She was almost my size, and under normal circumstances I would have deemed an over-the-knee-punishment improper. Thus the scenes which took place at the end of the hockey match between Bexhill and their arch-rivals, St Mary's, were nothing less than disgraceful. No amount of criticism will restrain me from inflicting capital [sic] punishment in the way I have done. But while most of those pupils were already looking forward to a nice and enjoyable weekend, a few had other thoughts on their minds.

I turned the chair that stood before it around and sat down, reaching for the plimsoll waiting on the desk.But for the most part they were happy to not have to spend their time after school in detention and this was a much quicker and easier way to get their punishment over with. All white, shimmering and slippery, because water had seeped through the cloth and turned the outside of the pudding into a white gelatinous mess, known throughout my school years as ‘WINNIE’. I was nearly eight years old before I began to notice the significant looks which occasionally passed between papa and governess, but hints were so often thrown out about the necessity of procuring a good birch rod for the naughty bottom of Lucille, that I was gradually awakened to the discovery of some most mysterious kind of understanding which must subsist between them. I felt that a pair of knickers or underpants did not offer much protection from a cane or slipper, but it allowed the pupil to keep a certain modesty.

Older girls had two ways of coping; you held your white mixture in your mouth all the way back to the dormitory bathroom and deposited the revolting stuff into the sink, and after rinsing your mouth you were home free. The coach and the VP changed places and he lined up behind the girl whose bottom was properly presented for her paddling. Of course, the nurse, known to us as ‘Johnny Walker’ all the time I was at school, would inevitably come in and catch us flying around. The elastic was either so loose your knicker legs hung nearly down to your knees or so tight that you had to pull them down to the thinner part of your thigh to make them bearable.Each day, before assembly, you will report to my office and receive two strokes of the junior cane over your tighs, below the hem of your skirt. Moore contrives to make it all look a bit tacky, and he perhaps misses, or more likely pretends to miss, the heavy dose of British irony underpinning the whole enterprise. Lucille, you hear what Miss Birch says, (I noticed him cast most excited and amourous looks towards the governess as he spoke), she has been most forbearing with you, and interceded with me many times to save your bottom, and even now cannot bring herself to lift her own hand to make you smart a little; it must indeed be a serious fault to induce her to ask me to use the rod, but, 'Spare the rod and spoil the child,' has always been a maxim with me; lay her across you lap, Miss Birch, and pull up her clothes, whilst I get the rod out of the table drawer. I knew form a talk with her mother that her father often was persuaded not to punish his daughter just by those innocent looks she threw at him.

NOTE: ALL TOM SIMPLE'S BOOKS ARE CURRENTLY BEING RE-RELEASED IN A NEWFORMAT, ILLUSTRATED BY 'THE POSER ARTIST''. As there was usually no school on these days, Molly and I would go up to the front dormitory and there we would sit by the window and watch the driveway. He seemed to be of the impression that not wearing a tie made him look cool, and tht girls were mainly there to be for teasing and playing pranks.Each friday, I will then inform you here about which pupils had to report to my office and how I dealt with them. Its patrons volunteered (especially, no doubt, after they have had a little too much to drink) to be "caned" by gorgeous, pouting young ladies dressed up as St Trinians-style schoolgirls. Her blonde hair was in disarray, and I could hear her sob as she put her nose to the wall like the other pupils.

The panelled walls and beamed ceiling seemed warm and I never got tired of studying the faces looking down on us from the life-sized portraits on the walls. There were always those new 10th graders making the adjustments to high school that were just goofing off and thinking they could get away with their juvenile behavior. Nothing helped of course and soon I watched her walking – alone – back up the driveway and out through the iron gates. Those of us who were lucky enough to have received a ‘tuck box’ could derive a certain amount of comfort from the jam and marmite, cake and fruit etc.

We then had to stand in a line down the middle of the dorm, with our feet together and arms held straight above our heads. But, Woods, as much as that caning, given here and now, would quite probably teach you a few lessons, I think it would not cure the source of your current streak of misbehaviour. We loved this work and took a great deal of pride in the beautiful red hot pokers, lupins, delphiniums and roses, etc. It is a rare occaission that seniors have to report for corporal punishment, but it did happen from time to time.