This is from an early 1970s magazine article called Pop Goes the Music. This partial cutting, a poor photocopy, was sent in by Emmy Z, so thanks to her. It was hard to read and mostly concerned interviews with long forgotten music acts in an article about parents’ reactions to the music business and their pursuit of it.

Under the sub-heading ‘spanking’ were these two contributions.

A dancer called Jaclyn Jazz said: “Encouragement, not exactly. In fact when my Pop found out I had quit college to take up dancing he spanked the bejesus out of me. I mean I was almost 21 and thought I was beyond such crap, but Pop didn’t see it that way. It was about four years before he even came to see me in a show.”

Elisabeth Anne Dee, a backing singer with a group called the Psychedelics, told of her home town’s reaction to her chosen career way back when she started in the 50s.

“Back home in those days even girls out of high school got a spanking for cursing or any bad behaviour. My elder sister even got a bare-bottom switching after being caught smoking when she was 19. Even so I didn’t expect quite the reaction I got on a visit home after my first tour. I was around 19 or 20 myself back then and I remember getting off the bus and sashaying down Main Street in a pair of skin tight ski pants and some pretty full-on make-up. My parents weren’t best pleased but you should have seen the looks I got from folks around town. I thought I looked cool until my old high school teacher pulled up alongside me and told me to get in. She took me to her place, all the while she was driving she was bawling me out about my look.”

The next part was too dark too read clearly, but it later continued.

“Before I knew it I was over her knee getting the spanking of my life. When I complained and told her she was crazy she yanked my ski-pants and panties down and let me have it bare-bottomed. Later she even put me in the corner while she fished out a skirt before driving me home. I didn’t argue.”

“I didn’t sit down easy for a day or two but you can bet I didn’t tell anyone. But that was how it was back then.”

Carolyn Brady sucked in her cheeks and let out a long slow breath. The building wasn’t exactly what she had expected but it was kind of appropriate. Her smart sunburn orange skirt suit and pillbox hat matched the auburn red of her hair, but definitely made her look out of place next to the crumby broken down premises, but it felt right somehow. Nevertheless the New York backstreet building must have been built before Teddy Roosevelt more than 50 years ago and she doubted it would be still standing in another 50.

I need to be out of my comfort zone, she thought. But still she didn’t move as part of her knew this was crazy. But her generous curves were gaining some stares from the street and she began to feel self-conscious.

“Show time,” she murmured and went in.

The interior was no better than the outside and there was a faint smell of urine from somewhere. Also the paint was peeling from the walls all the way up the stairwell to where she had an appointment.

Part of her hoped the office would be better, but another that it would be as dingy as hell. It would serve her right in a way. She was still pondering this when she rounded the corner and saw that the latter had won out.

“William Wendell Wentworth, Private Justice Adjustment Incorporated,” she read the legend on the glass plate door aloud. “This is most definitely the place.”

Carolyn felt an unfamiliar pang of nerves and had to resist the urge to flee. Instead she wrapped quietly and hoped no one would be in.

But almost at once a dark male voice from within called out “Come in please.”

*

Patty Beauchamp realised that her jaw was tense and her face had begun to ache. So with an effort she tried to relax. Not an easy thing to do when one is all but naked below the waist and standing with one’s nose in the corner like 10-year-old with a bare bottom on show.

It was still less easy when not half an hour before that rather generous bare bottom had been spanked to a cherry red until Patty had bawled like the aforesaid kid and promised her soul for a reprieve of the relentless spanking paddle of one Bill Wentworth.

Even now her hot crimson bottom cheeks gently throbbed as she began to come to terms with the all-pervasive sting and finally rein in the tears. Not that she hadn’t deserved it, but it was hard displaying too bright red swollen oval brands on one’s tail while your boss sat in your chair reviewing your work and someone could walk in at any minute.

She had no idea how much longer he would keep her there, but in any case she had been promised a serious session with the cane over at his place this Saturday just to make it stick. But that was days away and easily set aside in her job when a spanking was always days away.

The 30-year-old blonde didn’t know what was worse, the anticipation of a stranger seeing her most definitely punitive display or the fact that at any moment Bill could find something else to take her to task about and give her another spanking. The very thought made her sigh some and shift a step to shuffle the weight from one hip to the other.

Wentworth looked up at this and eyed his cool blonde secretary for a long moment as he studied for any sign of rebellion. Then he turned back to the paperwork. God he hated paperwork, he groaned inwardly, that was Patty’s job. He was so going to thrash her this weekend. She wouldn’t sit down for a week or two.

As he reached for another set of papers the chair creaked and threatened to brake. The broad-shouldered ex-marine vet was way too big for it and it looked like an adult had sat in a child’s seat.

Just then there was a knock at the door and Wentworth said, “Come in please,” without even thinking about it.

*

Carolyn stopped in her tracks at the sight of Patty in the corner, not that she hadn’t seen such a thing before; her upbringing had been Spartan and college life had been no cakewalk either.

“I guess I am in the right place then,” she said casually as she regained her composure.

She tried to look the large man behind the desk in the eye, but somehow she failed. A 50 and fit ex-ball player by the look of him, just the ticket she guessed if he was the one dolling out the spankings around here.

“Ah yes… you must be…” Wentworth fumbled for the appointments book and tried to read it upside down.

“Miss Brady, Carolyn Brady,” said a muffled Patty from the corner, despite her embarrassment her discipline didn’t break and she didn’t turn around. “Eh… 28 if I remember correctly, you know the heiress I mentioned…”

Wentworth dropped the book on the desk and sat back to appraise his new client.

“You know I don’t handle guys,” he said gruffly, “I mean… I usually get disgruntled husbands or rich parents, you don’t exactly fit either bill… who is it… a little sister maybe?”

Carolyn regarded him coolly and said in crisp Boston tones, “You don’t mind if I sit down?”

“My office… I usually conduct business in my…” Wentworth made to stand and indicated the other room.

Carolyn glanced at Patty in the corner and smirked as she sat down facing Wentworth anyway.

“Here is just fine,” she said crisply with a smirk.

“Okay doke,” Wentworth smiled as he sat back, “What can we do for you?”

Something told him that this dame was going to be interesting.

As she sat down Carolyn was highly conscious of where her bottom met the hard seat of the wooden chair. Not that she would have broken her pose for anything, for her life was about style and poise. But that was essentially the problem.

The proximity of Patty standing in the corner and her exposed sore bottom set a tone that was at once disconcerting and warmly familiar.

“I see you are well versed in your… craft,” Carolyn said carefully, her eyes flicking right to Patty.

Wentworth shrugged. “We only just got started,” he said.

“I won’t ask what she did, I rather suspect that it is unimportant and quite frankly it is none of my business,” Carolyn said tartly.

“Damn straight,” Patty muttered from the corner.

Wentworth shot her a look that would usually have crushed the girl meek, but her back was still turned so he let it pass, for now. Just then he was much more interested in the other dame.

Carolyn couldn’t fail to miss the exchange and her belly did flip-flops. She was stalling and she knew it, God this was going to be more difficult that she expected.

“You haven’t actually said what we can do for you? I mean you do know what we do?” Wentworth said pointedly.

Carolyn pursed her lips and nodded.

“I got the heads up from Ophelia Open,” she said, but for a moment her eyes couldn’t meet his and she coyly glanced away.

Wentworth let recognition flood his face and he smiled knowingly. It was so much better when a client had the gen from a confidant.

“So just who is the patient?” he asked smoothly as he reached for a cigarette.

Carolyn let her mouth drop open as if in mid word and closed it again. Still not meeting his eyes she said softly, “I rather think… that is… well… I am.”

The cigarette went limp in Wentworth’s mouth and he arched his eyebrows. Like he said, this dame was going to be interesting.

*

Carolyn had tried to explain herself three times now but each time her words stalled under the weight of a well-ingrained social veneer. One just did not say such things. But at least Wentworth had been patient and even Patty had been quite as a mouse as if she feared being sent from the room.

“You see my people were… well quite frankly they didn’t give a damn,” Carolyn continued. “I went from one privileged prep-school to another and well… I was an inconvenience. So when my parents split up it was more of a relief than anything. I mean they actually fought not to get custody.”

Carolyn giggled as if she had made a joke and rocked in her chair. Wentworth thought it was the most genuine emotion she had displayed since walking in.

“By then I was 17… well almost 18 anyway and thought I knew it all,” Carolyn continued, “In the end I went to live with a friend of a friend of my mother, the guardian of my school friend Amanda. That is when my life changed.”

Wentworth narrowed his eyes as he blew a coil of blue smoke skyward and weighed his client.

“At first I hated it, well for quite a while actually. There were so many boundaries and house rules. I mean they had a maid and yet I was expected to clean my own room.” Carolyn had a tone as if she expected this part of her tale to be doubted. “Worse still… well when I broke these rules I was… punished.”

Carolyn looked up to face what part of her hoped and another part dreaded would be a future nemesis but Wentworth returned her gaze without comment.

I had never been punished before, not that I remembered anyway, but at the Keaton’s I was not only just punished, I was spanked.” She shot a look over at Patty and a fond smile touched her face. “I remember the first time when on coming home after curfew I was confronted by an indignant Mrs Keaton brandishing a pack of cigarettes she had found in my room. I supposed they were mine, I really didn’t remember.”

“Mrs Keaton told me to go to my room and wait for her in just my nightshirt and get this, wait standing in the corner. Well I did, only not to obey her, but to pack my bags and leave. Not that I had any idea where I was going? I didn’t get my hands on the swag until I turned 21.”

Carolyn bit her lower lip and smiled wistfully as if remembering something gentle.

“I got as far as the foot of the staircase. Mrs Keaton just sighed I remember and the next thing I knew she was sitting on the third step with me over her knee and turning up my coat tails. The spanking was short sharp and embarrassing but in very short order I was eager to go back to my room and do as I was told. In my naïveté I thought that I had had my spanking and that the whole awful misunderstanding would just blow over.” Carolyn blushed.

“When she appeared in my room with that awful hairbrush I just died. Over her knee I went again and this time she… well she paddled my little bare bottom bruised until I promised to be good and for a long, long time afterwards. Not my last spanking at her hands either, it took me an awful long time to learn. Usually I resisted until I got a spanking on bare behind right out in front of anyone who happened to be there. That was always followed by some time in the corner close to wherever this indignity had occurred.” Carolyn glanced over at Patty who stood literally riveted to the spot.

“By the time I went to college getting my tail tamed was a regular event and it wasn’t all that unusual for Amanda and I to be stood side-by-side decidedly sans culottes with very sore bottom for all to see.” Carolyn winced.

“Sans what?” Wentworth cut in.

“Bare hiney front and centre,” Patty put in rather impatiently. Wentworth could hear her eyes roll even from there.

“Then there were my sorority days,” Carolyn continued. “One swallow a summer does not make, as they say, and a year at the Keaton’s was not enough to work some of the attitude out of me. That was left to my sisters at good old Lambda Kappa Mu.”

Wentworth grinned. He loved sorority stories and back in the day he had dated girls who had told him tales to make his hair stand on end.

“Go on,” he said and he took a drag on his cigarette.

“Paddled morning, noon and night, panties up, panties down, panties in a tree while some apes from the frat jeered a girl on while trying to retrieve them. Oh we had skirts on to be sure, tennis skits and I do mean short,” Carolyn blushed more than she had yet. “What can I say… there were penny races and…”

“Penny what?” Wentworth asked.

“A girl gets to push a penny or a dime with her nose on her knees with her ass in the air,” Patty explained sullenly.

The voice of experience, Wentworth thought.

“Then there were scav hunts, doctors, and guess the friend…” Carolyn listed a whole litany of hellish activities and this time Wentworth didn’t interrupt. He would get the gen from Patty later.

“My big sister used to paddle me raw if as I so much thought about a rule breach and boy if I didn’t mind my Ps and Qs… well mama spank and do mean spank. A bare bottom blistering with a drilled paddle is no fun especially when a merely muffled or less than earnest thank you gets the whole thing started again. Boy I didn’t sit down for a whole semester. And then there were other tweaks.” Carolyn rolled up her eyes.

“Tweaks,” Wentworth asked thoughtfully, he was beginning to suspect that this dame was crazy but he had to give her a chance.

Carolyn drew in a long slow breath.

“Here let me demonstrate,” she said mischievously.

As she spoke she stood up and hauled a protesting Patty out of the corner and deposited her across her lap.

“You’re a sportsman right?” she asked Wentworth.

Two minutes later she was apply deep heat to Patty’s bare bottom and was not the least bit careful where the excess went until Patty was kicking a bawling as if she was being spanked all over again.

“There were other tricks too,” Carolyn explained, “A whole hour of mustard sitters, you know a hot pack on your tail while stood in the corner to wait a paddling; this before and chilli paste after. They even had a trick with the chili dog that you do not want to know about, boy these girls played tough.”

Wentworth studied his bug-eyed secretary as she still bucked and kicked across Carolyn’s knee and snorted in amusement. He could imagine.

“Miss Brady, where is this all going?” he asked.

“I… I have no consequences in my life and I kind of miss it,” Carolyn admitted.

“So what… you want me to paddle your hind end for old time’s sake?” Wentworth asked.

“Hardly,” Carolyn spluttered, “I mean… not exactly. I couldn’t bear it really I couldn’t.”

“I bet you couldn’t,” Patty said in a surly tone from her lap.

Ignoring her Wentworth asked, “So?”

“I want… I need to know that it could happen, that if I was caught that… well my tail wasn’t safe anymore,” she whispered.

As she spoke she released Patty from her lap and let her gain her feet.

Wentworth nodded at Patty’s notebook and indicated that he wanted notes but when his secretary reached for her panties he shook his head, an order that drew a horrified gape from her.

“So you want, what, a mentor of sorts?” Wentworth frowned.

“No, that’s not it,” Carolyn sighed. “I want you to put a 28 day time limited contract on my… my you know and well, I’ll skedaddle out of town knowing you are on my… eh… tail so to speak.”

Wentworth rubbed his chin.

“If you catch me then I will accept whatever you decide and however you want to handle it over three days or for however long is left on the contract, whichever is longer. If you don’t well I…” she shrugged, “You get paid either way, but just so that you don’t take the money and dismiss me as a kook you’ll get double if you do catch me.”

*

Carolyn had been on the lam for almost two weeks now and she was a bag of nerves. A large part of her thought that Wentworth wasn’t even looking for her and she would be home free. Yet at the back of her mind she was certain that at any moment she would be bundled into the back of a car. She had never felt more alive.

So far she had been clever. She had booked in at the Royal and then slipped out the back without checking out after leaving a huge tip and asked that her room number remain a secret. With a decoy in place it had been a cinch from there to head to Grand Central and get a train to California. Only she hadn’t gone to California.

At a random point she had changed trains to Washington and had holed up in Georgetown where nobody knew her, but where she had visited on a brief exchange whilst in college. She had thought about Europe, but that seemed to her to be cheating and anyway it wouldn’t give her the same sense of consequence if she knew she had no chance of being caught.

No, in a day or two she would leave for Seattle and from their hire a car and take the coast road to LA. That should see her safe.

She had taken to staying in her room at the hotel and only venturing out at night, which so far had worked just fine. Now she had just one more stop to make and then she would go back.

The store on the corner wasn’t her usual shopping haunt, but it carried a brand of lipstick she loved and in any case they had a deli counter and she could grab a bite.

“Hey ho,” she sighed as she poured over the make-up stand.

But as she raised her head to try out a sample a man-sized shape in the mirror shape loomed behind her. Carolyn whirled around with a start to confront it.

“Hello Miss Brady, you took some finding,” Wentworth said with an easy smile.

Carolyn froze and her tummy tingled to the point of nausea. With the lipstick poised in mid-air she laughed nervously and said, “Hello Mr Wentworth, Fancy seeing you here.”

*

Carolyn had indeed been bundled into a car for the four hour drive to New York. Patty had been at the wheel and her look of smug satisfaction was like a knife in Carolyn’s ribs. The bitch had loved the fall of Carolyn Brady and how.

Now she found herself stripped to her underwear and standing in the middle of Wentworth’s office under the scrutiny of Patty and the man himself.

“Look Mr Wentworth, you have made your point, I think I got what I needed out of that little arrangement,” Carolyn said weakly, “I mean I knew you might turn up and that was the…”

“Thrill you were looking for,” Wentworth said sneeringly.

He stood now with his arms folded professionally regarding his client as she tried to wheedle out of her contract.

“No I…” was that it?

She didn’t know what she had wanted. Maybe she just wanted someone to give a damn again. Since college she had money and comfort but no rules. Instead of being content and productive she had reverted to the brat of old. But she hadn’t actually wanted to be caught had she?

“No? Well I aim to put that to the test,” Wentworth growled. “I have a small cell in the basement, for the hard cases you understand, and you are under contract for another 15 days. So this is what I propose…

Carolyn listened in horror as Wentworth explained the new contract. As far as he was concerned she was under open arrest and detailed to return for repeated appointments over the next two weeks on days and at times specified by him. If she refused, or he had to come and get her then she would spend those weeks in his cell.

To make sure of her compliance Wentworth was only letting her leave after that day if she signed a new contract stipulating that she would under a year-long mentoring course under his direction if she did skip out.

Carolyn gulped when she read it, but she was in no doubt that this man could find her again and two weeks in a cell was not an option. A building this old must have had rats in the basement at the very least.

“So what happens next?” Carolyn asked breathily.

“Next I am going to put you over my knee and give you the long hard spanking you definitely have coming,” Wentworth told her, “And then I think we will explore some of those sorority-style options you elaborated upon before… and some you didn’t… Patty has been filling me in over the last couple of weeks. It sounds like you girls knew how to have a good time back in college.”

Carolyn’s mouth hung open and she shot Patty an accusatory look.

“Look…” she said using her best assertive voice, a hard trick to pull off when one was standing around in underwear.

“No Miss Brady, you look, you hired me remember, you thought you could get your jollies by playing me for a bit of excitement. You think this is a game? I have worked for the Government and people you wouldn’t believe. Justice Adjustment is a serious business.” Wentworth was standing tall now and was the picture of indignant paternalism.

Back when she had been handled by Mrs Keaton she had quietly dreamt of a man handling her like some hero out of the movies, but Wentworth was right, this was no game.

“H-how… I mean… what…?” Carolyn spluttered.

But Wentworth made his move and decided to show her. Part of him hated these society dames and their ‘slumming it’ attitudes, but of him felt sorry for her. She just needed a firm hand from time to time and a year with this Keaton woman just hadn’t got the job done. Not that the sorority high jinks would have done her any harm but they didn’t really cut it with him. In fact it may have made his job harder since by the sounds of it this was one tough kid used to some pretty rough handling.

Taking her arm he led her tottering towards a chair while she rapidly blinked her distress. Then once there he sat down and tipped her across his lap so that her pantie sheathed behind was upper most in his lap.

A small “oh” escaped Carolyn’s throat and she couldn’t help jiggling her behind.

Meanwhile a smirking Patty leaned back against the wall and took a long slow drag of a cigarette as she watched the show; a coil of blue smoke rolling around the room adding to the steamy effect.

Carolyn, who had never been so intimate with a man gasped audibly as Wentworth tugged at her white silk de Givenchy briefs, which stretched a little before they let go and slid down her thighs with a whisper.

Patty grinned openly as the full alabaster bottom came into view, curves that both at once managed to appear pert and chubby, a good spankable hiney, she thought.

Wentworth too was not unmoved, in fact he even felt his little friend perk up a bit at the vista, not that he would allow any distractions. When a dame needed a spanking she needed a spanking and he was the man to do it.

He let his arm rise to just above his shoulder and brought it down sharply with a satisfying smack. It must have stung Carolyn even more than she was expecting because she squealed.

“We are only just getting started Miss Brady,” Wentworth muttered.

With that he let his arm slowly fall and rise for a traditional stinging warm-up while Carolyn wriggled and gasped, her bottom quickly turning bright pink on its way to full red. Then he upped the pace and really went to town.

“Oh my,” Carolyn wailed but the rest of what she said was lost in mewling and consternation of pain was written on her face.

“Good job boss,” Patty chuckled. She had often been on the receiving end herself but didn’t always get to watch.

“Glad… you… think… so,” Wentworth said, each word coinciding with a spank.

Carolyn had begun to grunt and groan under the assault and her ever reddening bottom was certainly testimony to the effectiveness of Wentworth’s spanking hand.

“Okay, okay I get it… I’m sorry, you can stop now,” she gasped in a by now very damp voice.

But if Wentworth heard he made no show of it, he had a spanking to hand out and it was going to take a while. In fact a good 10 minutes of relentless spanking went by before he even began to slow, each swat chipping away at Carolyn’s resolve until she final broke into sobs.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she coughed, a mess of Maybelline smearing her face.

“Now young lady,” Wentworth said sternly as he brought the spanking to a stop. “You know where you’re going next don’t you?”

A very miserable Carolyn nodded and shot a glance to where she had seen Patty standing not two weeks before.

“That’s right,” Wentworth chuckled.

As Carolyn gained her feet she looked like a girl on her way to her execution she as shielded her forward modesty with her cupped hands and stumbled to the corner.

“Oh honey it ain’t so bad,” Patty said gleefully, “Unless a client comes in that is,” she added.

Carolyn gave her a wide-eyed look of horror and gasped.

“Honey,” Patty said sharply pointing, “the corner.”

“Hey, that’s my line,” Wentworth said in faux indignation.

“Just allowing you to delegate,” Patty giggled.

“This is… it’s so…” Carolyn muttered breathlessly.

“Ain’t it just,” Patty agreed ruefully, but not feeling the least bit sympathetic.

That first day Carolyn had been dismissed after an hour. She had even been permitted to go to the bathroom to get dressed, although sitting had been an issue for a day or two. But apart from that the aftermath had been no worse than a session with Mrs Keaton’s hairbrush; twice as shaming to be sure, but it had at least had the added frisson of a man. She blushed as she remembered some of her wilder thoughts.

Now three days later she had another session with him and she couldn’t help remembering what Wentworth had said about her sorority days. Still there was nothing for it now and with a mix of anxiety and excitement she knocked on the office door.

“Good morning Miss Brady,” Patty said as she entered, “You can leave on your stockings, blouse and so forth but everything else below the waist must be left on the chair before you go in.”

“In?” Carolyn asked nervously. She was blushing hard.

“The office in there, just take off your things and then go and stand in the far corner through there,” Patty said brusquely, she had her nose in some paperwork and only cursorily glanced at Carolyn over her glasses.

“Um…” Carolyn wished the floor would open now, this was too officious.

“I understand that Mr Wentworth has a sorority paddle waiting for you today, you should fell right at home and I’ll be in later to spice things up a bit,” Patty said ominously, “So chop-chop.”

*

The hour Carolyn spent in the corner ground one her nerves like nothing ever had. Even enforced mooning of frat boys had not been this bad.

The corner and her very bare bottom was right opposite Wentworth’s eye line, she could have died. How could it be so much more embarrassing the second time? Even worse, the paddle bench in the middle of the room had a mean looking paddle on it and this time it wouldn’t been Candy Yates patting her tail with it, she thought, remembering her old pledge mistress. She gulped.

Then as she sensed time draw near she was at twos and eights as she was torn between wanting to get it over and dreading it. But finally the decision was his and he made it.

“I expect you know how to bend over the bench,” Wentworth sighed as he stood up, “I want you bottom up and grasping the crossbeam on the underside.”

A million protests threatened to surge through her mouth but this was like college. Crying off only made it worse and she nodded. Oh God, she thought as she eased herself over, this is so… she focussed on cool leather at her belly and the slickness of the wood where it pressed her thighs. Her exposed bottom felt huge as it mooned the ceiling and she dreaded to think what it would happen next.

“Mr Wentworth…? Sir?” Carolyn asked tentatively, “I guess… I guess I have got this coming but… um… but can I… I mean how many?”

By way of an answer Bill Wentworth shucked off his jacket and draped it over the back of his chair. Then with a slow deliberation he took up the drilled sorority paddle and ambled over to Carolyn Brady’s upturned and very exposed bottom. Cute too, he thought with an easy grin. Some days he just loved his job.

“Mr Wentworth Sir?” Carolyn squeaked, nervously shaking her fanny as she had back in her sorority days, but oh God, this time for a man, and how.

“How many?” Wentworth shrugged, “I haven’t decided yet, frankly I don’t know what you can take or what you need. How about… 15 say to get us started and see how we get on?”

Carolyn’s eyes became saucers and her jaw hit the floor. Back in her old college days 15 was not unheard of, sure, she had even taken more… but… but it had been so long and none of her previous tormentors had looked like football playing marines.

There was a brief disconnect with the first swat. For an endless jiffy she puzzled at the odd long unrecalled familiar sound; a kind of thwack holding hands with a thud. It came from behind and above as it always had, but she had forgotten something. Then the almost unnoticed heavy tang of pressure on her behind seemed to mingle with an equally unsuspected swarm of bees and she remembered.

“Aaaah,” she yelped, her head bucking as she grappled futilely with her hands flapping on the floor and the crosspiece. She even tried to reach back but the deployment of the bench was just so and she could get beyond her hips.

As the pain went from ‘oh my God’ to ‘God go piss himself, this is the Devil’s work’ she remembered something else. The next swat came on fast and was to be the first of a very great many.

“Eooaan,” she grunted and small insistent tears pricked at the back of her eyes.

“Crying so soon?” the teasing voice of Pledge Mistress Candy came to her mind. No, she wasn’t, she wouldn’t, she wouldn’t, it’s only…

The third swat was worse than the previous two combined and they had far from done with her. The drilled paddle had unique burn-sting-ache combination that nothing quite matched. How could she have forgotten? Dumb stupid piss-headed bitch, should have had it written into the contract… no… uhg ahhhhh…. p-paddles.

A single tear broke from the dam of her eyes and rolled down her left cheek. Moisture too had already collected at her nostrils and in the dichotomy of her tortured brain she dispassionately compared the cool of her nose with the heat of her sit-me-downs.

After five powerful swats Wentworth took half a step back and surveyed Carolyn’s paddle-ravaged bottom. They were two hills of blister-bumped purple-red and already sorer than Patty’s behind after a Saturday morning spanking with his hand. He had to admire the dame’s fortitude. Like he said, those sorority girls must have played rough. It was a cert now that 15 wasn’t going to get the job done.

“How are we doing Miss Brady?” he asked casually.

Carolyn answered him with heavy laboured breaths delivered through an open mouth before managing a rather shaky, “fine thank you Sir.”

“Good girl,” Wentworth said with genuine warmth. He was beginning to really like this dame.

Then with a renewed determination he patted her bottom with the paddle and drew it back for a swat.

Carolyn sucked in a breath and did a body wince. It was justified and the impact was followed with her first genuine scream.

“You okay?” Wentworth asked, surprised at her sudden reduced fortitude.

Carolyn, who was still riding the wave of pain, nodded vigorously. Candy had asked her exact same thing once, only not in such a solicitous tone. Back then she had answered, “Not really.” It had been a big mistake. She knew better now.

Wentworth delivered another swat and waited. It was better to slow down now; a shifting pace was what broke a girl down.  He wasn’t wrong. From a long way off there was faint mewling sound and then a drawn out whine. Carolyn Brady’s shoulders began to gently shake and he realised that she was crying. The next three finished her.

He put the paddle on the desk and let her bawl it out of her system. He guessed that it had been awhile and 15 were going to be sufficient for this session.

“That’s the way,” he said softly, “Have a good cry.”

“I’m sorry,” she sobbed, “I usually… I don’t… not since my early days as a pledge.”

“Don’t worry on it honey, it’s okay, I have seen it all before,” Wentworth soothed.

It took a while to get to the last five and if anything Carolyn took them better and didn’t start to bawl until he had finished the set. But by then her bottom was out of commission as a sitter.

“Patty has something for you,” Wentworth sounded almost full of regret. “You won’t like it but from the state of your behind it will do you good.”

A minute or two later Patty entered with something on a tray and Carolyn had recovered enough to feel embarrassed at her humiliating posture.

“I wanted to apply a mustard pack beforehand but meanie here wanted a virgin ass for his first workout with you,” Patty said cheerfully, “But this is just as fun.”

The secretary placed the tray on the floor under Carolyn’s very sorry face and grinned at her reaction.

“Chilli paste, how thoughtful,” Carolyn said sarcastically. “You must have gone the same sorority.”

“I wasn’t an Ivy Leaguer like you sister and you have no idea how rough community college could be,” Patty said ruefully.

“I can take anything you can,” Carolyn said defiantly.

Wentworth snorted. He really loved this dame, he thought as he moved to the outer office to leave them to it.

Meanwhile Patty was saying, “Honey, I am counting on it.”

It took a few minutes but by the time Wentworth had lit-up his first post-spanking cigarette and odd sound was emanating from his office.

“Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh,” Carolyn Brady began ever louder, then, “Whooooo-eeee.”

Nor did the sound stop for a while and even then there was a rasping panting sound like a woman running a marathon. Wentworth frowned in puzzlement, wondering just what he had authorised when Patty emerged with the tray and a broad grin on her face.

“You can go in now,” she giggled, “Oh… and I promised you would give another 15 and we would start over if she moves out of position.”

Wentworth returned a bemused salute with two fingers and shook his head. Then returning to his office he assessed Carolyn Brady’s new ordeal.

Patty had put the dame in the corner. She had been made to lea right into it with her nose in the seam between the walls and her hands clasped in the small of her back. Her bottom was sticking out almost obscenely, the split curves smeared with so much reddish-brown paste that it was hard to see the effects of the paddle.

Carolyn was making short panting sounds as she squirmed with tight contained trembles, but even from behind he could see that her face was as purple as her bottom.

“Is this what those sorority dames did to you back in that college of yours?” he called back to Patty.

“This and worse,” she chuckled.

“I’ll have to bear that in mind,” he snorted.

The smile vanished from Patty’s face and she gulped.

“College must have been hell,” Wentworth wearily, “Thank God I was a marine.”

“College was the best time of my life,” Patty said indignantly, “So what if there was sometimes too much chilli on my pickles.”

Wentworth snorted again. He hated Patty and her highfaluting metaphors.

“Is that how you feel Miss Brady?” Wentworth asked his client.

“As a matter of fact… yes Mr Wentworth.” Carolyn’s voice sounded very strained.

Inspired by theatrical spanking posts over at the Spank Statement I did some futile digging into stage incidents of our favourite subject. It wasn’t entirely fruitful and I only turned up one play that was described but not named. I am only sure that it is a real play because it was later turned into a 1930s movie that I have actually seen. If I ever identify it I will report back, but drop me a line if you know it; more about that in a moment.

Amid several different historical stage discussion groups, including Theatre Forum and especially Yahoo, I chanced upon a strange theatrical tradition. Apparently during the 20^th century it was the custom in some theatres to spank the leading actresses for luck.

Details were scant but I did find these snippet from MariaNotaDame, a former minor stage actress who was 19 in a series of 1950s and 60s provincial productions, and Janet.

Maria says,

“I went looking for the director and leading man about a script issue and found them in one of the other girl’s dressing rooms. The poor creature had been upended and was receiving a jolly serious little spanking on the seat of her tights. Apparently they had this bottom smacking tradition as well. I was a bit flustered and even more so when George said ‘it’s your turn.’”

“Being 19 and in one of my first jobs I didn’t dare refuse, besides I didn’t want to be a party pooper. But I have to say it was rather disconcerting to be across the director’s knee getting my bottom soundly slapped with gusto. I had had lighter spankings at home and I confess I yelled a bit and was jolly sore. Luckily my part didn’t require much sitting. I was pretty red back there afterwards.”

Janet, a former chorus girl, said,

“We had rather a lot of that sort of thing too. Hell to pay if you had one of those spanking plays. In one production of Kiss Me Kate the leading lady got one hell of an off-stage spanking right before the onstage segment. She didn’t have to act much when it came to not sitting down either.”

One of the spanking plays Kate mentions might well have been the unidentified play I uncovered. It features the headmaster of a public school for boys who is suddenly lumbered with his three nieces, two being late teens and one 21. As you can imagine chaos ensues and the girls become involved with some of the older boys and a teacher.

Apparently there is a caning scene of the youngest girl and her twin brother, whose is student, and later apparently all three girls are apparently caned. Sorry that is vague but it was a very passing reference.

In the movie, if it is the same play and memory serves, the canings are all off-screen. In the final act the girls confess to sins attributed to two younger girls’ boyfriends to save them from a punishment.

“If you must cane someone, cane us,” pipes up the middle girl.

“Yes, we at least deserve,” says the youngest.

“Steady on, I wouldn’t go that far,” says the eldest.

“I would,” says the headmaster.

“But I’m 21,” protests the elder.

Her uncle demurs somewhat but grabs his cane and leads the youngest girl from the room. “I’ll be back to deal with you after,” he says to the other two as he goes.

The two older girls look worried and rub at their bottoms.

I have no idea if the caning is onscreen in the play and I cannot even remember what the movie or the play is called, but the film used to be one of those black and white efforts thrown up occasionally in the afternoon. I posted about it before but there were no takers.

Carolyn Brady smoothed down the front of her skirt and checked the seams of her stockings. Then with a deep sigh she knocked tentatively on the door to Wentworth’s office. A rather strained muffled voice answered and although Carolyn couldn’t quite work out what was said she guessed it was alright to go in.

She wasn’t entirely surprised to see Patty standing in the corner again, after all Bill Wentworth was an uncompromising man, but this time the secretary’s exposed bottom looked like a whole other level of sore.

“Gracious, whatever did you do?” Carolyn gasped.

“You don’t want to know,” Patty mumbled from the corner. Or more to the point, she didn’t want her to know. This time she did not dare even glance over her shoulder.

“I haven’t seen a tail like that since…” Carolyn was about to say back in college, but her own bottom had come close after her last session, “…yes well,” she stumbled to a pause.

“He said to go right in,” Patty said sullenly.

“Right then, I will…” Carolyn said more breezily than she felt.

But she dawdled for just a moment as she took one last apprehensive look at Patty’s bottom. Why did I ever start this?

*

The punishment frame was stark and threatening in the middle of the room. It looked like something out of an old prison movie and Carolyn blanched. Maybe she could run, she thought. After all who the hell could enforce the arrangement? But she knew Wentworth could and would and her head fizzed at the thought of it.

Worse still, next to the frame was a bucket of judicial sized birch rods and Carolyn pretended not to notice the prison strap draped over the padded beam.

“Don’t you think this has gone far enough?” she moaned, “I mean a spanking is one thing… but I mean… that is just barbaric.”

Wentworth set his squared jaw and regarded her with amusement. Keep talking lady and I’ll give you something to talk about, he thought. Some dames didn’t know when to shut up.

“Look… if you think… I-I haven’t done anything,” she whined, “I simply won’t do it.”

Wentworth cocked his right eye in surprised and his vaguely amused demeanour broke into an open grin. Carolyn didn’t notice him close the folder he was reading and check the clock.

“Take off your skirt and jacket… oh and that silly hat and lower your goddam panties. Then I want you tail up over the beam,” Wentworth ordered.

He hadn’t intended to use the paddle this time but her defiance meant she was asking for it.

“Mr Wentworth, come on please… please I’ll do anything,” Carolyn wailed.

“You are going to do what you’re told, that is the only anything I am interested right now,” he growled.

In her mind she made a dash for the door. The whole scene played out like a movie and she even got all the way to the street. Then accepting a reality check she swallowed hard and flushed. Then button by button she worked from the top and slowly removed her jacket. The silly hat had cost her 40 bucks, but now wasn’t the time to argue and that soon joined her pastel Mummery tunic on the chair.

The skirt came off even more reluctantly and as she fumbled for the zip she felt the blood screaming in her ears. When it came to her silk French panties she had to look at the floor before tugging them down. As much as he pretended nonchalance, she knew he was watching her.

She glanced at him and then back at the punishment frame.

“Look Mr Wentworth… I can’t really I can’t this is…” She didn’t finish but even half-naked she made a move for the door.

“Bend over right now.” Wentworth’s bark was loud and deliberate and each word jangled her nerves. He must have been one hell of a marine sergeant, she thought, for in an instant she was diving over the leather pad on the upper surface of the frame.

Wentworth gave her straining heroine-cast backside the once over with his eyes and then stood up. In the time he took to cross the room the strap was in his hands and a quick half dozen blazing blasts had seared her bare bottom.

Carolyn had no coherent words or thoughts with which to respond. One minute she was rueing her shame and the next she was howling banshee-style into the floor. Come back paddle all is forgotten.

Six more burned her as she rocked and bucked as she clawed at the frame. If she could have she would have rolled away and grabbed at her bottom, but gravity held her and the punishment contraption was so well designed that even though she was unsecured she could not reach back.

“Please,” Carolyn sobbed, “Oh please.”

This time no tears had to be wrung from her in drips, she just emptied a flood onto the floor as easily as summer rain. With them flowed her dignity, sense of self and whatever she had bottled within her for a misbegotten lifetime.

By the time the spanking strap took her to 30 she could no longer tell one flaming strike from the pauses in between and her bottom was just one epic stinging pain.

“Now that you are tender you are ready for the birch,” Wentworth said gently.

Tear dripped and snotty, Carolyn’s head dipped in a nod. Of course, for he was her master and she needed this and whatever he gave her. Only, only, only… she sobbed without the words… it hurt, godammit, it really hurt.

“I had planned on 36…” Wentworth told her, “But not across your bottom. They are for my next client as was the strap.”

Carolyn’s eyes widened in surprise and she sniffed her tears to a temporary halt.

“But…” she groaned.

“Don’t ever tell me what I will and won’t do,” Wentworth sighed. “I had meant only to spank you over my knee and then give you a small dose of the cane… this set-up was not for you until you opened your bratty mouth. You can thank heaven that I need the birch and don’t want to use it up and a tender tush like you.”

“Oh… ah…” Carolyn began and then more emphatically as the penny dropped, “Ooh. I thought…”

“Now you can get your snotty nose in that corner and stay there until I am ready to give you that spanking you deserve, any questions?” Wentworth asked.

“Nooo Sir,” Carolyn squeaked as she got painfully to her feet.

*

Carolyn didn’t think the bottom burn would ever end and even half an hour after she had been sent unceremoniously to the corner like a kid, it was all she could do not to give into a fresh bout of tears. Worst of all she had brought it entirely on herself, she decided ruefully, she had to concede that she probably deserved every bit of the spanking she still had coming.

“Mr Wentworth,” she said in a rather meek questioning voice, her nose not leaving the corner, “Are you really going to spank me?”

“What do you think?” Wentworth chuckled as he looked over from his desk.

“Oh shoot,” she groaned in a pouty voice, “I mean… I guess I kind of asked for it… but couldn’t you… I mean my tail is throbbing fit to burst still; I won’t sit down for a week. Couldn’t you add a bit next time?”

Wentworth snorted in amusement, Carolyn had grown-up some he guessed.

“Nope,” he answered.

Carolyn sighed and risked a sly brush of her bottom with her thumbs.

“There isn’t going to be a next time for you,” Wentworth continued, “You’re about done here I guess.”

Carolyn’s heart lurched. Surely that was good? But… why then did she feel such dismay?

“I already tore up all the contracts and if you want to skedaddle before I am ready to put you across my knee then I guess…” he added.

Carolyn offered him a pout over her shoulder and considered. Why was she still standing there?  Once when she was a kid she had been sent to summer camp. She hated every minute of it, but part of her had grieved on the last day when she knew she would never have that summer again? She had similar feelings about college and her sorority days… but what was holding her now?

“Mr Wentworth… do you… do you by any chance need any help? Not to… I mean… like Patty? Maybe someone with my perspective could help with the clients.” Carolyn had no idea where that had come from and she felt herself blushing.

Wentworth laughed. It wasn’t the first time he had been asked such a thing, although most of the women he handled couldn’t get away from him quick enough.

“I am afraid we don’t have the budget at the moment,” he said with a wink.

Carolyn suddenly felt a fool, not least because she was still standing in the corner with her bare bottom on show. This realisation made her squeal and set her scrambling for her clothes.

“No of course not… I mean you must think me an utter… yes well thank you Mr Wentworth it has been… eh…” she blustered.

Wentworth chose that moment to get up and go into the other room. Patty probably needed to go to the john by now anyway and was about ready to be cut loose from her own corner, besides she had work to do.

It took an age for Carolyn to compose herself and it was almost half an hour before she found the poise and courage to emerge from the inner office.

“Well eh… pleasure to eh… do business with you… I guess,” she blushed as she moved hesitantly towards the door. “I mean assuming you are done with me? I mean you’re not going to spank me after all I suppose?”

Wentworth extended his hand and she shook it politely. Even Patty limped from where she had been standing up for filing to give Carolyn a small squeeze.

“Goodbye Miss Brady,” Wentworth said warmly.

Carolyn smiled tersely and hurriedly left.

*

It took 10 minutes for Carolyn to knock on the office door again. Neither Wentworth nor Patty was surprised.

“This is the Justice Adjustment isn’t it?” she asked as if they were strangers, “Only I might have a job for you.”

“Another one?” Wentworth said with barely contained humour.

“Yes I was wondering if… if you might recommend someone who was good in a mentoring role?” Carolyn said matter-of-factly.

“You mean the sort who hands out good sound spankings?” Wentworth said innocently.

“That and other measures, only there is this girl who is a bit of an idiot and needs a firm hand. I really think she needs your help,” Carolyn chewed on her lower lip as she let her eyes look everywhere but at his.

“I guess you need that spanking after all,” Wentworth said sternly.

Carolyn’s eyes flared but she didn’t argue, although her still throbbing sore bottom urged her to leave.

“I’ll have Patty draw up a new contract, now you would step this way, I think we have time before my candidate for the birch arrives,” Wentworth said in a rather business-like manner.

I know how this guy feels, but it is usually the brat that does the biting. Never get between a man and the wife he is trying to spank…

This is a short work of fiction inspired by a true story according to Jane.

*

Everyone seems to think that sex wasn’t discovered until the 1960s and that kinkiness didn’t heave into view until the 1970s. Well I have to tell you that as a 20-something secretary we knew a thing or two. Oh to be sure we had to be discreet and sometimes the kinkiness had to be disguised, but looking back it was definitely there.

In 1955 I went to work for a law firm in London. It was a sexist world back then and pretty girls were often looked upon as office chattels and closely guarded by the lords of these various domains. There were all kind of rumours of course, but being something of a looker and a much sought after blonde to boot, I had it in mind to have an adventure and take full advantage of this secret world. After all I didn’t make the rules and a girl has to get on doesn’t she?

As I said there were rumours. One of the rumours was that one of the senior partners Sir G had a penchant for caning his secretary and any other young woman in his orbit. These rumours were fuelled by the combination of a high turnover of his staff and the ridiculously high bonuses his girls got. The ones that stayed really stayed for the duration.

This situation was coupled with extensive discretion around all matters Sir G and any attempts to poke someone for gossip from his team was met by an almost embarrassed air of silence. I was intrigued from the start.

Unfortunately I didn’t work for Sir G, I worked for Johnny Ed (which is as close to his real name it is appropriate to use). Johnny was a happy go-lucky guy and long on flirting and generous with his little perks for any girl who wanted to play.

I didn’t exactly dislike Johnny, but he wasn’t my type. He came across as too friendly and too over-confident. Also I thought he was a bit soft. I liked my men with an edge; men like Sir G who had supposedly been a para in the war and almost never smiled.

If six of the best across my bum was the price of a high salary and the opportunity for foreign travel, then I was more than game. To this end, no pun intended, I twice put in for a transfer to his office and twice had it blocked.

The second time, Johnny’s boss gave me roasting over it and told me to knuckle under. However, Johnny was more sympathetic and took me to lunch.

“If it’s a raise you want…” he had begun. “You don’t want to work for old G,” he continued. “He is a bit of a blighter…”

The gist of it was that despite the perks Sir G was a hypocrite and beneath the old guard disciplinary zeal he rather enjoyed his reputation.

“So what,” I said, “Maybe I don’t mind.”

Johnny brightened suddenly.

“Really,” he grinned.

I blushed. No I really blushed. Sex, spanking and the whole damn thing was all very well, but in those days you had to pretend reluctance.

“Well you know… I don’t enjoy it but…” I blustered.

“I do,” Johnny cut in. “I just don’t like to take advantage, not like some people.”

I laughed. “You don’t seem the type to me.”

Lunch got more interesting after that and we came to an arrangement. Not as lucrative as working for Sir G but quite good and I didn’t really believe in the spanking side of it right then anyway.

About a week later I was late. Not very late, but I figured Johnny for a push over and as I said, I thought we had an understanding. I knew something was up as soon as I got there.

“Bring me a coffee will you,” he said before I had even got my coat off.

I didn’t usually do that, but I guessed maybe this was part of our new deal. By the time I got into his office he had already removed his jacket and was rolling up his sleeves.

“Someone had been a naughty girl,” he said, patting his lap.

I must have frowned for in very short order he told me it was time to pay the piper and to take my knickers down. I am not slow, so I asked if I might keep them up. It was more than embarrassing to do what he had asked and I figured he would have me pegged for a trollop if I gave in that easily.

“Whoever heard of a girl getting a spanking without baring her bottom,” he said sternly.

I was quite thrilled. I was still going weak at the knees when he grabbed me and toppled me across his lap. I didn’t wear a girdle like some girls, but my slip was tight and my knickers didn’t go all the way down to my stocking tops. All the same he made a good fist of it and my skirt and slip were soon in the small of my back and he got my knickers down to my thighs.

The first slap stung and I squealed. This was mostly in surprised, but the spanking that followed was quite biting enough and I was soon panting hard and a little damp around the eyes. My bottom too was stinging and was still very red much later on when I inspected it in the mirror. I certainly felt it where I sat for the rest of the day.

“Next time I want better access or else,” he scolded me. But he had the good grace to wink.

Later that night he took me to dinner and we had our first kiss.

Spanking was pretty much a regular arrangement with us after that. Mostly I would engineer the thing, to my advantage of course. If I needed to pick up some dry cleaning or do some shopping I would be late in or come in from lunch after 1.30 and the only price was a spanking. I mean the spankings did hurt, especially once he knew I would play ball. I usually cried and sometimes I couldn’t sit down for a day or two. This was always the case once he started employing that damn clothes brush he kept for dusting down his suits. But afterwards we would usually do dinner in the evening or take in show. Sometimes he even gave me a pound or two towards a more convenient outfit.

I think we went on five dates before I thought it appropriate to stay the night at his. I have to say he was a considerate and skilled lover, but any chance he got to catch me out would lead to a pretty sound spanking.

Also if we were at his place or mine I would often find myself stood in the corner. A totally embarrassing game I hated but really turned him on. He said it helped put me in my place.

Then one day Johnny had a run in with Sir G. I don’t know the exact details but Johnny was asked to see a small group of senior partners to explain some irregularity. The boss was pretty pissed and although he agreed it was just a clerical error and not Johnny’s fault, they couldn’t very well fire the whole typing pool.

Johnny said it would blow over, but he looked pretty shaken all the same.

Then I had an idea. Figuring at worst I would lose my job, an easy thing to find in 1955, I sent Sir G a memo implying that the error might have been among the support staff, especially implying that it might even be my fault. It was a subtle enough hint, but I followed it up with a visit to Sir G’s office, where I not only apologised by way of identifying myself (he would not have known me from Eve otherwise), but while I was there I asked for a particular file I already knew was kept in the bottom draw. One carefully selected pencil skirt, one opportunist bend at the waist and an idea formed in Sir G’s mind.

“You’re the little filly who caused all the bother aren’t you?” he said.

I fluttered my eyelashes and replied I hoped he wasn’t too cross.

“I expect you have heard how I deal with naughty young women like you?” he said.

I nodded and feigned some real fear (a task that required no acting ability). Without explaining he asked if I would take my medicine to let the whole thing drop. He didn’t exactly spell it out but we both knew what he meant.

I didn’t tell Johnny. I had some idea that he might stop my little arrangement. Instead that Friday I reported to Sir G’s office promptly at six after his own staff had all left.

“Ever been caned before?” he asked as he removed a long thin yellow-brown stick from a cupboard.

“Oh rather Sir,” I lied. I thought it best to play to his imagination and give him his money’s worth. “At school both the headmistress and matron used to thrash me ever such a lot.”

“What six of the best or was it 12?” he said, adding, “Bare bottom drill was it?”

I gulped but decided to play it to the hilt.

“Oh always bare Sir, but there were too many strokes to count really,” I ventured nervously.

I hoped I look cute.

“Well if you took 12 or more as a girl, then two dozen should fit you now right enough,” he growled. “I bet you know the drill too.”

I didn’t but it didn’t take much imagination or ordering from him before I was bending over the back of stuffed armchair with my bare bottom mooning the ceiling.

The sound is hard to describe but after the first stroke I couldn’t have cared less. My bum felt as if a sword had slashed it and I yelled.

“Do try to keep quiet won’t you,” he instructed.

I obeyed for four more strokes before the searing lines across my bottom bettered me. By then I was crying and it was all I could do to stay bent over. I realised then that I had overplayed my hand. If I hadn’t been so brazen I am sure now that I could have escaped with a mere six. But it was too late by then and for the next 20 or 30 minutes I had to endure the worst punishment of my life so far. I say that long, it felt longer obviously, it is just a guess on my part. He must have given me about 24 strokes in all, dished out in four sets of six. I would guess that each set lasted two or so minutes, given the spaces in between. But then he put down cane and offered me a handkerchief to dry my eyes and rest.

Once the caning was finally done Sir G shook my hand and gave me a five pound note.

“Good sport,” he said.

I had to laugh, even through my tears.

Anyway all I can say that I cried all the way home on the bus, standing up of course with everyone staring, but I scarcely cared. On inspecting my behind in the bathroom mirror I could see a great many purple lines all standing out proud on my bottom. There were so many that they actually merged. I couldn’t sit down for almost a week and tenderness and marks lasted for most of that month.

Johnny was furious, but he couldn’t argue that the meeting with the senior partners was cancelled. Also he waited two weeks before spanking me for my little prank, which was pretty decent of him under the circumstances.

“Jane…” he said earnestly as I left the following Monday, “Thanks.”

“Anytime,” I replied, “It wasn’t so bad.”

That was a remark I came to regret, but that is another story.

There is a scene in the movie The Notorious Bettie Page where Gretchen Mol, in the role of Bettie, explains to a fan that he can only photograph her from behind. This is because of obscenity laws that prevent any hint of the pubic region or as my grandmother might have quaintly called it, the front bottom area.

This problem explains some rather curious little snippets unearthed while researching spanking and Hollywood (a project still ongoing). Apparently during the cheesecake era there were professional models who had the kind of personal layout (how else to put it?) that meant that whilst in a normal pose and viewed from behind there is no hint of their more forward charms.

It is actually an issue I have considered before but hadn’t realised it was a professional ‘thing.’ Namely, I tend to, and virtually always do, avoid pictures that are too revealing or containing full frontal nudity. However, sometimes this is difficult as even in relatively innocent photographs some women are apt to ‘show’ from behind; as if women didn’t have enough to put up with in the body fascism stakes.

It is not an issue that usually matters, I suspect, except if one is living in an era when nudity was banned or severely restricted.

Now this brings us to the point. In a magazine cutting about cheesecake one woman is described as an ‘ass model.’ She is quoted as saying ‘that some knock out girls used to get canned just because they had camel-toe issues, back as well as front.’ She on the other hand could be pictured from behind clothed or unclothed ‘without showing the goods.’

A very delicate matter to be sure, but just who had the job of assessing these girls? I bet he was pissed off when the permissive society got going. But then maybe it was a woman: the Brooklyn Bridge going cheap, anyone?

More to the point, another article in the same search suggested that bottom models were used in close up for any delicate situation, not only to make the artist look good, but to ensure ‘appropriate levels of propriety.’ More of the same issue then, we might suspect?

But what delicate situations do they mean? Apparently spanking was the big one. Not only did a girl need a ‘good seat’ for presenting a target when the script called for it, but a girl had to take a ‘decent spanking’ for sometimes up to ‘three or four dozen takes.’ The headline actors were reluctant to suffer that much for there are and besides it could hold up production. Not that some actresses didn’t occasionally take one or two for the team.

Now I wonder if there were auditions and who had that job.

Our story began here.

Alice waited in the drawing room and tried not to look at the clock. It was almost 10 o’clock and neither girl had arrived. This was going to be difficult enough now that Janet and Jenny had gone back with Mrs Baxter, but she had hoped not to have to have quite a high stakes encounter so soon.

It was time to tighten the ship and for that there had to be strict adherence to the rules. God, she could murder a cigarette, the governess thought. She eyed the clock and the minute hand creeping towards the 11, she had seven minutes.

The patio doors opened easily and Alice was able to slip around the side of the house as she lit up. It would be a disaster if one of the girls caught her, but she was too on edge not to indulge. She thought about what would happen to her if Mrs Baxter were ever to catch her smoking. Her last trip to the woodshed had been one of her most memorable since leaving the college house. Mrs Baxter had been very hard and unrelenting in her treatment of girls who had smoked, she still was.

Back in her early days she, Kelly McMamara and Amanda Casey had been caught out back with a new pack. Mrs Baxter had hauled them into the common room and made each of them quickly smoke one down prior to getting six of the best on the bare in front of everyone.

Then they had to smoke another and another, each time with the same six across the very bare and tightly bent bottom. Alice had prayed in thanks that there were only enough for six cigarettes each, but that was still 36 strokes of biting rod for each of them, all while their smirking compatriots looked on.

The only break in a two hour public vigil facing the wall was when Kelly had turned green 15 minutes in and had run to the bathroom to throw-up. The hairbrush later made Mrs Baxter’s disapproval felt over that lapse. A spanking administered over cane welts was a special species of hell.

Suppressing the memory Alice eyed the cigarette in her hand and dropped it with a rueful pout as she stamped it out of existence. The evidence on her breath was removed with a mint.

She took a deep sigh. It was time to raise her game and let the girls see another side to her methods.

By the time she got back to the drawing room Katherine was already sitting by the window. Alice frowned and gave her a significant look as she waited. The foolish girl just smiled. Forgetting the basics are we? Alice thought grimly. She was still weighing this up when the door opened and Mary tumbled breathlessly in.

“Sorry I am late,” she panted as she too added a smile.

The old Mary was in full retreat and instead of the gauche fright of a girl now stood a sophisticated woman. Alice glanced at the clock. Sophisticated or not, she was three minutes late.

“Tardiness is not tollerated,” Alice said sharply, “And you,” she added rounding on Katherine, “You should know better. Why didn’t you stand up when I entered the room?”

“Oh,” Katherine whispered and stood to make amends.

“Too late, both of you, too little too late,” Alice scolded. “I warned you things would get strict around here. Now both of you, skirts and slips off, panties down… and those off too. Then you can both face that wall.” She pointed decisively at the bare wall facing the mantelpiece.

“But…” Mary gaped.

“At once,” Alice barked.

Both women exchanged horrified glances and then blushed. But there was no argument and both slowly moved to obey.

By the time the two smartly semi-attired women were facing the wall Alice had retrieved a cane from the corner.

“Things have been too lax around here and I am going to test you both further. Before this week is out you will both fetch a hairbrush and ask me to soundly spank you as you deserve…”

“Yes Ma’am,” the both said in unison.

“Furthermore,” Alice continued, “You will both read the books I will give you for a test at the end of the month. It is time you tackled the academic side of your training.”

“Yes Ma’am,” Katherine said with some confidence.

Mary just gaped and rolled her eyes at the wall.

“How many strokes should Katherine have for not standing up?” Alice asked.

Mary half-turned and pointed at her chest as she mouthed ‘me?’

Katherine went peony but didn’t move her nose from the wallpaper.

“Yes you, and face the wall,” Alice snapped.

“I-I don’t…” Mary wailed.

“Katherine?” Alice growled addressing the elder girl.

“Eh…” Katherine spluttered.

“Wrong,” Alice sighed. “Eighteen I would say, but given your age and the fact that this is a rookie mistake…”

“Two dozen Ma’am,” Katherine said quickly.

“A little harsh, but as you couldn’t answer the first time I will accept that,” Alice agreed. “Mary, you were late,” she said, “Should you get more or fewer than Katherine?”

“Same…” Mary said tentatively.

“Enunciate,” Alice barked, “And elaborate. I would have said 12 for only being three minutes late, but for your failure to answer and for taking your nose from the wall… you will accept the same,” Alice said sharply, and then she added, “And if you had been more than five minutes late?”

“Eh…” Mary whined.

“Katherine?”

“A dozen plus one for each minute late up to 37,” Katherine said with some pride.

“Someone has been paying attention,” Alice smiled. “Why stop there?”

“After 30 minutes lateness one is deemed to have been absent altogether and there are other sanctions for that,” Katherine answered.

“Good,” Alice nodded, relaxing a little.

The governess slashed the cane through the air and made to inspect the tip of the thin biter of a stick.

“Alright, turn around,” she said.

Both women made to guard their sex as they made an about turn. Both were also blushing.

“Katherine, you can go first,” Alice said in a firm voice. “Stand out and bend over to grab at your ankles.”

The posture was difficult and completely undignified, but Katherine obeyed readily enough, although her inverted face was rather mauve.

“Stick your bottom out” Alice ordered.

Katherine complied.

Alice felt frisson as she lined up the thin cane to Katherine’s bottom, she had a good seat for it and although she had punished the girl before this felt like a new chapter. The stroke made Mary startle and her expression was agog at the impact.

Katherine too lurched, but held position in readiness for the next stroke, which came very hot in its wake. This one made her hiss and oh so slightly wiggle her behind. Two red ridges grew and blossomed on the woman’s tail and Alice an her tongue over her upper lip as she struck in again hard.

The caning was slow and sharp, each biting sting crossing Katherine’s bare bottom every seven or eight seconds, but pausing for effect at the top of the minute so that four such eons passed before the punishment was done.

For Katherine the struggle redoubled after each pause and by 12 she yelped at each cut with increasing distress. By 18 or so she began to slow tremble as silent tears tumbled down her face. At 24 Katherine was shaking at the shoulders as she asked in a strained voice, “May I rise Ma’am?”

“You may,” Alice told her.

Katherine’s face crumpled into a picture of woe and before she recall them sobbing tears broke like a dam from her.

“Than you Ma’am,” she sniffed, as she extended a hand.

“Well held,” Alice said with admiration as she shook it, adding quickly “Now Mary, your turn.”

Mary gulped, but was determined to show as much spirit as her older friend; indeed there was more than a hint of bravado in her posture as her bottom was out thrust.

In the event she took them well, but by 15 she too was shouting out as the cane sawed into her and before she had taken 20 she too was sobbing like Katherine.
After the thanks were given both women were sentenced to a long spell facing the wall while Alice took up a book. For grown women they took an age to control their crying and Alice smugly drank in every tear.

Here’s one of those little forum finds you so love. I have no context whatsoever for this and apart from some small edits I publish it as is. I am not sure if this is UK-based or American experience, but my guess is that it is from the US.

Elizabeth_2 wrote:

Yes I got that, great story, but I am not sure where that leaves us. The point is my great aunt was one of the first women cadets so I guess they had no idea how to handle the changes at that time. I certainly don’t think they had any political agenda at all, except maybe that they did not want her there because she was a woman.

The sanctions used on the male cadets were so many swats with a paddle depending on the offence and at what level they handled things. Yes, my aunt took it on the bare a few times and I have no idea whether this was unusual. I didn’t exactly talk this over with her when I was a kid. Remember I only got told about this within the bounds of yet another ‘you kids are lucky’ speech.

I know that she got six or more swats on the seat of her clothed bottom several times. Each time it was from a woman instructor. She also got some more serious work-outs also on the clothed behind, and also from a woman. It was these that she mostly talked about and I gather that she found them hard to take and had trouble sitting down afterwards. I know too that she got swats from a senior male instructor more than once, but I don’t think this was usual.

I know that at least twice she got swats on the bare, but I don’t know if these were from men or women or if she got more swats at these times. I think that the two times she got it bare it was worse for her but I have no idea if she was only getting the same treatment as the men. Only that my aunt implied that it was.

I hope that makes things clear.

Jane1959 asked:

In high school we never got more than six and usually only four. Do you know how many swats she got or what she got them for?

Elizabeth_2

These were cadets and it was nothing like high school. These kids were all college aged remember. As for rules and number of swats well it is like I said I didn’t exactly get the entire low down. Everything I know I pieced together over a couple of years as a teenager. I am only going on what I remember.

I know six or so was a standard thing and she got that a lot. I know she got quite a bit more a few times and it was these occasions that she most talked about. Like I said before, she had lots of welts and bruises and couldn’t sit down for a few days.

I think I remember her saying she got 24 at some point but I might be making that up. But she definitely got more than just six for the really serious stuff.

I hope that helps.

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I couldn’t find the original comments and this thread petered out with some very short comments, questions by trolls and repetitions of the above.

But it makes you wonder what kind of cadets they were and when all of this took place.

Apparently a legacy is a girl who gets to join a sorority because an older sister, mother, aunt or other close relative was in that sorority. I had to look that one up, not an easy thing as the Greek community are Spartan with their secrets.

Apparently also there is a tradition of giving the legacies in a sorority a harder time than other girls.

I mention this because Anthea wrote to me after seeing the post on sorority insights.

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She wrote:

Love this stuff and I have heard much like it over the years. It kind of makes me think I missed out. But that’s not entirely true. Time to fess up.

I was in a sorority in California in the mid 1970s. Hazing was mostly a blast, but mainly treasure hunts, cleaning the john, that kind of thing. No paddling, no swats. My sorority was the one my Aunt Joan joined back in the 1950s so I was a legacy and she always said that sisterhood would soon shake out my wrinkles as she put it.

I think she was disappointed to learn that where she had been paddled I wasn’t. She told me that in her day pledges had to dress immaculately at all times and that meant white gloves and that they had to be in by 10 on Saturday nights. They also couldn’t date boys at all and to be reported or seen with one was big trouble.

Girls who turned up late were met by actives with big paddles who made them gather in the bum room to face the wall. All the late-comers, incorrectly dressed and other rule breakers had to wait until everyone was back and then it was spanking time.

There were different ways to do it I gather. But most ways ended up with at least some swats on the bare. My aunt said typically offenders would bend for three from each of the actives over skirts and then three over panties or girdles and then three on the bare. Then three more as they got dressed.

These swats were given full force and most of the girls were pretty much crying by the time they were done. She also said that there were swats at other times, but she didn’t usually elaborate. I say usually because this brings me to my story.

Aunt Joan invited me and Terri, my Big, to her house by the lake over one summer and of course we heard all the stories. It was embarrassing but quite fruity for me to hear this stuff and my aunt was much more open with another sister there. To make it worse she would say stuff like, “pity you can’t spank Anthea” or worse, “if she gets out of line you can borrow my paddle.”

Then one day during the vacation I arranged to meet Terri in town for shopping and coffee. But I met a boy and without telling Terri I ducked out. In fact I didn’t get home until real late and even Aunt Joan was pissed.

The next day once she had heard the whole story Aunt Joan was real mad, I mean spitting. I had been out with a boy I hardly knew past midnight and my treatment of Terri even made me feel ashamed.

That’s when Aunt Joan dug out her old sorority paddle and handed it to Terri giving her “full permission to use it.” She also said if Terri didn’t then I could either take a paddling from her or get grounded for two weeks with the regrettable impact that would have on Terri’s vacation.

My aunt had spanked me when younger but my folks really didn’t and at almost 19 I thought it was behind me now. But I didn’t want to get grounded and spoil Terri’s vacation and besides I was rather curious. So I agreed to take swats from Terri.

I think Terri was curious too and I know she took some tips from Aunt Joan because after talking it over I was made to go out into the shed and take off my shorts and panties. Then dressed rather self-consciously in just my sneakers and yellow sweat top I bent over some feed sacks to stick my butt out.

Terri gave me 18 slow swats on the bare bottom. Very hard and they were very hard to take. I yelled my head off from swat one and by the end my butt was on fire and I was bawling like a kid. But I had to admire Terri for going through with it and we shook hands. More embarrassing than that was that after a good cry aunt Joan suggested that I was sent to the corner while they had coffee. I felt about three years old. Talk about embarrassed.

It is a summer I won’t forget and it changed my relationship with Aunt Joan and Terri forever. You can bet she took full advantage of her power over me right up until she graduated.

I love the blog by the way and keep those sorority stories coming.

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We thank Anthea and as I told her do share some other tales.

I saw the picture above and was put in mind of something. I don’t know what they are doing in this lovely retro shot – as she doesn’t have a thermometer, spank cream is a good a guess as any.

Spank cream might be one of those little women’s things us chaps don’t know about. One of the McCartney girls, not sure if it was Stella or the elder daughter, was asked about make-up and beauty tips. She talked about moisturising and said that she always kept a bottle of ‘spank cream’ on her bed side table. The woman interviewing her seemed to know what this was and didn’t ask. However, for the first time in my life was suddenly interested in cosmetics so I listened in. It transpires that they were talking about ‘cold cream.’ I don’t actually know what this is either if I am honest, but I know many girls use it, on their face I thought? However with the connection made I realised that this wasn’t the only time I heard cold cream referred to as ‘spank cream.’.

An Iranian Christian girl I shared a house with for about a month back in the 1980s made a similar reference. I had to ask didn’t I? She answered by way of a rueful smirk and just said it was something her sister and her used to call it.

There are many literary references to cold cream being applied to sooth the well-spanked bottoms of naughty girls. Sometimes this is done illicitly in stories. I have even heard it referenced in some movies where a spanking as been shown or at least hinted at. I am sure there is a story in it somewhere, anyone got some real experience?

For those who like a e-books, LSF have published another novella of mine entitled Spanking the Dames. It comprises of all six of the Justice Adjustment Stories in one volume.

Here is the publishers blurb:

It’s very much business as usual at the somewhat dilapidated New York offices of William Wendell Wentworth’s Private Justice Adjustment Incorporated, an outfit set up with the sole purpose of handing out well-deserved spankings to dames who have it coming to them.

First client of the day is Ophelia Open, sent there by her ex-husband after he discovered that she and her sister, Sophie, had swindled him out of some money. Ophelia soon finds herself stripped and her bare bottom on the receiving end of William Wentworth’s leather belt. Later, once her punishment is concluded, she learns that her ex- might be prepared to give their marriage another go. Sophie, however, has opted to skip town and make a run for it, but Wentworth dispatches his employee, George Benedict, to track her down. Once George has caught up with her, she is taken to a woodshed and, bending over a trestle, is subject to an initial spanking with a razor strop followed by a vigorous switching. It seems, however, despite her chastisement at his hands, that Sophie might be falling for George.

Meanwhile, back in New York, 30-year-old blonde Carolyn Brady has arrived at Wentworth’s offices with an interesting proposition…

I unearthed a slightly new take on the spanking and caning of wrens prior to them being incorporated into the Royal navy proper. I also came across a new expression, ‘marrying the gunner’s daughter,’ as opposed to kissing it, which means getting a caning. There was also some light shed on the official position.

The last big debate on corporal punishment in the Royal Navy took place in the House of Commons in 1949. It was reported that up to 1/7th of boys were caned at training establishments but other sanctions were preferred.

However, many such sanctions were not available for the discipline of female personnel. Therefore “it is likely” (although not proved) that caning “was more often applied to females” (both officers and other ranks) than “would be otherwise be supposed.”

It was reported in committee that no direct figures were available as women are not considered part of the “official establishment” and that most evidence was anecdotal. During recent hostilities it did not “seem prudent to interfere with naval traditions in this regard and in any case why shouldn’t an errant female continue to ‘Marry the gunner’s daughter,’ to borrow a naval expression,” said one committee member.

No investigation was deemed necessary as no complaints had been received in verified cases where corporal punishment had been used. However as a side note, “it has been supposed that future guidelines will provide that wrens should no longer be caned on the exposed backsides, especially by male officers.” However, as at that time women remained “outside any official military establishment” it was considered “beyond the jurisdiction of this current discussion.”

This report was referring to the fact that the WRNS were established in 1939 under the Civil Establishments Branch at the Admiralty. They were therefore considered civilian workers rather than naval personnel. However, wrens could be punished in various ways, including discharge from WRNS, disrating, suspension, stoppage of leave and deductions from pay. They could also be charged in a civilian court, but they couldn’t be “court martialled”, even if absent from duty or AWOL. As a consequence often officers using irregular methods of discipline could not be court martialled either in matters concerning their dealings with these women. In fact wrens remained free of the Naval Discipline Act until 1977.

Nevertheless the ATS and WAAF, because the army and air force became worried about wastage in their women’s service, were given full military status in April 1941. Interestingly, despite being regarded as “civilians”, only 37 wrens out of 11,000 deserted between Dec 1940 and March 1941.

Here is an example of some anecdotal evidence of the type that was referred to, some of which may have been published here before.

“I once heard about a wren of 23 who sent out a letter to the wrong person causing a bit of an incident for the war office. She was summoned to the Sgt’s office and made to undress, right down to her stockings, suspenders and bra, she was bent over his knee and had her bare bottom spanked. This wasn’t normal but it happened occasionally because men were well and truly in control and they could get away with it.”

“I asked my mother-in-law about this topic. She’s an old lady, but quite open about worldly subjects. When she was in the Wrens in WW2, was there corporate punishment for minor offences?

“The procedure was always the same. After ensuring they had understood the offence, he would to tell them to ‘take down your drawers,’ a quaint old-fashioned expression. The woman was expected to pull down her service knickers to her ankles. Then, ‘bend over.’ At this point he would lift her skirt over her back and clear any other clothing to completely bare her bottom. A two foot wooden ruler was used.”

“Surprisingly, my mother-in-law, who says she was punished in this way twice, also reminded us that in the UK in the 1940s you couldn’t vote until you were 21 and indeed this was often thought of as the age of ‘growing up’. Too many older people, young service women aged 18-20 were still children and to be treated as children then were.”

Gina K wrote:

“Gran joined the Wrens when she was just turned 18 and after a few months training in England was posted to Malta where she worked as a clerk/typist at a large base near Valetta. She said that once overseas the discipline was a lot stricter than in England. And that Wren ratings were subject to corporal punishment in the form of caning if they misbehaved.”

“My Gran’s first experience of such naval discipline was soon after her arrival in Malta. She and three of her pals were not back to base before the time were supposed to be after being out one night. They were caught trying to sneak back on to the base through the fence. Appearing before the commandant the following morning she ordered all four of them to be given six strokes of the cane on the seat of the knickers. The punishment was carried out nearly straight away. Gran and her three co-offenders who were all a similar age to her were taken to an adjacent gymnasium and had to change into their PT kit. Each in turn then had to bend over a vaulting horse and were given six strokes of the cane on the seat of their gym-knickers. The canings were administered by a

Chief Wren (equivalent to Chief Petty Officer). Gran described her as being a very stout woman, quite masculine looking with a very sour face. She tanned their arses using a slim and whippy crook handled cane of the type normally used on the backsides of juvenile boys in the navy.”

“Gran and her four mates had to get back to work soon after their punishments. Gran said she couldn’t sit down afterwards her bum was so sore. She had to stand at her desk for the rest of the day. This brought a few wry comments from the people she worked with and visitors to her office. It soon became common knowledge that she had recently been caned. She couldn’t sit comfortably for days and it was a few weeks before marks faded altogether.”

“Gran also told me of another caning she witnessed some time later. This was of three young Wrens who had been found guilty of stealing stuff from the stores where they worked and selling it on the black market. The commandant thought in this case an example needed to be made. The three were sentenced to a period of detention. But the commandant also ordered that they would be caned in front of the whole Ships Company.”

“All the Wren ratings on the base were assembled in the same gymnasium where Gran had been caned to witness the punishments of the three miscreants. There were two younger girls who were about 18/19 who were to get 10 strokes of the cane each and an older girl aged about 20 who were considered the ringleader was going to get 12 strokes. Gran said punishments were carried out by the same Wren Chief Petty Officer who had caned her and her gang. She was also using a similar cane to one that she had felt on her own backside.”

“The three were marched into the gym under escort dressed in their PT kit. Each girl was then in turn was held bent over a gym horse. But unlike gran and her mates once over the horse these three had their navy gym-knickers pulled down! Their bottoms bared for all to see. Each girl raised as they got their arses tanned good and proper, naval fashion.”

“Gran said by the end of their punishments the trio were bawling as though they would never stop. All three were lined up handcuffed with their arms stretched up on gym’s wall-bars with their caned backsides on display for all to see as the rest of the Wrens filed out of the gym. Witnessing the canings and the sight of the three red-raw striped backsides they produced certainly had the intended deterrent effect on the rest of the young women.”

Alice J K wrote:

“The cane was very much in my day during the 1950s and into the 1960s even. I got it several times and it was an easy way to escape worse punishments like confinement or being put on a charge, which could result in docked pay.”

“During the war my eldest sister got far worse and far more often than I. At least I was caned on my pants; she was caned several times on the bare bottom and on one occasion couldn’t sit down for several days. At least she only had a female CO, mine were all male.”

“I think it did us no harm and things might be better if they still caned today.”

(Mrs) Jean S, Gloucester wrote:

“During the war I served in the WRNS, which is where I met my husband, and in all the years since various people have joked to me about ‘rum the other thing and the lash’ an old Nelson quote I think. I have always blushed, but for years only my husband knew why.

When I was at Dartmouth in 1940s I had an experience with both rum and the lash, so to speak. I noted after all these years with some amusement the recent debate in the national press about the subject of caning women in the navy, because that is what happened to me.

A friend and I drew the short straw one night and had to stay behind when the others had leave. My friend thought it would be a good wheeze for us to share a bottle of rum while we were on duty, but of course we were caught. We were lucky and avoided 30 from the CO but both took 24 on the bare from our own officer. I could not help think that she enjoyed it, even though we did not, but it was better than seeing the CO and we both deserved it.”

Here are those now famous Daily Telegraph letters:

May I recommend that the Army instructors who cannot enforce discipline because they fear being accused of bullying (News, January 15) adopt the system used at the Royal Naval College, Dartmouth, when I served there in the 1920s?

Cadet captains administered a “tick” for any breach of discipline, such as being late on parade or a fault in our uniform. Acquire three ticks in a term, and you received six of the best on a bare behind. It worked.

I wonder what they do at Dartmouth today – now that there are female recruits too.

Douglas D, London, Daily Telegraph Jan 29th

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If Douglas D is interested, I attended a Wrens’ Naval Cadets training school in London, in the early 1950s. We were subjected to similar discipline, which did sometimes include being caned on the behind, though it wasn’t bare but over our knickers. I don’t think it did me any harm, but I don’t think it did me any good either. What I do know is, bullying still went on, but we did tend to show more respect to authority and we were certainly not as rude as our modern-day counterparts, male and female.

(Mrs) Gwen L, Kent, Sunday Telegraph Feb 5th

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Your correspondent who as a Wren was caned over her knickers had it easy. In the 1940s, it was a daily routine for cadets at the Royal Naval School in Portsmouth to be beaten on their bare buttocks.

Once, for carelessly discharging a clip of live ammunition, the commanding officer gave me 30 of the very best and I could not sit down for five days.

Mavis P, Leicestershire

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Like Mavis P, I did my Wren training at the Royal Naval School in Portsmouth and made numerous visits to the staff sergeant’s office to have my bare backside welted with the “knotty” – a big bamboo cane.

I was a wilful cheeky girl and usually deserved my regulation 12 strokes, often with six extras for “lip”. I did manage to avoid the dreaded CO’s 30 strokes given to Mavis P, but in one week received 12 strokes on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday for smoking in the lavatories.

Doris B, Bristol

Many years ago I saw a beautiful graphic portrait from the 1950s. It was of a very smart looking aristocratic woman with a young maid across her knee giving her a spanking. The drawing was within an otherwise vanilla collection and no particular attention was drawn to this image as if it was quite commonplace.

I have not seen this image since, but I do remember the caption was simply ‘spanking the maid.’

Now I have posted on this topic before but every now and then I chance on something I haven’t seen or don’t remember seeing before. This time I found some interesting articles on Google Reader.

This incomplete snippet was taken from Woman’s Weekly in 1911 was supplied under the heading ‘domestic discipline.’

Do you still spank your servant girls? Many perfectly sound housekeepers still do, although the practice seems to be in decline. Professional agencies have suggested that the decline is down to modern thinking and the growing shortage of girls willing to enter service in the first place.

The Modern Woman’s Guide to Good Housekeeping says that spanking of girls over 21 is very much a thing of the past and good servants will expect better conditions than previous generations.

Your grandmothers probably had girls in their house who had begun their service at aged 14 or 15 and who were treated as part of the family. But this way of things is sadly in decline and modern women are more inclined to move on or even get married younger.

In 1883, the Domestic Gazette, suggested that “birching your maid is decidedly old hat, and not to mention barbaric. If one has a girl in their house needful of such harsh treatment, then this humbler reporter is of the opinion that you might consider seeking a new maid.”

However, unlike the later article there is no doubt that maids needed punishing as the article goes on to say, “if your maid needs corporal chastisement then might this writer suggest that a good old-fashioned slipper applied to the naked posterior is quite effective enough. Or for the older more recalcitrant girl that one applies a patent leather strap to the same place.”

I particularly like an advertisement form an even earlier date that ran the legend ‘Domestic Trouble?’ above a crude line drawing of a nervous young maid and went on to offer: “Whips, crops, rods of all sizes for those difficult servants.”

No doubt the reality of this employee abuse was rather grim, but I chose to remember that drawing I saw of the 1950s maid and the romantic fantasies it conjures up.