2…etc., Edgar could hardly believe his ears; so far, he had got every fixture correct. With each successive result, his excitement increased exponentially – not a word with which Edgar was even vaguely familiar – and as the final result was announced: Huddersfield Town 3/Bristol City 1, he had that sudden surge, that feeling of euphoria, almost orgasmic in its effect on him, as he ticked of the final result which gave him what might be best described as a Royal Flush. He had correctly predicted the outcome of all the games. In a word he had won! The BBC announcer, unaware as he was of the momentous effect of his words on just one of the millions listening to him, went on in his anodyne way and said: “That concludes the football result for today’s fixtures and now here is – a name of someone long forgotten today – with the weather.”

For the moment, being of a somewhat cautious nature, Edgar said nothing to Mavis as he wanted to be sure that he had not made a mistake. However the results printed out in full, in black and white, in the Sunday morning newspaper, confirmed that he was right. He had correctly predicted the outcome of all the previous day’s matches. But then, cautious as ever, he asked himself if he was alone among the millions of others who had punted on the pools that week or would the jackpot be shared with others and if so, with how many?

His question was answered on Monday, when he received a telegram from the football pools company informing him that he, and he alone, was the outright winner of that week’s jackpot of £75,000. Now in 1952, that was an absolutely enormous sum which equates to a purchasing power of around £2.2 million in today’s devalued money. So overnight, Edgar Wagstaff was rich beyond his wildest dreams.

Edgar was at work in his shop when the telegram arrived and so it was Mavis who told him of their good fortune. The Wagstaffs were one of those rare families to have a telephone in their house at that time. And so, bubbling over with excitement, she rang the shop and communicated the glad tidings to her husband. Edgar was quick to notice that now that he had won, it had suddenly become their good fortune, whereas in the past his wife had always criticised him for wasting his money, adding a grammatically incorrect: “You’ll never win nowt, yer know!” For the rest of the day Mavis could do nothing as she thought about the huge wealth which had come their way. Her thoughts, like those of most women in her position would have been, were already focused on how to spend it.

When Edgar arrived home from work that evening she had already mapped out a plan for the immediate future: “Edgar, isn’t it wonderful. We can move from this horrible area and buy a house in a nicer neighbourhood where there are better quality neighbours than here. And we can get a car.” It has to be said that in post-war England of the late 1940s, cars were as rare as a hens’ teeth in working class areas and were not even common in better areas.

So when Edgar pointed out that he could not drive, Mavis said: “But you can learn dear. After all when we move to new and better neighbourhood you will be no longer be able to walk to work as you now do. So you will have to learn to drive to be able to get yourself there and back each day. And it will be so nice to have a car so that we can go out on Sundays and have a drive in the country.”

Edgar, on the other hand was more sanguine about this new wealth. As a working class man, he was totally contented with his life as it now was. He he earned enough from his ironmonger’s shop to allow them to lead a comfortable life living modestly where they now were and he enjoyed his working class pursuits. And moreover, he did not share his wife’s opinion that the areas in which they lived was horrible. But Mavis, from the word go, had already had got the gentrification, social-climbing bit firmly between her teeth and was intent on getting her way. So like many working-class men with a somewhat domineering wife, in the interests of peace and quiet on the home front, he allowed Mavis free reign in her crusade to move the Wagstaff family up the social ladder.

Within six months, their present house had been sold, and the Wagstaffs had moved into a new and larger, detached property in what Mavis thought of as a desirable neighbourhood. A car had been bought and Edgar had learned to drive and the first of those Sunday afternoon drives into the country had started, which bring us to the young hero of this story, their son, Willy.

William Edward Wagstaff was universally known to everyone as Willy, his parents included. But in view of what Mavis saw as their improved station in life, Mavis now decided that she and her husband would henceforth call their son by his full, first name. So Willy, now aged eight, now found himself addressed at home as William. In Mavis’s eyes William sounded so much better; so much more upper-class than Willy. Much to her annoyance, Edgar often lapsed back, calling his son, Willy, as he had always done. Willy himself did not much care what his parents called him; at school both his teachers and classmates continued to call him Willy.

And now came the question of William’s education. Mavis, ever the social climber, had decided that in view of the family’s increasing – as she thought of it – social standing, her son would henceforth benefit from a better education at what she called a private school; a school where parents paid to send their offspring to give them what Mavis thought of as a better start in life. In fact, had she been more attuned to the public school system, the brutal rigours of which she was totally ignorant, but which, sight unseen, she now wanted to inflict on William, she would have realised that most families who sent their offspring to such places, did so as a matter of course. The thought of sending their children, boys or girls, to a state school never even crossed their minds. It never entered their heads to do otherwise than to submit their offspring to the rigours of a public school education.

Edgar had never given any thought at all as to his son’s education. With comprehensive schools still in the future, Willy now aged seven, went to the local state primary school and would, in due course, move to the senior school, where if he was good enough, aged eleven he would sit the then eleven-plus-exam, which, if he passed would entitle him to a place at a local grammar school.

But as Edgar soon found out, his wife would have none of this anymore. William, her son, as she thought of him, as if she had created him unaided, deserved better. So as they had the money to pay for his education, he would be moved to the public school system. In the interests of a quiet life, which is really all that Edgar himself wanted, like so many men before him, he again capitulated to what he saw as the inevitable and allowed Mavis to go ahead with her plans to gentrify their son.

Now it is quite true that, on the whole, English public schools do provide their boys with an excellent, well-rounded education. But they also have the reputation, frequently justified, of being brutal places. And in England of the 1940s, the cane and the birch were both still in regular daily use in pretty well all public schools. The way the system worked – in fact still works – is that boys from the early age of eight were enrolled in what are called preparatory (prep) schools, whence aged 13+, they move to the public school proper.

Some prep schools prepared their boys for a given public school with which they work exclusively. Other prep schools were less exclusive and prepared their boys for entry into the public school system with no actual school in view. But the defining common denominator across all prep schools was the Common Entrance Exam, covering eleven subjects. Success in this exam was and to some extent still is, the sine qua non of entry in to a public school. So in many ways the prep school – public school system is analogous to the eleven plus system, success in which is the only way into a state grammar school.

Now that the decision had been taken to remove Willy from the state system, where everything happened automatically, Mavis had to come to terms with the private system into which Willy was to be thrust. Aged but seven and a half at the time, Willy’s wishes were never consulted as to his future. His mother, not to be deterred by the fact that she herself had to find a suitable private school to which to send her son, rose admirably to the task. She was torn between two stools. One side of her wanted Willy at home, as most working-class parents do. But equally she wanted her son have the benefits of a private education, which usually implied a boarding school.

However, as luck would have it, Mavis found that within walking distance of their new house, there was a fee-paying, preparatory school, St. David’s, which in addition to boarders also took a few day-boys. And so Willy Wagstaff, then aged eight, was enrolled as a day-boy at St. David’s. So, until he reached the age of thirteen when he had to go off as a boarder to a true public school, he lived at home. This was probably the first mistake that Mavis made, as ever with the very best intentions for her son. The fact that he was taken from a state primary school and thrust into a class of boys from more privileged backgrounds than his own, caused immediate problems for the young lad. He knew no one at his new school and all his classmates talked posh, as the working-classes put it. So every word he uttered in his thick Mancunian, working-class accent stood out like a sore thumb in world where accent was still de rigueur and very much defined the class to which you to which you belonged; and in that snobby British way, the class where you ought to remain!

But that was just the beginning of things. As Willy was a day-boy, he found himself rather on the periphery of school life where most of his classmates lived and slept together in their little community. What his classmates did as prep before supper and bed at the school, Willy did as homework at home in the evenings. Now this was something Mavis had not reckoned with. Boys at state schools, at least in the lower classes, did not do homework. So Mavis, herself beneficiary of only a rudimentary pre-war education, having left school aged fifteen, found herself baffled by the questions her son put to her asking for help. And to make matters worse, Willy was not a particularly studious boy. In fact, not to put too fine a point on it, Willy Wagstaff was downright lazy. And so at his new prep school, he did as he had always done, which was the minimum amount of work to survive.

Now the English public school system and its associated preparatory schools such as St. David’s, where Willy was presently enrolled, are often noted for the strict severity with which they treat their pupils. In post-war England as has been said earlier, the cane and even the birch were still in regular use in most of such establishments. However, there are always a few exceptions, and, unfortunately – or for abolitionists, fortunately – St. David’s was one of them. Why do I say unfortunately? Well for the good and simple reason, that without the cane lurking in the background, the teachers were deprived of the time-honoured method of controlling their charges. By removing the threat of the cane from the equation, the boys knew that the worst that could happen to them was temporary curtailment of their liberties or some other relatively innocuous, non-physical assault on their freedom. And so assured that their backsides were in no danger of being striped by the cane, the pupils at St. David’s felt free to do more or less as they wished.

In fact, the present Headmaster of St. David’s was a convinced reformer; one of those early, vociferous crusaders, who took every opportunity to preach publicly against the evils of corporal punishment in schools and who felt that boys should be allowed to develop their characters naturally without the threat of punishment hanging over them: to express themselves as they wished, as the modern way of thinking put it.. And although he himself did not succeed in his task before he retired, his cause was taken up by other like-minded do-gooders. So in 1999, half a century later, this articulate minority finally succeeded in foisting its views on an inarticulate and disinterested majority and all forms of corporal punishment in schools was banned by law.

St. David’s can be seen as a misguided forerunner of today’s chaotic society from which any kind of discipline and sanctions against the misdeeds of the youthful generation has been totally expunged with the results we see and now decry on a daily basis. Under the aegis of its reformist Headmaster, St. David’s had gradually succumbed to the effects of his laissez-faire mentality, where discipline of any kind was permanently on its back-foot. So for the likes of Willy Wagstaff, a boy who was a congenital idler, St. David’s was a quiet haven where only verbal exhortation was available to persuade him to work. Not surprisingly, St. David’s overall results in the Common Entrance Exam, the successful passing of which was the key to being accepted by any public school in the country, were usually mediocre. In the event, Willy Wagstaff, just scraped through by the skin of his teeth and was not, therefore, faced with the ignominy of being refused entrance to a public school.

But over and above the mediocre academic standing of St. David’s, was that fact that Willy Wagstaff was not only a square working-class peg in a definitely superior upper-class round hole, but he was also a day-boy. As such, he and others like him, found themselves marginalised. Yes they were enjoying – if that is the word – a private, privileged education; but by not being boarders, they were losing out on the sort of comradeship which develops when boys live together in what is a collegiate community. So when Willy Wagstaff was thirteen and moved on to a public school, where he was obliged to be a boarder, he had no experience at all of the sort of life as was lived in intimate contact with other boys of his own age. Just as he had been thrown, aged eight, into an environment which was totally strange to him, now also when he entered public school he was again an outsider as he had never experienced the reality of living with the sort of brutally public aspects of life which boys at boarding schools take as the norm.

Willy Wagstaff’s Mancunian working-class accent had, in fact

become somewhat attenuated by his years at St. David’s, but he had, until now never left home. He had never actually lived, eaten, played and slept in dormitory every day with other boys. His experience of nakedness in front of of his classmates was limited to the showers he had reluctantly – like so many working-class lads – been forced to take after sports or gym classes at his prep school. So when he found himself sleeping in a dormitory with seven other boys, which for all of whom except him was the norm they had been accustomed to throughout their entire prep-school careers, Willy Wagstaff, once again felt himself an outsider.

Hitherto he had never slept other than alone in his own bedroom. But now, here he was, one of eight lads, sharing a room, in which nothing was concealed from anyone. His dormitory mates were all boys of his own age, who had been through the mill of being boarders at their prep schools and so they were totally accustomed to the communal life and nudity which reigned in their dorm as they showered each day and dressed. This was a hard thing for Willy to swallow, but as he had been plunged into an alien society to which he now belonged, he had to adapt. Not that Willy had physically anything to be ashamed of, as he was a muscular young lad for his age and was as well equipped as any of his new dorm-mates where it really matters. And although Willy was bone idle when it came to his school work, he was a very keen sportsman. He excelled at all ball sports and, as a gymnast, he was also first class. So in spite of his own initial misgivings, Willy, thanks to his sporting prowess, rapidly became popular not only with his is dorm-mates but with his classmates in general.

There was however, one aspect of public school life with which Willy was totally unfamiliar, given his background in the corporal punishment free environment of St. David’s. Quite by chance, the public school that had finally agreed to offer him a place, given his mediocre marks in the Common Entrance Exam, was also one of the strictest in the country. The school, Ulverton School for Boys, was located in a village of the same name, practically on the Scottish border in the extreme north of Northumberland. Ulverton was noted, one might even say, notorious, for its devotion to the cane, which was in daily use and applied regularly and vigorously to any and all of its pupils who stepped even a fraction of an inch out of line. The Headmaster, a martinet of a man, appropriately named Nathaniel Birch, although never resorting to his namesake of punishment implements, was, nonetheless, a formidable and frequent user of the rattan cane and a visit to his study was not something which any boy ever welcomed.

So Willy Wagstaff, who had hitherto never even thought of being beaten at school, suddenly found himself in a place where the cane and its use was accepted by the boys as the daily norm: a new fact of life for him, but one with which he would have to learn to live with! But when he finally came to grips with the way that a typical public school functioned, he was horrified by the danger present on all sides. Not only could the Headmaster, the housemasters and most of the teaching staff wield the cane, but so also could the head-boy, the house-captains and all the prefects. In a word, danger was everyhere!

Willy’s first experience of the damage which a cane could do to a lad’s backside was brought home to him visually at the end of his first week at school. One of his own dorm mates, a boy named Jonathan Appleby, had been caught by the head-boy running in one of the corridors in the main school building. The head-boy had, without hesitation, marched Appleby off to his study and given him a six cut thrashing. Now Willy knew, as they all did, that running anywhere inside the school buildings was a definite no-no and any boy caught in the act was subject to punishment. But it was not until he saw the results of the head-boy’s efforts etched into Appleby’s arse that he realised just what punishment really meant. Appleby had been thrashed late in the day, after supper, and so that evening, in the dorm, when the boys were getting ready for bed, Willy had his first experience of what his dorm- mates already took as the norm: the viewing of the damaged naked arse of one of their number who had been subject to a beating. To say that Willy was horrified by what he saw was the understatement of the year. In point of fact he was utterly petrified by his first sight of what his dorm-mates airily referred to as a well-beaten arse. The thought that he himself might one day be the owner of the same was just too awful to contemplate.

But everything comes to him, who waits. And Willy’s best efforts to avoid a collision course with the cane came to nought at the end of his first month at the school. The Headmaster, Mr. Birch, had the nasty habit of making blood-curdling, adrenaline-releasing announcements to his flock at the end of the traditional morning assembly. Superficially anodyne in in their wording, they nevertheless carried the chilling message that the boys named were slated to be beaten by him that same evening. The axe finally fell for Willy Wagstaff in the first week of his second month at the school.

“I should like to see the following boys in my study this evening promptly at eight o’clock.” The Headmaster then announced the names of the lucky lads who were to benefit from his ministrations that evening. You could have heard a pin drop in the Assembly Hall as boy after boy was named, to be followed by a collective sigh of relief from the vast majority of boys who had escaped unscathed to live another day with their backsides intact. “And as ever, I expect the boys I have just named to change into their gym shorts and vests in advance of this evening’s meeting.”

On the fateful day when Willy Wagstaff found his name on the list of invitees for that evening’s festivities, there were only two other boys, both in the lower sixth, whose names had been called first. Willy, who, as far as he knew, had done nothing untoward to be invited to visit Headmaster that evening, was suddenly jolted out of his complacency, when the Headmaster said: “And I would also like to see William Wagstaff of form 1A this evening. I think Wagstaff that as you are by far the youngest of the three boys I wish to see this evening, I will deal with you first, at eight o’clock precisely; so I would ask you two older boys I have just named, to kindly present yourselves at my study at eight thirty.”

As Willy heard his name announced, his blood immediately ran cold. It had to be a mistake; he had done nothing, nothing at all, to incur the wrath of the Headmaster; so surely it just had to be a mistake. Alas, it was not a mistake, as he was to find out that evening when he stood before the Headmaster. It was precisely because he had done nothing – or next to nothing – in class during that first month at his new school that the Headmaster wanted to see him. His classmates, two of whom had already been beaten by one or other of the prefects for some piffling little offence or other, were quick to assure him in voices tinged with Schadenfreude, that as he had been told to appear in his gym kit, he was certainly going to get his arse introduced to the doubtful joys of the cane that very evening; and by no less a personage than the Headmaster himself.

The words of Alexander Pope: hope springs eternal, was to turn out to be a false comforter to the optimistic sentiment, to which Willy, although quite unaware of Pope’s words, was, subscribing heart and soul at the moment. The glad tidings, if we can call them that, of the visit to the Headmaster, which had been proclaimed in Assembly that morning, haunted Willy all day. Not a studious boy at the best of times, he might as well not have attended any of the classes that day, as he was unable to pay attention to anything, so full was his mind with what might happen to him that evening. At supper he ate hardly anything. Supper over, he went and changed into his gym kit as he had been ordered to do by the Headmaster and promptly at eight that evening he knocked on the door of the great man’s study and waited to be told to enter.

As he stood waiting there, the images of the freshly striped backsides of those of his room-mates who had already been beaten during that first month, flashed across his mind. He alone, among all his classmates, was the only boy who had been at a prep school where the cane was not used at all. And so, although not actually welcoming the fact that they were almost certain to have their backsides striped by one or other of the ever-ready-to-oblige cane-wielders at the school, the other boys were much more sanguine about the beatings which would, as sure as eggs are eggs, eventually come their way. But for Willy, who had never experienced any form of corporal punishment whatsoever – not even that proverbial clip on the ear from his parents – the thought of what might be about to happen to him in a few minutes time, was to say the very least, unnerving.

Suddenly the Headmaster bellowed through the closed door: “Come in, boy.” One thing Willy had learned in his brief time at the school was that when a master addressed one of the pupils as boy rather than using his name, then caveat puer! – boy beware! – as the master was usually on the warpath.

With his heart in his mouth, Willy gave another knock at the door before opening it and entering, what for him at that precise moment, was the equivalent of the lion’s den. Mr Birch, the Headmaster was sitting behind a huge desk, partly covered with papers. “Come in, Wagstaff, and stand to attention in front of me whilst I take a good look at you. Well, boy, I think you know why you are here this evening. And just let me say that I am pleased that you are appropriately attired to facilitate what is about to happen to you a few moments from now”

Willy, who still had not the faintest idea of the reason why he had been ordered to see the Headmaster, finally plucked up enough courage to say with complete sincerity: “Well sir, in fact, I really do not know why you asked to see me this evening, sir. Truly I have no idea why I am here in front of you right now. As far as I am aware, sir, I have not broken any rules, or if I have then I am not aware of the fact, sir.”

The Headmaster picked up a couple of sheets of paper from his desk desk and waved them in front of Willy: “Have you any idea, Wagstaff, what this is; from the bemused expression on your face, evidently not? Well, boy, let me enlighten you. This is a copy of your first monthly report which contains comments by your teachers on your progress. Now I cannot read all 500 reports which are written each month across the entire school, but every form-master does read the reports of all the boys in his form and passes on any unsatisfactory reports to me for appropriate action. Now this first month, your report, Wagstaff, is the only report among almost five hundred to have been passed on to me. And you will see why, after I have I read you a few of the comments made my your present teachers.”

The Headmaster began and as he listened, Willy Wagstaff just wished he could curl up and die.

“This boy is just bone idle. It is not that he is stupid which he is certainly not; but he does not work either in class or with his prep.”

“Wagstaff appears or be asleep in class for most of the time and when asked a question seems to resent the fact that he has been woken up.”

“This boy is very capable if he puts his mind to things. Alas he rarely does.”

“Wagstaff is an expert at not handing in his prep on time. And his prep, even when late, is rarely complete.”

“Wagstaff is frittering his time away in my class. He pays no attention to the lesson and does the minimum amount of work to allow him to pass each test by the skin of his teeth. The boy is bright but just lazy.”

“Need I go on any further, Wagstaff? I think by now you have got the message. All of your teachers, without a single exception, see you as a basically intelligent boy who applies himself to nothing and just scrapes through on the seat of his pants by his native wits. Now let me just tell you, boy, that I will not tolerate a lazy boy in my school. Your parents are paying for you to benefit from what is considered a superior education. But if you persist in not working, then there is nothing at all that your teachers or I can do to help you. You have to understand, Wagstaff that we are here to teach you. But education is a partnership between the teacher and the pupil. If you persist in not being willing to learn anything then, as I have just said, there is nothing any teacher can do to help you. So, if you persist in your present ways, then I see little point in your remaining a pupil at this school. However, we are not at that stage yet and I hope that our little talk this evening will have brought home to you the need to change our ways and start to apply yourself in class.”

For one brief moment Willy thought that he had escaped the worst. But he was immediately brought back to earth as the Headmaster continued: “So Wagstaff, to reinforce what I have just been saying to you and to provide you with lasting souvenir of our first meeting, which will also give you a good idea of what the immediate future will hold for you if you do not take heed and act on my warnings this evening, I am afraid that I now going to beat you. Long experience has taught me that the best way to make sure a boy has understood what is needed of him and to make sure that he acts on the verbal warnings he has been given, is to send him away with a very sore bottom as a painful reminder of the occasion. And just to make thing quite clear to you, Wagstaff, if you do not improve your performance, then I shall have no compunction in beating you as many times as necessary until you understand what is required of you, if you are to remain a pupil in this school.”

Willy Wagstaff was by now in what, in modern terms, we would politely describe as the blind panic mode; or more vulgarly put, shit scared. He came out in a cold sweat as he listened to the Headmaster’s next fateful words: “Take of your shorts, Wagstaff and go and bend access the back of that armchair over there. Stick your bare bottom as high into the air as you are able and put your hands on the arms of the chair and keep them there until I tell you otherwise.”

Willy was paralysed as the implication of these words sunk in. He was going to be beaten. And not only beaten, but the cane was to be applied to his poor bare bum. In his naivety, although he had on three occasions in his first month admired – bad choice of word really – the stripes adorning is three dorm-mate’s arses, it was only now that it hit him that such well-defined and livid looking cuts were the result of the cane biting into bare flesh. And for Willy, the thought of the cane landing on his bare, hitherto-virgin bum was just too awful to contemplate. And so as he watched the Headmaster open the wall-cupboard where he kept his canes, Willy found himself unable to move, so petrified by the thought of what was about to happen to him. The Headmaster having decided which of his collection of rods would best do justice to Willy’s arse, he turned to find Willy still standing there trembling like a leaf.

The Headmaster feigned surprise: “Wagstaff, what was it you did not understand about what I just said to you to do a few moments ago? When I give a boy an order, I expect it to be carried out, but I find you still standing there when by now I expected you to be bent across the chair with your bare bottom correctly presented for my attention. Now, Wagstaff, unless you want me to increase the six strokes I am proposing to give you to nine, I suggest you take off your shorts and go and bend across the chair as I have just told you to do. There is nothing unusual about my order. Like many boys before you and like many others, who will, doubtless follow in your footsteps, you are going to be beaten on the bare. Come along, boy, move yourself. Take of your shorts and bend across the chair: It is not the first time you have been beaten at school and will certainly not be the last. So do as I say and let’s get on with it.”

Willy plucked up what little courage he had and said to the Headmaster: “But sir, I have never ever been beaten in the past. So this will be my first time and frankly sir, I am terrified of what is about to happen to me. And so, sir, I wondered if I gave you a solemn promise to improve my class work, if you might reconsider sir. If I promise you that I will truly keep my promise to work harder, then perhaps you would not need to beat me now, sir.”

“Wagstaff, are you telling me that you were never swished, not even once, at your prep school? I have to tell you, boy that I find that hard to believe.”

“But sir, it’s quite true. You see, sir, the headmaster at my prep school did not allow the use of the cane at all and so none of the boys were ever caned. So perhaps you now see why I am so afraid of what you are now going to do to me, sir. Honestly sir, I am absolutely terrified.”

“Wagstaff, you are no longer at your prep school but are here in this school where the cane is a regular if unpleasant feature in the daily life of its pupils. This is an old style school where I and my staff all believe in the beneficial and correctional effects of the cane when applied to an errant boy’s bare buttocks. And so, I am afraid, Wagstaff, that I see no reason at all not to beat you. You have shown yourself to be and idle and lazy boy and it is my duty to break you from this unfortunate habit. So, Wagstaff, I regret to say that I am, indeed, still going to beat you. Now, I appreciate, Wagstaff that no boy ever likes having his bottom beaten as it is a painful business, as it is, indeed, intended to be. But there are occasions, such as the present, when a beating becomes an absolute necessity; it is a task, which although undertaken with a heavy heart – mine in this case – cannot be avoided. And believe me when I say with utmost sincerity, that in spite of the suffering it brings to the recipient, he too realises that it is a beneficial necessity.”

“Now sooner or later, Wagstaff, you will have to face up to the fact that you are now in a school where the use of the cane is a regular feature of daily life. So sooner or later – sooner, as it turns out to be in your case – boys, unless they are angels, realise that as sure as night follows day, their bottoms will inevitably become intimately acquainted with the cane. Now, Wagstaff, you are somewhat a special case as you have no previous experience of the cane prior to your entry into this school. Therefore, it falls to me to make your introduction to – how shall I best put it – the beneficial effects of a well-beaten bottom, a memorable occasion? And let me add, Wagstaff, that the actual act of submitting to a beating, is one which suits your own particular indolent temperament perfectly. It is one of those rare instructive occasions, to be savoured by the instructed – you in the present case – who can relax supine across the back of a chair, whilst the instructor, I myself on this occasion, does all the work. It is one of the only examples of a passive learning situation, where the boy being instructed has absolutely nothing to do but to lie back and soak up the efforts, which his instructor is exerting on his behalf. Now for the last time, Wagstaff, take off your shorts, bend across the chair and let me see your bare bottom, boy, before I become really cross with you.”

But Willy now went too far with the Headmaster by saying: “But sir, as it’s to be my first time, couldn’t I be permitted to keep on my shorts? Sir, I have never had to expose my bare bottom to a master before and I do not think it is right.”

Mr Birch almost exploded in anger as he said: “Wagstaff, I have told you twice what to do and now you are arguing with me. Young man, this is not a situation where you negotiate conditions. It is not for you to decide what is right or wrong. I have already told you that you scrape through by the seat of your pants. But on this occasion, the seat of your pants will not save you. So you will do as I say and take your shorts immediately, bend across the chair and present me your bare bottom; come on, on the double, boy, as you are keeping me waiting. Now, Wagstaff, as you are arguing with me, let me tell you that you have just earned yourself two extra strokes of the cane. So you will receive eight strokes rather than the original six. And just to let you know where you now stand, if you do not immediately do as I have told you, then I shall be happy to give you a full twelve stroke beating, which, young man, in view of your continued recalcitrance is probably what you deserve.”

Willy Wagstaff was now in a blind panic as he went across to the fateful chair, stepped out of his shorts and bent across its back to present his nakedness to the Headmaster for inspection. As he placed his hands on the arms of the chair, he found himself looking downwards onto the tear-stained, leather seat-cushion to which he was, in a few moments, to add his own lachrymose contribution. Willy closed his eyes and clenched his teeth as he waited for the onslaught to begin. And when that first stroke finally came – his first taste ever of the bite of any form of cane, and on his bare arse yet– the pain was much worse than had ever imagined possible. How could such a thin cane produce such searing pain? Well, of course, Willy was in the hands of a true professional and one who, moreover, actually enjoyed what he was doing. Not that the Headmaster would ever have admitted to anyone, that he himself got considerable pleasure out of beating a boy’s arse; but it was, alas, as is often the case, undeniably so. Mr Birch was like so many schoolmasters, in that he had a hidden sadistic streak and beating a boy’s naked arse gave him considerable erotic pleasure.

Mr. Birch, quite rightly, considered himself, with no false modesty, an expert in the not-so-gentle-art of flagellation, which he truly was. And so he should have been, as he had been a master at the school for over thirty years, of which, the last twenty as Headmaster. Given his penchant for beating boys’ naked arses, he had, since becoming Headmaster, in addition to completing the traditional punishment register, which boys counter-signed immediately after their beating, assiduously kept a private, leather-bound journal in which he had chronologically recorded the name and age of every boy he had caned. Quite by chance it was Willy Wagstaff who, on that very day, had the honour of being the 2000th boy to be beaten by the Headmaster in his twenty years in the post. So in a school of some 500 boys, Mr. Birch had beaten an average of about 100 boys each year. So roughly 20% of the school’s pupils, each year, enjoyed the dubious privilege of having their backsides addressed by the Headmaster’s cane.

With so much experience under his belt, so to speak, Mr. Birch was well versed in the art of beating and was a past master in leaving each of his victims with what one had to admit was an artistically striped pair of buttocks. In terms of the technical art of applying the cane to a lad’s arse, to which there is much more than at meets even the attentive eye, Mr. Birch knew instinctively on first sight of each candidate, exactly which of his many canes he would use to shred the arse of the lad in front of him. And in terms of the art of applying the cane, he was an absolute master at both the backhand and forehand strokes, and of that almost unnoticeable flick of the wrist, which gave the cane that extra something as it mated with its target. No boy ever left the Headmaster’s study feeling that he had been short-changed. In fact, most boys wished that the Headmaster had applied himself with a little less vigour to their arses as they hobbled, tearfully, from his study to tend to their blistered behinds. When Mr. Birch whacked arse as he frequently did, every boy in the school, from first formers, such as Willy Wagstaff, right through to the upper sixth were equal and were always treated to the full Monty if they had the misfortune to be summoned for punishment by him.

The Headmaster was, however, also an artist. Much as he enjoyed the sexual arousal which any beating gave to him personally and the act of actually delivering pain, he always endeavoured to leave the lad with an arse which he could be to strut in front of his schoolmates in the inevitable post-beating viewings, which were seen by the boys as an integral part of the whole punishment process. The minimum tariff at the school was six cuts of the appropriate cane, which Mr. Birch normally laid on parallel. Six parallel, as it was universally referred to, was what he was, in principle, now inflicting on our friend, Willy Wagstaff. However, as Willy had earned himself an extra two cuts, Mr. Birch would place these diagonally, converting what had been a six parallel into a gated eight.

But a simple six cut beating was rare as Mr. Birch felt that most boys deserved more. In his view, a truly well-beaten arse was only achievable with a minimum of twelve cuts. So Willy was really escaping quite lightly; not that eight swingeing cuts from Mr. Birch were anything but excruciating. So twelve cuts parallel and even eighteen tightly spaced parallel cuts were not uncommon, especially when it came to dealing with older boys. And when it came to delivering a really severe lesson, Mr. Birch was an expert at doubling his strokes: laying the cane twice or three times on exactly the same place. I am sure that by now, you have heard enough of his capabilities to realise that in Mr. Birch, the school had at its disposal one of the foremost experts in the art of punishing schoolboys in the country. His imaginative inventiveness in administering the cane knew no bounds and his reputation among the boys as an absolute killer was totally justified. No master at the school could equal him in his ability to reduce even the most hard-line of recalcitrant sixth-formers to tears. And this was the very man and who was now introducing Willy Wagstaff’s arse for the first time to the speciously doubtful delights of the cane.

After that first stroke, Willy Wagstaff was already in utter agony, he had never ever, in his life, felt anything like the pain, which that one stroke had induced in his backside. He was already shedding his first tear as the Headmaster laid on the next stroke. Now although it was Willy’s first time, Mr. Birch had been so annoyed by him that he did not hold back at all on any of the six cuts he gave the lad. And so, by the time the sixth stroke landed on Willy’s bum, the lad’s tears were pouring out in a fair imitation of the Niagara Falls. The Headmaster paused for a few seconds after the sixth stroke and looked with a certain degree of satisfaction at the six neatly parallel, livid red welts, running from the bottom of Willy’s back to the crease of his legs.

Willy thought for one hopeful moment as the Headmaster paused, that he had decided to stop there and not give him the two promised additional strokes. But as he felt the cane laid again across his arse, this time diagonally, from left to right, he knew that he was mistaken. And with his two final, sizzling, diagonal strokes, Mr. Birch converted Willy’s parallel six into a picture-perfect, but excruciatingly-painful, gated eight. Those final two strokes had been delivered with full force and Willy cried out with extreme pain he felt the last two cuts bite deeply into his naked flesh.

But then it was suddenly all over, He was told to get up and pull back on his shorts. He then signed the punishment register and shook the Headmaster’s proffered hand. The Headmaster simply said to him: “Well there you have it Wagstaff. As you now know, in this school, the wages of idleness are very painful. Think on what you have just been through. If you do not apply yourself this month, then next month you will find yourself enjoying the same undesirable experience, if not worse. You well deserved what you have just received and I am sure that you realise that what I did to you just now was for your own good. Now Wagstaff, as you leave, would you please tell the two boys who are waiting, impatiently no doubt, in the corridor to see me, to enter. Good night, Wagstaff.”

Willy Wagstaff hobbled back to his house and dormitory where his dorm-mates were eagerly awaiting his return. As a group, the lads were no different to public schoolboys in general and could not contain their excitement to see what damage the Headmaster had visited on Willy’s arse. As ever, the omnipresent combination of morbid curiosity and Schadenfreude was tinged with the fear that one day they might find themselves in the same painful state. Willy was the third boy of his dorm to have been caned that first month of the new school year, so the boys were already acutely aware that their own backsides were also permanently on the line and would not be spared if they were caught breaking even the slightest of rules. And so it was with that mixture of vicarious pleasure and fear at viewing the suffering of others that such post-beating viewings of the damages took place. Willy was the first boy of his boy of his dorm, indeed the first boy of the new entrants that year, whose sins had been sufficient to attract the attention of the Headmaster. And so, in the eyes of his peer group, that elevated him into another special class of his own.

By now, Willy had, overcome the initial shyness he had had when faced with the ubiquitous nudity that was commonplace among boys in public schools. So as he prepared to ready himself for an uncomfortable night lying face down in his bed, he had no hesitation in shedding the skimpy attire of shorts and vest he had been wearing for his ordeal. And it was with Willy standing there stark-naked, with his friends intent on examining his wounds and counting the Headmaster’s strokes embellishing his arse that the door suddenly opened and Mr. Rogers, their young housemaster, walked in.

Now in his own way, Mr. Rogers, who was only twenty-five years old himself and was youngest member of the present teaching staff, had already established a reputation of being a strict disciplinarian who was as devoted as was the Headmaster to the beneficial effects of the cane. It is said that God created man in his own image, when in fact the converse is probably nearer the truth. But in the present context, God was the Headmaster, who had taken to appointing new staff members, all of whom were like him: believers in in the beneficial effect on a boy of a well-beaten arse.

“Right boys, viewing time is now over. Get yourselves into bed and you Wagstaff, put on your pyjamas immediately and come with me to my study, as I wish see you in private”

These words sent a chill down the spine of all the boys not the least of whom was Willy Wagstaff, who wondered what his housemaster had in store for him. He was soon to find out as Mr. Rogers closed the door behind them and went and sat behind his desk. A shudder ran through Willy’s body as he recognised a copy of his monthly report lying on the desk. His housemaster picked up the document and said: “I understand, Wagstaff, that the Headmaster has already discussed the contents of this report with you and I have to say, that like him, I find it makes for sorry reading: very sorry reading indeed. You Wagstaff are suffering from a disease, which I call idleitis terminans – terminal laziness. You, boy, by your persistent idleness are letting down yourself, your parents, this school and this house. This, Wagstaff, is an intolerable situation, which cannot be allowed to continue. And so, it falls to me as your housemaster, in loco parentis, to bring you back from the brink of the disaster on which you now find yourself.”

“Wagstaff, I doubt that you are familiar with the Latin aphorism: Repetitio mater studiorum est; or for that matter with its English translation: repetition is the mother of all learning. However in view of your apparent inability to absorb whatever subject you are being taught, I am sure that you will agree with me, that a little repetition might be of great help to you in overcoming what might most kindly be described as your lack of application.”

Willy had no idea at all what an aphorism was, or for that matter how the translation of the Latin phrase was relevant to the present situation. However, as his housemaster had said: “I am sure that you will agree with me,” it seemed to Willy that like one of those Latin questions involving the word, nonne, an affirmative answer would be prudent. And so, without actually understanding what he was agreeing to, he said “Yes sir, I think I agree with you that repetition is the mother of all learning.”

Mr. Rogers then said: “Well Wagstaff, I am delighted that you agree with me and so I now propose to put that proposition to a practical, and, unfortunately for you, rather painful test, to allow you to decide for yourself whether repetition is, in fact, the mother of all learning. I believe that the Headmaster, in beating you, intended to teach you the lesson that idleness did not pay: a lesson which I hope you have now learned. So I am sure that the second beating which I am now about to give you, will serve as the act of repetition, which will confirm and engrave indelibly in your mind that idleness does not – and for that matter – never will, pay in this school.”

At the words second beating, Willy experienced that immediate release of adrenalin which I am sure all condemned men feel on their way to the gallows. Within seconds, Willy was again in that same cold sweat that the Headmaster’s words had induced in him just a short while ago. But this time things were much worse; much, much worse. Here was his housemaster proposing to revisit with his cane his already unbearably painful backside. It just could not be true; it had to be a cruel joke; no one deserved such a second beating. But no, his housemaster was not joking. With horror and fear both painted clearly on his face, Willy watched Mr Rogers stand up from his desk and turn around to the wall behind him, where a selection of rattan canes stood bristling in one of those large oriental pots so often used as umbrella or stick stands, Willy suddenly realised just how serious his situation was as his housemaster riffled through his selection of canes before lighting upon the one which he evidently considered suitable for the occasion.

This was to be the second painful message that evening; the repetition which was intended to reinforce the first attack on his arse, which was intended to make Willy think seriously about applying himself to his lessons. It was an indescribably awful, practical demonstration of that saying: Repetition is the mother of all learning. And in spite of his fear at was was about to come, Willy knew that he had no way of avoiding a second encounter with the cane, which his housemaster was already swishing encouragingly through the air. So poor Willy’s introduction to the painful realities of life in a public school could hardly have been worse – or better, depending on which point of view you are taking. What boy has ever been beaten twice for the same reason within the space of an hour? What Willy was being forced to endure was just beyond the pale.

But that somewhat mythical place, the pale, turned out to be within easy reach, as Mr. Rogers pulled a wooden chair into the centre of the floor, behind which he motioned Willy to stand: “Wagstaff, kindly step out of the lower half of your pyjamas and then bed over the back of the chair behind which you are now standing.” Willy tremblingly obeyed the order and for the second time within an hour, found himself looking down on the seat of a chair; this time at a wooden seat, on which he was now told to place his hands and keep them there until told otherwise.

Mr. Rogers, cane in hand, approached Willy and inspected the Headmaster’s handiwork: “Ah, Wagstaff, I see that the Headmaster has favoured you with a classic eight-stroke, gated beating; an admirable introduction to the cane for a first former such as you, as I am sure you will agree. I see that the Headmaster, with his customary artistry, has placed his six parallel cuts, evenly spaced, from the bottom of your back to the top of your legs. And so I am happy to be able to tell you, Wagstaff, that I shall have no difficulty in giving you an additional six strokes with this cane, which will conveniently fill in the spaces between the cuts administered previously by the Headmaster. So, Wagstaff, I shall have the satisfaction of sending you off to bed this evening, with what I know is a job well done. You, young man, will have the singular distinction of knowing that you are sporting a splendidly artistically beaten bottom, the likes of which is offered to very few and of which you can be truly proud.”

It is doubtful, listening to this guff spouted by his housemaster as he was stretched over the back of the chair waiting for the first stroke of the cane to land, if Willy had much enthusiasm either for the Headmaster’s artistry or for the fact that, after his housemaster had finished with him he would have an exceptionally well-beaten arse of which he could be truly proud. Willy closed his eyes and gritted his teeth, yet again and just hoped that he would be able to stand the additional onslaught on his bare bum without breaking down completely. But a thirteen-year-old-lad’s buttocks are capable of taking a great deal more punishment than what, at the end of the day, amounted to a fourteen stroke beating. It was just that the way Willy had had his first introduction to the cane that was exceptional. So Willy Wagstaff went to his bed that night after suffering a completely unique experience. His bottom had been subjected to what can but be called a double whammy.

But suffering from a very painful backside as he was, Willy somehow felt that he had arrived. He was now a public schoolboy like the others. And yes, the beatings did have the desired effect on Willy Wagstaff and he finally settled down at school, which at the end of the day, in spite of the constant threat of the cane hanging over him him, he decided he rather liked his new life away from home. Yes, the school was a good place to be and he was determined to enjoy his life there.

THE END

by Jason Land

Email: [email protected]