Room 2D

From Roué 39 Charles Penworthy, Headmaster, had for some time been on the look-out for a new broom. Geoffrey Watkins, appointed recently as Deputy Head and Geography teacher was that man. Like the Head, Mr Watkins was a staunch believer in strict discipline and all that it entails. ‘I couldn’t agree with you more, Headmaster,’ he had responded to the old boy’s observation that, ‘Youngsters today seem to think they can get away with murder.’ Watkins had spent the entire interview nodding at and agreeing with his prospective employer’s statements upon the lack of discipline and order and the need for a return to the age-old methods of corporal punishment. ‘This is an independent establishment, Watkins. Parents who send their girls here do so in the knowledge that CP will be employed when and if it is necessary. Yet I find that more and more of my staff are choosing to deal with disobedience and indiscipline in other, less efficient ways. Impositions, lines, detention — that sort of thi...

From Roué 39 It had gone on long enough. Something had to be done. It is one thing when a pupil disobeys school rules, but when that disobedience serves to cause the school’s Head embarrassment; undermines his authority, well, steps have to be taken. It had all started as a dare. The pupil in question, Emma Blake of 5B, presented herself at school on that Monday morning dressed in tight pink T-shirt and blue jeans. Taking the girl to one side, the Head quietly informed her that unless she returned home and changed into proper uniform she could not attend lessons that day. So, off went Emma, to return some two hours later correctly attired. A week later found Emma in morning assembly dressed in semi-transparent pale-blue blouse, red and white check skirt and stockings. Another word with the Head ensued, and Emma duly complied with the instruction to go home and change. During the next month Emma — to the delight of her friends ...

From Roué 29 As godfather to young Caroline, Gerald Lawson had been called upon to perform many duties in the seventeen years since she came into the world. One duty, though, that he could have had no idea of being called upon to perform when Caroline’s parents first asked him to be the child’s godfather was that of chastising the girl. Caroline’s father’s job took him abroad for roughly a quarter of the year and, six months ago, when he flew off to West Germany for a conference, Gerald received a telephone call from a rather distraught friend. It was Mary, Caroline’s mother. Apparently the girl had been playing up a lot at home and Mary simply couldn’t cope. ‘Of course,’ explained the woman, ‘if her father were here she’d get a damn good hiding. You wouldn’t consider standing in for Jack, would you, Gerald?’ Within ten minutes Gerald’s car was parked outside Mary’s house and the girl was across the man’s knee, getting the seat of her knickers warmed. Many such incidents had si...

From Roué 38 ‘In the living-room with you at once, young lady,’ Jenny’s father had told her upon his return home. ‘And make sure that you’re ready. I’ll be with you presently. Now, be off with you, girl.’ Jenny had pleaded with her mother not to tell her dad of her truancy. Her words had fallen on deaf ears. ‘This isn’t going to be a simple spanking, my girl,’ she’d said, ‘you’ve had enough warnings. No, it’s high time your father dealt with you.’ And so Jenny had spent two practically unbearable hours in her bedroom awaiting the arrival of her father. He’d called her down on hearing of her latest misconduct, given her a brief lecture, and despatched her to the living-room. Once in the room, Jenny quickly set about complying with her dad’s order to be ‘ready’. She thrust her hands up underneath her navy-blue gymslip, hooked her thumbs in the waistband of her tan-coloured tights, dragged them down, stepped out of them, and put them over the back of an armchair. Then, after a mom...

From Roué 38 Distraught she looks, and distraught she is entitled to look; for Sonia has just spent a rather distressing ten minutes over her Uncle Jack’s knee. Such events are fairly common on her much-hated weekly visits to her father’s widowed brother. Things as seemingly trivial as taking an opposing stance in a conversation is likely to be enough to prompt the man into action. Of course, a spanking for something as petty as that would result in the girl getting no more than half-a-dozen or so smart slaps to the backs of her legs. More serious faults — such as swearing or any sort of impoliteness — would mean a dozen or more crisp smacks to the seat of her knickers. Anything more grave than that — such as today’s little transgression (having a nip of the man’s gin when she thought he wasn’t looking) — called for far sterner measures. Sonia knew that these ‘sterner measures’ would be resorted to the very moment she’d been cau...

From Roué 38 It was  that  day again. The Day of the Hunt. Every other Sunday the more well-to-do inhabitants of Little Chitterworth met for a stirrup cup prior to riding off in hot pursuit of the cunning and elusive fox. It was a day much hated by two particular young ladies of the charming little village — Kathleen and Bernadette Flynn, the maidservants of Master of the Hounds, Sir Rodney D’Arcy. The Flynn sisters had been in Sir Rodney’s employ since their mid-teens when he had lived in their native Ireland. When he announced that he was retiring and returning to his roots in the Shropshire countryside, the girls accepted his invitation to join him. The girls’ mother, Sir Rodney’s cook on the other side of the water, had been handsomely pensioned-off, and saw her daughters’ opportunity as something they would be foolish to pass up. That was all some years back — Kathleen now being 25, and Bernadette 21. Working for the old boy was, for the most part, a doddle; their c...

From Roué 37 Miss Glover had her own special brand of punishing inattentive pupils. Unlike the vast majority of her fellow members of staff she, more often than not, wouldn’t resort to chastising talkative and giggling girls. Instead, she would order the miscreant to stand in the corner. Although this never failed to set off a bout of sniggering from the girl’s classmates (possibly the reason for the punishment in the first place), the woman revelled in the humiliation suffered by the girl in question. Standing there at the front of the class and facing the wall was indeed a most embarrassing thing for a girl of sixteen to have to do. It was the sort of punishment a junior or infant pupil would be more likely to be made to undergo. And it was because of this very fact that Miss Glover chose this particular method of disciplining her charges. It had been during a discussion on the greats of Russian literature that such a course of action was called for. Deeming the relative merits o...

From Roué 37 Sarah looked up in horror at Miss Kember. Had her ears deceived her? Did she hear right? Had the teacher really said what she thought she’d said? Her doubts were answered by the young woman who impatiently repeated her statement. ‘I told you to report to Mr Weller, girl. Now run along.’ The flaxen-haired sixth-former wasn’t alone in her astonishment at Miss Kember’s instruction. To report to Mr Weller, the Headmaster of St Catherine’s, would, as Sarah and her classmates well knew, result in punishment — to be precise,  corporal  punishment, and, as the entire school — pupils and teachers — knew, Miss Kember was very much against such correction. A mere fortnight had passed since a letter written by the liberal-minded young woman had appeared in a national daily. In it she most firmly condemned the use of CP. Now, though, the anti-CP Miss Kember was ordering one of her class to visit the study of the Head. It was an act totally out of character, and the eyes ...