Letters from Blushes 4

There were no letters published in Blushes 3, so moving on…

KENILWORTH CAPERS

The author of Approved School Report, in the first issue of Blushes, taking for his text a minute preserved in Public Record Office File No. HO45/14545, has certainly provided your readers with food for thought on the perennial controversy as to whether naughty schoolgirls are best punished on the hands or the bottom.

The various papers referred to in the following article have been sent to the editor in facsimile, but are too lengthy to be published here.

I can readily vouch for the absolute authenticity of the document you reproduced. During recent public argument on the same kind of controversy I myself testified in the columns of a national newspaper to the deterrent effect of having been obliged, as a fifth-former of 15 detected in a second offence of smoking, to ‘remove my skirt and bend over for eight real stingers with only the thinnest of summer pants between my seat and the stick’, the whipping being administered ‘by a lithe and athletic young deputy head armed with some 3ft of extremely whippy malacca and a strong wrist and muscular arm’. The conclusion I then offered — that whereas hand-caning was ‘a risky practice, a good whipping with a light stick and minimal protection to the portion of the anatomy designed for the purpose by Mother Nature is both absolutely safe and far more effective’ — generated a large amount of support in both public and private correspondence. I found descriptions of the disciplinary system of that reformatory in the 1920’s amply confirmed in HO45/14545, both in the document you reproduced and in other reports in the same file.

Having studied all these documents, however, I must seriously respond to the challenge set out in your article. Plainly, the file has only been preserved for the historical light it throws on the ‘hands versus bottoms’ controversy in the context of the punishment of really naughty girls. It is equally plain that the authorities then (in 1923) vehemently concurred in the views which I expressed some sixty years later — on the basis of canings personally experienced during the 1960’s — regarding the superior deterrent effect of bottom-discipline. But it is no less plain that a preference for the latter on the part of the authorities can be explained on other grounds than the supposed sexual implications of punishment on the posterior.

This is perhaps best illustrated by reference to some of the other documents in the Kenilworth file which your earlier commentator did not cite. The earliest, chronologically, is the report of 30 May 1923 in which the Chief Inspector (Dr Norris) graphically describes both the rioting at the school and the methods adopted to quell the disturbance. As to the former, let Dr Norris’s account speak for itself in view of the serious criticism of his disciplinary methods implicit in your analysis:

‘On May 8th (1923) I received a telephone message from the new Superintendent of this School, Miss (Margaret) Langley, to the effect that most of the girls were defying the staff, smashing windows and doors, refusing to obey orders and declining to do any work. One girl, Florence Loch, had threatened to attack the staff with a knife and refused to go to bed at 2 in the morning, and was doing such material damage to the school and inciting the others to riot to an extent which made the Superintendent call in the assistance of the police. A police inspector and sergeant came and, in a moment of surprise, this girl of 18 caught the Inspector by the throat, got him on the ground and sat on his head. On the sergeant coming to the rescue she bit him in the arm, the teeth penetrating the flesh to the bone.’

Just over a week after this charming little exhibition, Dr Norris continues,

‘Mrs Rotherham, a manager, called here and informed me that the school for some days had been in an almost continuous state of riot. Girls had been out half the night, some of them had even spent the night on motor lorries, two… visiting London. The police had attempted to secure the absconders. Windows and doors had been broken; the staff isolated, and all the girls, with the exception of about eight, were disobeying orders.’

Clearly feeling that so drastic a situation required his personal intervention, Norris went down post-haste to Kenilworth,

‘where I found three girls under 16 had barricaded themselves in one of the dormitories and refused to open the door and were then smashing windows and the panel of the door.’

Many readers of Blushes might be forgiven for feeling that it was a case crying out for the sort of ‘wholesale bare-bottomed caning of… teenage girls’ which the author of Approved School Report suggests may then have ensued! But a careful analysis of the filed documents suggests — and my private informant confirmed — that nothing so intemperate actually occurred. Three things, however, did happen. Firstly, Dr Norris continues in his own report,

‘I found one girl of 15 (Dora Help) had been the ringleader for some days amongst the juniors and I advised the Superintendent to inflict corporal punishment which she did forthwith.’

Of the details of the one single initial punishment, more anon. But in the meantime, secondly, and immediately after breakfast,

‘two of the worst offenders amongst the older girls (Hannah Turner and Violet Bateman) who were then under arrest were brought before the Leamington Petty Session… and after much pressure on my part the Magistrate… ultimately sent these two girls to Borstal.’

After which, the Inspector tells us, thirdly and lastly

‘I then proceeded to the school and addressed all the girls… and informed (them) that severe and drastic steps would be taken to establish discipline in the school, that any senior girl continuing any insubordination would be forthwith charged before the Magistrates and sent to Borstal and that any of the younger girls would be corporally punished and I informed them of the extent to which this could be carried out.’

In those last words — ‘I informed them of the extent to which this could be carried out’ — we have the key to the psychology of the Inspector’s approach to a bunch of extremely naughty girls whom he describes elsewhere as being

‘of a hooligan type (with)… no training whatever… not particularly sensitive and (who) cannot therefore be appealed to in the same way as a girl who has been better trained.’

Dr Norris simply gave these ‘insensitive hooliganesses’, in other words a long, extremely graphic and deliberately embarrassing lecture about the whipping of bottoms in general and their young-womanly bottoms in particular! It was copiously illustrated, as I gathered from my informant, by anecdotes; including a blow-by-blow account of the ‘six of the best’ which had only a few hours earlier been applied by Miss Langley, under his personal superintendence, to the thinly-bloomered bottom of young Dora with the exceptionally supple ‘boys-reformatory grade’ rattan he had brought down with him from London and presented to the Superintendent for that very purpose. When Norris described, therefore, the difficulty the members of his teenage audience would experience in sitting down after a seat-of-the-knickers caning, the girls only had to look at their fellow inmate to see exactly what he meant. There was naughty young Dora squirming about on the hard wooden form for all the world as if she had ‘ants in her pants’. When Norris, lifting the yellowy rattan from the table beside him on the dais and flexing it between his outstretched hands, spoke of ‘red marks on the bottom of any girl in this school who shows the slightest sign of insubordination in future’, they knew what he was talking about — for had not young Dora but recently slipped down her regulation bloomers to display to all and sundry the scarlet weals neatly laddering her own jutty bottom following a passage of arms with that same cane? When he graphically dwelt on the aural effects of the posterior punishment of teenage girls, when he spoke of loud swishes, louder cane-on-knicker-seat smacks, and even louder repentant howls from bottom-whipped ‘hooliganesses’, Norris was simply reminding his audience of the sounds they themselves had heard issuing from the no-longer-barricaded dormitory earlier that day after he and Miss Langley had effected an entrance.

By this stage, presumably, the Inspector had begun to raise on the upper cheeks of even the more brazen and ‘insensitive’ young women present some semblance of the far more vivid blushing he was threatening to have the Superintendent produce on that other ‘pair’ normally veiled by their nineteen-twentyish ‘Prime of Miss Jean Brodie’ regulation drawers. But caning on the knickers, he went on to explain, was only the half of ‘the extent to which corporal punishment could be carried out’. If Exhibit No. 1 in the lecture had been that so supple-looking Home Office cane, and Exhibit No. 2 the sight of young Dora’s fifth-form buttocks looking as if she had spent hours sitting in the nude in a cane-bottomed chair, Exhibit No. 3 was — the tawse! Not the sort of two- or three-tailed Loch ell nowadays familiar to Scottish lads and lasses, but a six-tailed specimen specially designed for ‘skelping’ really naughty big girls of the sort only to be found in reformatories. Warming to his theme, no doubt, Norris would have graphically emphasised that the tawse was for bare seats. And how they must have jumped, and blushed to the very roots of their hair, when the Inspector slapped the leather tails flatly and noisily down on the table beside him, inviting them to imagine what that would be like on a pair of bare teenage bottom-cheeks!

Sixty years ago, of course, nobody — not even a medical practitioner accustomed to be blunt even when describing the female anatomy! — would have dreamt of addressing a well-bred schoolgirl audience in such unvarnished terms. Gently-bred young ladies, if caned at all, ‘held out their hands’; and if, in exceptionally bad cases in particularly strict boarding schools, worse occurred, matron or a housemistress would use only the most guarded language to the assembled school; the merest hint that ‘Tickle Toby’ might have to ‘give some of you gels a little talking to’, or a reference to finding a little ‘cane furniture for an unfurnished sitting room’, would suffice to set every last pair of buttocks twitching apprehensively and every other pair of cheeks flaming furiously as the delicately-nurtured strove to avoid each others’ eyes! But Norris was faced, at Kenilworth, not with a bunch of ‘bread-and-butter misses’ but with an out-of-hand rioting rabble of some of the naughtiest young women the entire country could provide. And he picked his words accordingly, no doubt, in the humane hope that by impressing their minds with the threat of rattan and leather he would be able to avoid the necessity of impressing more tangible stigmata on any pair of buttocks except those of the ring-leader Dora.

But the extent of the authorities’ difficulty was vividly revealed when Norris, re-visiting the school only a few days later, was informed (in his words, and with his gloss) that ‘In the meantime, the youngest girl in the school (Ethel Milton), evidently a ringleader… and who had been absolutely defiant for some days, had behaved very badly, had refused to work and had used very foul language to the staff. The Superintendent thereon had given her severe corporal punishment — perhaps rather too severe though justified under the special circum-stances.’

‘Perhaps rather too severe’, indeed! Norris vouchsafes no further details, but his junior colleague, Miss Wall, is rather more specific, and we learn from her separate report in the same file that when she visited Kenilworth on 29 May, ‘Miss Langley… spoke of Ethel Milton, 13.5/12, who had had 12 strokes of the tawse on the seat,’

thus confirming the exceedingly graphic account already provided by my own correspondent, for whom even the passage of nearly sixty years had not clouded the minutest detail of the spectacle which this delinquent had presented once she had been stripped to her knickers and vest before the assembled school and the former garment had been peeled mid-way down spraddled thighs, with Miss ‘Very Foul Language’ backside-upwards over the low padded-leather  vaulting horse specially fetched for the purpose from the gym! The only element which my informant disputed in Miss Wall’s account was the statement of Ethel’s age, which apparently reflects the common stratagem whereby girls of that class in those days ‘advanced’ their date of birth in the hope of advancing the date of their release from reformatory confinement. ‘Not a day under sixteen, and a great strapping wench at that,’ was the apt description I received, for Miss Langley, at least, evidently found her ‘a great strapping wench’ indeed! What the ‘six-tailer’ lacked in terms of the swishiness of the rattan previously used on Dora was evidently made up for by the noisy smach as the flat tawse-fingers were slapped down fantail across the broadened hips of the bare-bottomed youngster. For the all-agog audience, evidently, the indecency of the culprit’s ‘very foul language to the staff’ was fittingly matched by the indecency of the punishment posture; and every intimate detail of Dr Norris’s ‘whipping lecture’ was now vividly exemplified in repentant howls counterpointing the slap of naked leather on bare tomboy buttocks, and in the sight of tawse-tails hungrily clinging to frantically-tossing scarlet bottom-cheeks atop the ‘pommel’ of the gymnasium whipping horse.

Contrary to the suggestion conveyed in your earlier article, therefore, no unprincipled or abandoned ‘wholesale bare-bottomed  caning of an unspecified number of teenage girls’ can be said to have occurred at Kenilworth. Rather, a precisely-calculated surgical operation — or rather, two such: Dora’s seat-of-the knickers caning and Ethel’s knickers-down strapping — combined with the psychological impact of Norris’s unveiled ‘whipping lecture’ threats; the whole being calculated to impress ‘insensitive’ female hooligans unlikely to be influenced by gentler means.

Your earlier commentator also posits an ‘absence of any physiological excuse for bottom-caning’ at Kenilworth, and says that ‘none was presented’ in the papers now officially preserved. To a degree this is true. At the school itself, judging from the file, the ‘hands versus bottoms’ argument went on for some time between the Lady Inspector, Miss Wall — who favoured tingling palms — and the Superintendent, Miss Langley — who had a decidedly robust preference for well-toasted bottom-cheeks. The Superintendent’s preference, certainly, seems to have had a psychological basis. Pressed by Miss Wall ‘to consider whether, now that the school was in better order, she would be able to administer corporal punishment on the hands instead of on the seat, (Miss Langley) demurred about this and said the girls had been told they would get it on the seat and she did not think they would pay attention to any milder form of corporal punishment.’

It was Dr Norris himself, of course, who had so explicitly ‘told the girls they would get it on the seat’, in the course of the memorable ‘whipping-on-the-bottom’ lecture he had read them a few days earlier. But Miss Langley’s reference to ‘any milder form of corporal punishment’ surely also at least implies a ‘physiological excuse’ for selecting posteriors and not palms as targets. It is a time-honoured truism that the buttocks are the only really safe portion of the male or female anatomy for really severe disciplinary attention; and your commentator, in his perusal of the file, seems to have overlooked the fact that the foul-mouthed Ethel had indeed received just such a thrashing. Not a mere ‘sixer’, as your article suggested, but a real old-fashioned, no-nonsense ‘12 of the best’ — of the very best, at that. Miss Langley, make no mistake, evidently stoked up a real Guy Fawkes bonfire on that naughty young woman’s rudely-presented big bare bottom-cheeks! Could proffered palms have absorbed, safely, anything like the amount of punishment the Superintendent was evidently determined to inflict on Ethel both as a deterrent to her and as an example to the others? Could such an ‘absolutely defiant’ female hooligan, adopting Norris’s phraseology, even have been trusted to keep her palms thus proffered even for six of the best, let alone a round dozen? Surely not. If this analysis is correct, then physiological as well as psychological considerations spared our young culprit’s ungloved palms at the expense of her unpantied posterior!

If confirmation were needed both of the sheer severity of Ethel’s strapping and of the incorrigibility of the teenager herself, it is provided by Miss Wall herself in describing an intriguing sequel to that round (and round-bottomed) dozen with the tawse:-

‘… a few days after this Ethel started bouncing a ball in the passage and knocking it against the office door on purpose. She (i.e. Miss Langley) did not feel Ethel had sufficiently recovered from corporal punishment on the seat for her to administer another whipping, so she said she was to have one tablespoonful of castor oil. This she refused, so she was given two, which she took.’

If the youngster’s buttocks were in no state for a further spot of ‘tickle-tail’, even in the shape of a seat-of-the-knickers caning, several days after that first strapping, what a Study in Scarlet she must have presented by the time she had scrambled off the Superintendent’s impromptu whipping horse! Small wonder, perhaps, that Miss Langley saw little point, after such an epic demonstration, in dealing out tingling palms. Those two tablespoonfuls of castor oil were a cunning and effective substitute, for their inevitable after-effects must have been calculated by Miss Langley with reference to the current condition of the delinquent’s derriere — and the cold hard loo-seat to which young Ethel may have been effectively chained for much of the rest of the day was doubtless the very last situation desired by a naughty girl with a very sore bottom!

Although the castor oil incurred, to coin a pun, the stern displeasure of the Lady Inspector, whose report describes how she ‘asked Miss Langley to discontinue giving castor oil as a punishment and suggested that it should be given on the doctor’s advice and on his prescription as to the size of the dose’,

it seems to have remained very much a feature of the Kenilworth regime throughout Miss Langley’s long reign, as, perhaps, did Dr Norris’s overseeing of disciplinary matters in general, frequently asking the telephone operator in his office to connect him immediately to Kenilworth so that he could urge on Miss Langley suitable ‘prescriptions’ for the girls involved in reported misbehaviour. Such as a ‘sixer’ on the knickers of any young madam caught misbehaving in future; and a publicly bare-bottomed ‘12 strokes of the tawse on the seat’ for any naughty girl who could be identified as a ‘ring-leader’, and who should imperatively be sought out and thus ‘dosed’ with the very barest minimum of delay!

Ellen Barker

----//----

The article Training Ship Viceroy in Blushes No. 2 prompted a number of letters from readers. One of particular interest was from a gentleman who included a letter from his wife. Excerpts from it (it was a lengthy letter) are printed below.

On arrival we assembled in the square, a motley-looking group of 16-year-old youngsters, 150 boys and 50 girls formed up in three ranks in front of the huge rigged mast which was manned on special parade days. We were divided into five watches of 40 each watch (30 boys, 10 girls). Each watch was allocated a mess deck (barrack room) except that the girls had a separate building. We were then sent to the quarter master to draw our kit and uniform, hammocks and bedding.

After drawing our kit, we were allocated lockers in the mess deck and told to dress in fatigue overalls, plus hats and parade in the assembly hall for an address by the Captain. We all looked strange in our new gear and sat in the hall, called to attention as the Captain arrived. He told us that the history and tradition of Neptune and its reputation for turning out fine naval recruits. He emphasised the importance of women and girls in the modern navy and that they could be subject to precisely the same tough training and discipline as the boys. That brought him to the subject of discipline and punishment. ‘We firmly believe in short, sharp severe punishment at Neptune,’ he said ‘and most offences are dealt with by corporal punishment, girls and boys alike.’

Each day began with reveille at 06.30 for PT at 06.45. This was on the square in fine weather and in the mess rooms if raining. For PT boys wore vests, navy blue shorts, ankle socks and plimsolls and the girls’ vests, navy blue knickers, ankle socks and plimsolls. The girls looked really sexy with their braless breasts thrusting through the thin cotton of their vests, usually with prominent nipples and navy-blue knickers stretched tightly across their buttocks and crotch. After breakfast, we had a full parade in uniform at 08.00. Then we changed into fatigues for lessons and other instruction through the day.

We had longer sessions of PT in the gym four times a week and the boys loved to be in such close proximity to the girls in their thin white cotton vests, breasts straining against the fabric as they bounced about. It was during our second PT lesson that I first saw a girl get the strap. One rather plump, large, well-built girl, was a bit slow at PT and was accused of being idle. The PTI threatened her with a dose of the strap if she didn’t work harder at exercises. She didn’t do very well and he made her lay across the top of the leather-covered vaulting horse, her buttocks straining the tightly stretched navy-blue cotton of her knickers. He slashed the strap down across the centre of the buttocks very hard and she yelled as the thick leather left a mark on the seat of her knickers. Six times he strapped her bottom, until she was yelling and in tears and he must have given her very severe weals because he hit her so hard. She was crying for the rest of the lesson. That evening we asked her to show us her bottom when she was getting undressed for bed. Her buttocks were covered in dark purple-red broad weals from the strap, the tail marks clearly showing on her right buttock. She said they were still very sore to touch and hurt every time she sat down, as she walked we ran our fingers over her wealed buttocks which were hot, hard and swollen to the touch.

One morning one of the instructors had some trouble from one of the boys and called him to the front. ‘Drop your trousers’ she said. He hesitated then unbuttoned his bell bottom trousers and let them drop to his knees. As he bent across the desk his buttocks were only protected by the thin white cotton of his underpants. She slashed the leather tawse down with tremendous force across the centre of his buttocks and you could hear him gasp with pain. She gave him six hard strokes one of which strayed below the leg of his pants leaving a red tail mark at the top of his right thigh. He was yelling and crying by the fourth stroke and had a very red, swollen face as he pulled his trousers up. One of the other girls and I had been saying to each other how painful it must be each time the leather hit his bottom and something she said made me giggle. As he went back to his place the instructor called the other girl and me to the front. ‘You seem to have a lot to say and appear to think this is a joke,’ she said, ‘so you can both see for yourselves how you like the strap. Pull up your skirt and bend over,’ she said to my friend Pat. Pat hitched her skirt up around her waist and bent across the desk, her bottom stretching her cotton knickers tight. The instructor raised the tawse over her head and brought it down very hard right across the centre of the seat of Pat’s knickers. She yelled and gasped as the pain hit her. She received four hard strokes, each one leaving the marks of the leather tails of the two-tailed tawse on the seat of her navy-blue knickers. I was trembling with fear by this time, as I realised that in a moment my bottom would be receiving the same treatment from that strap. As Pat stood up, obviously in pain, the instructor motioned me towards the desk, my back to the class and told me to raise my skirt above my waist. I pulled it up. As I leaned forwards across the desk, my arms above my head and hanging over the far edge, my bottom seemed stretched tight and very vulnerable. I lay there, my heart pounding as the instructor stepped to my left side and raised the stout leather strap. The strap makes no noise, like a cane, as it travels through the air, the first sound being the impact as it strikes with a very loud CRACK. A white-hot burning fire started in a broad band across the centre of my buttocks and seemed to take my breath away and fill my whole body, lungs, stomach, with unbearable pain. I had had the cane at school and my mum and dad caned me and my brothers and sisters when we were naughty, but never had I felt pain like this. As I gasped in deep breaths, the pain slowly subsided, then came the second strike, higher up my bottom CRACK. Again that white hot all-consuming pain and I found tears starting to roll from my cheeks. Just as it became bearable the third stoke cut low down almost across the top of my thighs and I felt the tails cut into my right leg at the top — CRACK. I almost jumped up, so severe was the pain, but I lay there gasping for breath. The fourth and last stroke was again across the middle of my buttocks, just overlapping  the first and I yelled as the leather belt caught my already sensitive flesh. As I lay there crying with pain and humiliation the instructor told me to get up and return to my seat. I stood up and pulled my skirt down over my hot bottom and returned to sit down on the hard wooden seat very gingerly. At the break, I went to the toilet and pulled down my knickers to feel my bottom with both hands. It was red hot and swollen with tender, ridged weals, each of which stood out clearly to my fingertips.

A week later one of the girls in our watch was in trouble and sent off to the Captain for the cane. That night as she undressed for bed she showed us her buttocks — they were an unbelievable mass of dark blue-black tramline weals and we could count all ten strokes which went from the top of her buttocks down to the upper part of her thighs.

I suppose it was only a matter of time before each one of us felt the Captain’s cane and some five weeks later I was in trouble and marched before the Captain. His dressing down was quite severe and frightening in itself, then he said ‘You know the consequences of being sent to me for misbehaviour. You will receive ten strokes of the cane across your bare buttocks’. He needn’t have reminded me that I would have to lower my knickers and bare my bottom for the cane and I was trembling with fear as we marched into a side room off his office. The punishment room was a bright, airy, white-painted bare room with just a large padded vaulting horse like they used for gym, but lowered to just over table height. A rack on one wall had straps and canes hanging from it in a neat row, I counted six straps, all thick and heavy with two tails, and about ten canes. Some thicker than the others and all except three had carved handles, long, yellow and polished. The other three had ridges every two or three inches and were much darker in colour.

The Master of Arms was with us and the Matron from the Sick Bay. The Captain told me to remove my fatigue trousers completely, lower my knickers to my knees and then bend over along the length of the padded horse. I fumbled with the belt and buttons at the waist of my trousers and pulled them down, stepping right out of them. I then stepped over to the end of the horse and grasping the elastic at the waist of my knickers, slid them down until they were in a bunch around my knees. I bent forward so that my head and body lay along the leather padded top of the horse.

I was told to place my feet well apart… ‘Ten strokes, Master at Arms,’ said the Captain as the Master of Arms took one of the long, yellow canes and flexed it between his hands — it was the junior grade, not as thick as the senior cane, but still stout and some half-inch thick. He stepped to my left-hand side and I held my breath waiting for the first stroke. There was a whoosh as the cane whistled through the air and hit my buttocks right across the middle with considerable force. WHAM!! — it was like a white-hot knife, the pain surged through my body as I gasped aloud with pain and the Captain called out ‘One’. I was gasping aloud for breath as every nerve strained at the intense pain, then after about 30 seconds, just as it started to subside whoosh THWACK, ‘Two’, as the second stroke landed higher up my bottom. I had never known pain as intense as this and I wriggled on the horse trying to bear the pain as it seared through my entire body, stomach, lungs everything seemed at bursting point. Then it began to be bearable and whoosh, THWACK ’Three’, the thick yellow rod bit into the marked flesh of my buttocks once more and I cried out with pain as it once again filled my whole world with pain, whoosh, THWACK, ‘Four’, THWACK, ‘Five’, THWACK, ‘Six’ — they kept coming relentlessly, regardless of my yelling and crying, keeping my body at a pinnacle of intense pain. The Master at Arms was an expert with that cane as he slashed it across the bare flesh of my bottom, working down towards my thighs. THWACK, ‘Seven’, THWACK, ‘Eight’, these two falling across the tender flesh at the top of my thighs and which made me writhe and buck, tears streaming down my face. ‘No more, please don’t cane me anymore’, I cried desperately.

Whoosh — THWACK — ‘Nine’, a strike aimed deliberately diagonally across the others from bottom left to top right, the tip biting into my right hip. The agony was intense as the rod cut across the other eight weals which were very sore already. Whoosh — THWACK — ‘Ten’ was the hardest of all, across the other diagonal, the tip biting into the top of my right thigh with excruciating pain. I yelled and cried, collapsing in a sobbing heap, as I realised no more strokes would cut my reddened, swollen buttocks. As I lay there crying for some time, and then I was told to stand up and get dressed. I must have been a sorry sight standing there at the end of the horse, my knickers round my knees and my buttocks criss-crossed with swollen, purple weals. I pulled my navy-blue knickers up gingerly over my swollen buttocks, the leg elastic hurting the weals at the top of my legs and the tight knickers seemed to intensify the heat and pain in my bottom.

Pinner, Middlesex

Dear Editors,

I am the daughter of a senior-forester and I grew up in my father’s forester’s house, together with my two sisters. Our mother died when I was twelve and when our father did not find another wife and mother who would take care of three very lively girls and would live rather lonely with quite some way to the next town, he decided to bring us up himself, with the help of only a daily woman from the nearby small village.

Not a simple task for a man, you may say — and you would be quite right. But our father was an old-fashioned man and an imminent practical man, and since he had always several dogs, hunting dogs, he decided simply to follow the proverb which says, ‘A woman, a dog and a walnut tree, the more you beat them, the better they be’. You need only replace women with girls — and there you are!

Entering our house in the following years, you would observe without much difficulty a strap, a formidable cane and a small dog-whip hanging in our wardrobe. Or passing our house in the evening for a stroll into the forest, you might hear very strange or, perhaps very familiar sounds emanating from it, sounds very much like crying and screaming — and this for quite a while, if you chose to linger a bit; a true indication this was, that one of us ‘got it again’.

‘Us’, that were my sisters Inge and Sophie and me, Eleonore. We were the terror of the small village sometimes and since I was the eldest (the other two were one and two years younger) I was mostly the driving element in our raids. We could pretty well cope with the village boys — our combined force of unfair biting, scratching etc. put them often enough to flight. But more often than not, we had to pay afterwards for our practical jokes, to pay in Daddy’s office and to pay very hard.

Dad was fully aware that he could keep his daughters in line only if he was very strict — and so he acted. How often we had to fetch ‘the Instruments’ from the wardrobe and visit his office, I can’t recall, but there have been times, when not one week passed without one of us entering his office for disciplinary purposes, strap, cane and dog-whip in hand.

The procedure was always the same for these occasions. After entering all three Dad’s office (two of us were always witnesses of the third’s punishment) we had to undress completely, place an upholstered bench in the middle of the room and lay back on it with our legs up and firmly locked with knees together in our hands; I have heard this position being called ‘Internat-Position’, for what reason I don’t know.

Then, after some time a lecture would follow before Daddy fetched the strap and ‘set to work’. This ‘working’ developed into a very thoroughly strapping of our naked bottoms and thighs, which he went through very leisurely, changing from one side of us to the other every few strokes and covering thus every inch of our not so small hindquarters.

That finished, he would ‘let this sink in a little’ before he took the cane and started to lay it on also from both sides, slowly, deliberately slowly — and extremely painful. Not that that strap didn’t hurt — it did quite nice although we were absolutely not soft — but the cane was an altogether other matter. The nearly ninety centimeter of it had its own quality on our already strapped flesh. Which could be learned also quite easy from the outside by the wall-penetrating quality of our howls and yells.

Daddy never said beforehand how many strokes one was going to receive. One could only follow his movements through the flood of tears and guess from the degree of content which his face showed, when he surveyed the area of his attention from time to time. Content by what we did present to him, he would retire behind his desk — still discontent, he would slowly add a few more strokes with his terrible cane — rather unimpressed by all our tears and pain, our howls and yells under his cane.

When at last finished with the cane, another pause followed with another lecture and then — yes, if you were lucky or hadn’t too much on your account, you had to rise and move into the corner for one hour with your hands on your head. But if you had bad luck or much to account for, then Dad would fetch his small dog-whip, you would spread your legs, but still up and clasped in your hands and Dad would whip your inner thighs, slowly, very slowly, until he was content at last with the whole punishment for you. ‘Inner thighs’ that included also the region of our bottoms where the cane-weals were interrupted, i.e. our cleft and if you had been particularly naughty, it would also include your pussy.

And an occasional observer outside would again notice the new and even more piercing quality of our screams and attribute it to a very severe discipline.

To let go of our legs would result in the repetition of the last stroke; leaving the bench without outspoken permission would result in a complete restart of the punishment, regardless to what point it had already proceeded. And of course we had long learned to keep our position.

With this discipline we became fifteen, seventeen and nineteen, and in my case even twenty-two before these punishments stopped. I can recall very well several times  in Dad’s office after my twenty-first birthday, with my fiancée — a junior-forester then and now my father’s successor in his office — with him following the proceedings without the slightest intention to interfere with Dad’s doings. And when I just said ‘Dad’s successor in his office’ than that is true in more than one sense of the word. He succeeded Dad — who is retired now, but living with us — not only in the official use of his office, as new senior forester of the district, but also in the more educational tasks.

What that means? Simply that I never managed in all the bygone years to stay away from that office and from that bench in it for a long time and I am fully aware, that I am not the last female member of our family to lay back on that bench, legs up and waiting with a lot of fear for her punishment — and I think our two girls are also aware of it.

So you see that proverbs are usually right and long-lived.

Eleonore Striemen, Hoffnungsthal

Dear Sirs,

Firstly let me congratulate you on a first class C.P. Magazine Blushes. From its first issue I have been impressed by the format, layout, quality of the printing and attractiveness of your models. I would perhaps like to see a little more colour and a few more tramlines on their cheeks, but then you cannot please everyone all of the time. Best wishes for the future and I am sure you will go from strength to strength.

I notice you are requesting gentlemen who know how to use a cane to contact you. To this end I enclose a photo from my collection which I think speaks for itself. This particular young lady has felt my hand, strap, paddle, a slipper, but her favourite is the cane, although she cries copiously during the whole performance.

I have considerable experience in dealing with female bottoms from 16 upwards and have an extensive collection of photos and tape recordings of these sessions and indeed one video somewhat poor in quality.

You are assured of my assistance should it be needed.

K.V.F. Essex

Dear Editor,

Although it is not my usual practice to write to magazines — or to film, TV, or sports stars — or even Superstars — I felt I should make the effort in the case of Blushes No. 3. This rush of enthusiasm is promoted by the series of photographs on pages 21 to 27, under the heading, Booked. The young lady most certainly is! In some very humiliating and quite embarrassing positions, calling for no effort beyond her own (no doubt reluctant) to maintain. I like the way these get worse (or better, to my mind). The real classic being on page 25, of course, though perhaps the small inset photos have lost something by being cropped too closely? One query: Why B & W?

That candle is cheating in the worst possible way! But what a superb way to ensure she remains subdued, and gives her full co-operation to the job of work in hand. She certainly won’t give too much trouble, or even do too much jumping and jerking about.

The books are almost as good, of course, as a method of anchoring her fairly securely, prior to spanking and possibly caning hell out of the very attractive bum she is displaying so provocatively. The candle-classic arranges her ideally almost, for the final conclusion, later, if necessary.

The photo sequence on pages 30 to 35 is also very good — natural and quite believable, but without being too obvious. I appreciate this subtle change from the usual magazine photos. Also your model is exactly right. My compliments to her, and to all concerned.

Some thought on this point: (subdued co-operation) by some simple, handy means, easily available, yet quite believable, leads me to suggest that this should be followed up in subsequent issues. Hopefully, you will agree and will follow up on this theme? Possibly using books and candle in several obvious combinations (and some perhaps not quite so obvious) that leap to mind after a few minutes thought.

The humiliation and embarrassment of the subject is part of any spanking, or caning, to my mind. I can’t think of many more annoying, helpless positions and predicaments for a girl to be in — and very provocative, too! Especially the hands-between-the-knees on pages 30, 31, and 32.

Final comment: I’m now looking forward to much more Blushes, whether you respond to the above observations or not.

A. H-B. Lancs.

 

Dear Sirs

I felt that I must write to congratulate your editorial team on the first two issues of Blushes. Periodicals on ‘specialist’ subjects can vary very much in content and quality from one number to the next, but the indications are that Blushes coincides exactly with my own tastes and is put together with such care and affection that you can hardly go wrong. And any magazine that can cut its price after the first issue is bound to build up a loyal following.

As other letter-writers have hinted, the key to your supremacy is in the depiction of genuine punishment and not love-play. While I respect the wishes of other readers, there really are plenty of ‘soft’ spanking magazines around these days, but until Blushes a distinct shortage of publications dealing with the succulent pleasures of severe discipline.

What a joy it is to see young models who really look like today’s schoolgirls and who have nice plump bottoms. The slightly chubby teenage girl is the type which inspires lecherous intentions in the disciplinarian — long may such girls suffer the consequences. No big-bummed girl enjoys attention being paid to her most vulgar feature and at the age when her self-awareness is at a peak, much fun can be had at her expense.

The stories in Blushes show a keen appreciation of the way in which the successive stages of a young girl’s subjugation should be savoured. In an excellent letter, M.B. of Worcester advises that ‘Twelve good strokes should be regarded as the minimum necessary to teach the lesson of obedience to a big, healthy girl’ and he goes on to recommend eighteen strokes and more. However, such measures, though essential, are only half the story. It is the delicious process of humiliating a tender girl which completes the lesson of obedience. D.E. of Edmonton writes with warmth of the transformation of a ‘saucy young imp’ to a ‘weeping, demoralised girl’. Such a transformation can be achieved by an unrelenting build-up of pain and shame, but you need generous measures of both ingredients.

One man who seems to have got the blend about right is D.M. Norwich. His long letter and the beautiful photographs of his tame teenage typist constitute one of the most heart-warming documents I have seen in years. I am filled with admiration for Mr D.M., whose cool nerve enabled him to work what was a vaguely promising situation into a magnificent exploitation of a seventeen-year-old’s vulnerability. Although D.M. admits to having to overcome slight inhibitions about hurting her bum he clearly had no qualms about humiliating the girl — and sending in the pictures of her for publication is the coup de grace.

D.M. hopes that the pictures will be appreciated by readers, and I can assure him that they most certainly are! Carol — yes, you let the pseudonym slip just once, D.M. — Carol certainly has an interesting bottom. You speak of your ‘lewd pleasure’ at exposing it to the gaze of thousands so I imagine you will welcome a few comments about a teenage bottom that was, until the advent of Blushes 2, quite decently known only to Carol, yourself, and perhaps a boyfriend or two. Not even the boyfriends would have had the opportunity to study it at such leisure, or see it so meekly presented, or gloat over the satisfyingly sore-looking marks of strap, palm and cane upon it; now the sweet young thing is laid bare before the very men who most appreciate teenage bottoms, especially thrashed ones, and who rejoice in the distress of their owners.

I think Carol looks nicest in the top photo on page 59, where her chaste young rump is mocked by the glowering strap-marks and her face is highly coloured with sobbing. The faint marks on her bottom visible at the top of page 60 are no doubt caused by her silly habit of wearing tights inside her knickers. The lower picture on page 61 gives us the most intimate acquaintance with Carol’s blazing buttocks.

All in all, it seems a splendid example of the right girl falling into the right hands at the right time. D.M. tells us that Carol was a shy girl, and his letter and photographs prove his determination to ‘exploit her emotions shamelessly’. Thank you for sharing her with us D.M., and three cheers for your stirring example to us all.

I hope that D.M. has enjoyed seeing Carol and her story in print, and that my letter will add to his enjoyment. I also hope that other readers will be encouraged to send in photos of girls whom they know to have been, or still to be, subject to corporal punishment. They needn’t be as explicit as D.M.’s — just to gaze on the face of a teenage girl in the sure knowledge that she has squirmed and blubbered under the strap is a great joy.

Thank you once again, Blushes, for your true championship of discipline for teenage girls. Keep the right blend of true case histories and provocative fantasy and we will support you for years to come.

P.R. Huntingdon