Letter — The Happy Valley

From the Janus Club magazine Privilege 42. I remember being riveted by this drama when it was on TV — somewhat titillated by the depiction of CP but also horrified by the cruelty and brutality. Holly Aird was sensational as Juanita.

The Happy Valley

Dear Sir,

May I thoroughly recommend The Happy Valley as the most remarkable portrayal of corporal punishment seen on television, and hope for a speedy repeat for the sake of any member who missed it. I read about it the Radio Times beforehand and couldn’t believe it when they said how completely Holly Aird lived the part of the teenage Juanita Carberry. They said she was still trembling two hours after one of the caning scenes and that the real Juanita, who was an advisor to the film, said how realistic Holly was. It is an amazing film, derived from the book (and later film) White Mischief, set in East Africa just after the war. But The Happy Valley concentrates less on the main true story of the book and more completely on the teenage life of Juanita — also true and obviously very authentic since she was an advisor.

The story opens with Juanita at an English Boarding School where she is insolent in class, answering her teacher in Swahili. She is made to hold out her hand for three hard strokes with a ruler across her outstretched palm and told to report to the Headmistress straight after the lesson, for the third time in a week. The film then moves to Africa, but anyone who was at school in the 1940/50s knows what reporting to the Headmistress meant. She would undoubtedly have been caned on each visit to the Head and, from a good knowledge of normal school discipline in those days, we can be pretty sure of the punishment she received. Six strokes on the first occasion, across her navy blue knickers with her gymslip raised. On the second visit she would have received ten strokes of the cane across her tightly stretched knickers, and after the third offence in a week of defiant insolence she would have had her knickers lowered and received twelve strokes with the heavy cane on her bare buttocks. 28 strokes of the cane in less than a week, so she certainly was a tough young lady and must have arrived in Africa with a well-marked bottom.

Soon after her arrival in Africa the scene shows her sitting with her father, stepmother and new governess Miss Helen Tapsell — played by the attractive young blonde Cathryn Harrison. Her father tells the governess that his daughter is a liar and a thief and was punished at school for being insolent in Swahili. He says, ‘You didn’t think we’d let behaviour like that go unpunished, did you? Off to the schoolroom with you.’ As Juanita walks across the garden, followed by her father and governess, he says, ‘You are a governess, Miss Tapsell. Let’s see how well you govern.’ In the schoolroom he says, ‘You’ll find what you are looking for in the top of the desk.’ Miss Tapsell opens the desk and takes out a yellow cane of medium thickness, about 36” long and with a curved end. She says to Juanita, ‘Bend over, please,’ and he says impatiently, ‘Bend over the chair.’ Juanita is wearing loose khaki shorts, and lies across both arms of a small armchair from the side. Not a very good position for punishment because her legs and body are too straight and her buttocks not stretched enough. The film shows Juanita’s troubled face in close-up, and then switches to her stepmother who is playing a record to drown the sounds of the caning. We know Juanita is being caned during this sequence, and I reckon she received five or six strokes before the scene moves to Miss Tapsell laying into Juanita with three more quite hard strokes. She pauses as if she has finished after eight strokes and father says, ‘Very good. Only it needs more effort, much more effort.’ Miss Tapsell then lays on three very hard strokes in quick succession, and then you hear four more, making a 15-stroke caning. Juanita is then seen curled up on her bed, and when she gets up to cross the room she winces with the pain from her obviously bruised, wealed bottom.

Despite being caned over her shorts it must have hurt a great deal because there was only a second or two pause between strokes, and this builds up pain terribly. As anyone who has been caned or strapped knows, there are several factors which affect the severity of corporal punishment.

1. The position — bending over stretches the skin and flesh of the buttocks, and it is more painful the tauter they are stretched. 
2. Bare buttock canings are much more painful than through knickers or shorts, which break the impact of the cane.
3. The force of each stroke.
4. The thickness of the cane — heavier canes make bruises which hurt much longer afterwards. Thinner canes sting more immediately but bruise less.
5. If the tip of the cane is used to full effect, falling on the edge of the buttocks — it travels faster and hurts much more than the main length of the rod.
6. The time between each stroke: the pain surges through the entire body for 20-30 seconds and then starts to fade. Quick, rapid strokes are excruciatingly painful because the build-up of pain is cumulative until you feel you will burst.
7. The lower overhang of the buttocks and the upper thighs are much more sensitive than the centre of the buttocks, so strokes across this area are more painful.
8. It takes about seven or eight accurately laid strokes to cover the buttocks from top to bottom. Subsequent strokes land on flesh already wealed and sore and are thus additionally painful.

The second caning sequence lakes place a few weeks later when after a party Juanita hears noises from her bedroom and comes out in her nightie and, looking through a half-open door, sees Miss Tapsell and her father on a bed together with the governess mounting him with great vigour. The scene moves to the schoolroom next morning where Juanita is already in position across the armchair, so we know that she is in for another caning. Father is holding the cane in his hands and says, ‘Little sod-ears, spying on people.’ Handing the cane to Miss Tapsell, who is looking increasingly attractive and wearing brief shorts, he says, ‘I think we might enjoy this, Tappie.’ The governess then gives Juanita eight hard strokes, all with only a second or so between, and the last three very hard and close together. Quite a severe caning, as close-ups of Juanita’s face show, but she does not make a sound.

The final thrashing is very severe. It takes place after the murder, and after Juanita has talked to one of the suspects and then started telling people her views. Her father is enraged, and considers this extremely bad behaviour. The scene is again set in the schoolroom where he says to Tappie, ‘You will find what you are looking for in the hall by the clock.’ Juanita’s stepmother pleads with him not to punish her, but he tells her to go and take a little stroll, then says to Juanita, ‘Well Miss, I think this calls not just for punishment, but severe punishment.’ After a pause he repeats, ‘You heard what I said, I said severe punishment.’

I could not believe my eyes as Juanita’s hands go to the waistband of her shorts, which she unbuttons and pushes down to her ankles. For a moment I thought severe punishment meant taking her knickers down as well, but she just stands there in her tight-fitting white 1950-style knickers and says, ‘Nothing you can do will hurt me; nothing.’ Tappie had returned from the hall holding a thick leather bull-whip or sjambok, some 40” long with a loop at the handle. She flexes it between her hands and walks over to Juanita who has bent across the armchair ready for her punishment, her buttocks stretching the white cotton knickers tightly. Her father says, ‘Beat her,’ and Tappie measures the thick whip carefully across the seat of Juanita’s knickers and, raising it high above her head, brings it down very hard across the centre of her buttocks.

The whip makes a much lower-pitched whoosh than the cane and sounds much heavier as it strikes the girl’s bottom, and a close-up of her face shows her wince with pain. Tappie gives her four hard strokes about three or four seconds apart, and you see Juanita wince each time the whip strikes her buttocks, but she does not make a sound. ‘Beat her until she starts crying out,’ says father, and Tappie gives her another five hard strokes, and she still remains silent though her face is contorted with pain at every one. After the ninth stroke he shouts, ‘Beat her senseless, do you hear?’ and the whipping goes on until she has had 17 really hard strokes.

Her mother meanwhile is playing the gramophone to drown the sounds. Tappie is all flustered, hot and sweating from the exertion of whipping Juanita, who has still not uttered a sound. At this point they should have stopped, because 17 strokes with a heavy leather whip, delivered with only a few seconds between each, is a very severe thrashing and her buttocks and thighs must have been badly bruised, her thin knickers offering no protection whatever. But her father storms over and shouts, ‘Give me that bloody whip,’ and grabs it from Tappie. This is where it changes to being really nasty as he applies the whip across Juanita’s buttocks, thighs and back with all his strength for another ten strokes. After 27 strokes in all you see Juanita’s hand fall limp as she loses consciousness, still without making a sound. She is a tough, brave young woman to have taken such a dreadful whipping without crying out.

Later she is seen limping painfully from the schoolroom across the garden and tells one of the black servants to bring her horse. She rides off, lying face down around its neck, to Nairobi. Here she goes in the Police Station where she lifts her shirt to show her back, and then collapses on the floor. She is cared for in the hospital and never returns home again.

It was a beautifully-made film, and since it was based on fact and supervised by the main character, it must be authentic. It demonstrated the severe punishment that was commonplace in East Africa —and still is in most of East, West and Southern Africa to this day, although not with the cruelty of the final whipping from her father. It illustrated the great difference between erotic punishment and that fine line where the severity makes it cruel and no longer exciting.

E.C.P., Bracknell, Berks

Here is an extract of the punishments: