The difference was immediately clear and very shocking. Instead of a class of sixteen boys, all the same age, who were taught by several different masters, I was now part of a class of fifty boys, ranged in age between eight and fourteen, taught all the time by Mr Newton.
He was a brutal looking, youngish man and I'm sure he did his best, but with so many potentially unruly boys to keep under control there was only one way he could do it. The cane was kept on permanent show and was in action five minutes after the lessons started on Monday morning. My friend Daniel, along with three other boys were lined up at the front because they were late. One by one they had to hold out their right hands and the left while Mr Newton slashed the cane down across their palms. Ten minutes later, one of the oldest boys, called Dan Knighton, got three strokes across each hand – I didn't know why.
Every day for my first week in the school I had to fight one or other of the other boys. The fights were held behind the garden shed at the bottom of the yard. I had been one of the best fighters in my last school and there were only one or two of the others willing to take me on. Now things were a little different. Sometimes I won; others I lost, but I was beginning to establish my position in the class. My first caning came when Mr Newton interrupted a fight with a boy called Luke Maltby. Both of us were sent into the classroom to wait for the end of the break and our punishment.
Out came the cane and Luke obediently put up his hands and was given six lashes across each palm that left him squeezing back the tears and clamping his hands under his armpits.
"Right hand, England," he ordered.
I raised my hand as Luke had done. The master lay the last few inches of the whippy rattan across my hand, raised it slowly till it was poised above his head and brought it singing down. I felt as though every stroke was cutting my hand off. The pain was simply indescribable and when I had had the full six across both hands they felt swollen and useless, as though I would never be able to use them again. For the rest of the afternoon we stood at the front of the large classroom, facing the blackboard, squeezing our hands under our armpits in a vain attempt to rub out the pain. I won't say it was worse than the brigadier's whippings across my bare bottom, but it wasn't very much better than that, and it seemed so stupid to cane our hands when that would mean that we couldn't use them for the rest of the afternoon.
Next day, despite all my efforts to avoid it, I got into another fight. This time is was with a tall fair-haired boy, called Michael Hill, who was generally regarded as the _c_o_c_k_ of the class. There was no chance of my winning this fight and Mr Newton's intervention saved me from a fairly serious mauling. Michael's iron-hard fists had drawn blood from my face and I had started to realise that I was going to be beaten.
Back in the classroom, Mr Newton was foaming with rage. Only yesterday he had given me a pretty severe lashing and here I was back again for another instalment. Michael too had been severely caned in recent days. Something would have to be done. His diatribe against fighting went on for a long time. Michael and I meanwhile stood facing our classmates, trying to look repentant, our faces bloodied, our shirts hanging out and our trousers muddy.
"I've had enough of this kind of behaviour," Mr Newton shouted. "A normal whacking seems to have no effect, so I shall have to try something else. Let's see how defiant they feel after a caning across their backsides. Hill – you first. Willings, come out and hold him for me."
Lee Willings was a solid boy at the top of the class, ideally suited for the job. But then came the real shock.
"Right, Hill. Let down your trousers."
There was a gasp of shock and excitement. Such a thing had never been known before. Canings on the bottom about once a year, I later discovered, but none of the assembled boys had ever known a boy's trousers to be taken down like this.
"But sir ....But I ain't wearing no drawers, sir."
"All the better."
Everyone could see that Michael was contemplating rebellion – refusing, bringing his father up to complain – but it was no good. For one thing, Michael's father was notorious for the beltings he administered to his sons' backsides; and for another Michael himself was basically very obedient, he believed in the system that was about to flog him; and for a third, he could see that a spectacularly severe punishment like this, bravely borne, would only confirm his status in the class.
He unbuckled his belt and lay it on a nearby desk, unbuttoned his trousers and let them fall to his ankles. Lee hoisted him on to his back by pulling his arms over his shoulders and then bending over so that his bottom was well-presented for the cane. Mr Newton hoisted Michael's shirt, exposing the strong white buttocks. Slowly he took aim and applied six massive lashes that raised instant scarlet weals. He paused, but Michael's whipping wasn't over yet and he wasn't allowed to get down.
"Jarvis. Come up and hold England for me." Another of the big boys came out and I got ready. Without waiting to be told I dropped my trousers and followed them down with my underpants, and then offered my arms to Simon Jarvis so he could hoist me over his back.
"Keep your drawers on," said Mr Newton. "You're a new boy and you weren't as much to blame as Hill, I dare say."
I looked back at the boys of the class watching me and then at Michael whose head had turned towards me from his position hanging on Lee's back. "No, sir," I said. "If Michael deserves it with nothing on, so do I."
"Very well," he said and signalled to Simon to hoist me. I was lifted till my feet were off the floor and then I felt my shirt being hauled up my back. It was less than a week, of course, since the brigadier had whipped me and I was very gratified by the gasp from the class as they saw the state of my bottom. Mr Newton showed no hesitation, however. The cane whistled through the air and sliced excruciatingly into my helpless rear end. After six strokes it stopped but I wasn't released. The master went back to Michael and planted another six across his backside. I knew what this must be like. The bruises had come out now and Michael yelled loudly as the cane cut across the earlier weals. Then I got the second instalment. Compared to the brigadier's whippings it was nothing special, but I didn't want to show Michael up too much so I yelled as loud as I could on the last few strokes.
Finally, after another brief lecture on fighting from Mr Newton while the two of us hung there as an awful warning to the other boys, we were allowed to get down and pull up our trousers. Impossible to sit down immediately, so the two of us spent the afternoon stretched over a desk side by side, our taut trousers an object of contemplation for the other fifty boys in the room.
"Have you had the stick like that before?" Michael asked in a whisper.
"Yes. Have you?"
"No, but my dad uses his buckle strap on us pretty often."
"That must hurt."
"_f_u_c_k_ing right! How's your arse feel now?"
"Still stinging. How's your."
"Burning."
We lay there silent for a while, the class humming quietly behind us with the occasional quiet command from Mr Newton. I felt the fire of the beating start to fade eventually, in the way I was now so familiar with. I knew that my bottom would still be glowing at dinnertime when I would have to face my uncle.
"What'd you get the stick on your bare arse for in your last school?" Michael asked.
"Lots of things. The brigadier, that's the headmaster, always made us strip off for it."
"What, starkers?"
"Usually, unless he did it in his study. Then you just put your trousers down."
"What a tight old sod."
"Sometimes he used a strap, or a riding crop or he had a special beater thing that hurt the worst. Nearly as bad as his cane."
"_f_u_c_k_ off! He never used a horsewhip on you."
"Yes he did."
But although we were whispering, we were not quiet enough. Mr Newton had heard, picked up the cane and was standing poised behind us. Every boy in the room knew what we had coming except us. Suddenly, with no warning other than its sharp singing through the air, the cane was lashed into my taut backside and then into Michael, again and again, till both of us were squealing with the burning fire that bit deep into the muscles of our rumps. I lost all count of how many he gave us.
Then I was grabbed by my collar and my belt, hauled upright and marched across the dais where this drama was being played out to where another desk was placed for miscreants to work at. I was dragged down over this and left to contemplate the injustices of the world and the dreadful stinging of my posteriors.
At four o'clock the other boys were dismissed leaving Michael and I alone with our persecutor. For ten minutes or more he lectured us, or rather he lectured our backs since he wouldn't let us stand up.
"Have you learned your lesson? Can I count on you not to behave in this barbarous way in the future? Hill?"
"Yes, sir."
"England?"
"Yes, sir."
"I don't believe you. You are inveterate liars, the pair of you. Lie still." I lay still over my desk and heard the cane cracking yet again across Michael's trousers. He yelled after only a couple of strokes. I counted six, then Mr Newton's steps came across the dais to me.
"You, England, with the advantages that you have had, should know better. Lie still." For the third time that afternoon I was caned. It wasn't as severe as the first time, but the cane now couldn't help falling on tender flesh and I yelled as well as he could have wished, though part of me was still putting it on for Michael's benefit. When the two of us were allowed up, we both rubbed furiously at the seats of our trousers and there was nothing false about the sheer torture I was feeling.
"The _f_u_c_k_ing bastard!" Michael cursed as we walked together down the lane to the village. "He really had it in for us, didn't he? My arse feels like a _f_u_c_k_ing ploughed field."
"That was too much for what we did, wasn't it? Will you complain to your dad?"
"No. If father finds out I've had the stick, he'll just give me a dose of the strap to go with it. What about your uncle?"
"No. I don't want to tell him about it."
Michael nodded in approval. "We're going out spying on the lasses tonight. D'you want to come?"
"What d'you mean, spying on them?"
"There's some of 'em, the bold ones, goes swimming in the river down from where we goes. We'm going to see if we can catch 'em with nothing on."
That evening I followed my new friend and three older boys, including Simon Jarvis who had held me over his back for my beating that afternoon, as they stalked along the river bank to where the bold girls were reckoned to go swimming. I was used to going swimming with the village boys who used the deep pool below the weir. Once a pair of girls had wandered past while we were all in the water and there had been a great deal of horseplay and larking about. The older lads had hoisted a boy my age called Ben Alred out of the water so the girls could see his prick.
The information had been right. In a smaller pool under a stand of willows we found four girls swimming. We crept up under cover of the bushes. I couldn't believe my eyes. It was the first time I had ever seen any girl without her clothes on and I stared, completely fascinated, at their small white breasts. Inside my shorts I felt my _c_o_c_k_ going hard. I recognised two of the girls as coming from the small cottages down behind the church where the poorest families lived. The other two I didn't know, but they looked dark and fascinating, like gypsies. Their skin was brown and sleek and I caught a glimpse of dark hair in a triangle at the tops of their thighs.
Two of the older lads, Marcus Vassall and Matthew Milson, crept out of their hiding place and managed to take the piles of female clothing from the bank without being seen. Once they had achieved the prize we all stood up, shouting with triumph and holding the captured clothes above our heads. The girls screamed and ducked down under the water to hide their nakedness. The line of us stood and the top of the bank leering down at the group of cowering girls who were squealing and begging for their clothes back.
"You can have 'em back if you gives all of us a kiss," said Matthew.
"Get 'ome, Matt," said Marcus. "I wants more'n a _f_u_c_k_ing kiss out of this lot. That Louise is getting my _c_o_c_k_ up her crack."
"Me too," said Simon. "We can get our ends away 'ere, lads."
"You'll have to pay us for your clothes," said Marcus. "Louise and Sarah got to come over there in they bushes with me and Si. And Matt gets a kiss and good feel off Edna and these two gets a kiss from Martha there. Then you can have your clothes back."
There was huge indignation and shouting and argument but I got the impression that the girls wanted to give in. I was uneasy about the turn things had taken. I had reckoned only on spying on the girls. Now I was faced with much more. But Mike seemed to be taking it in his stride so I had to as well. The girls waded out of the pool, covering their nakedness with their hadns, though that only had the effect of making it more exciting and my _c_o_c_k_ felt like a flag pole inside my shorts and I hoped they wouldn't see. Marcus and Simon led the two bigger girls away to an area of willow and scrub. I watched them go and then disappear as they ducked down behind some low bushes. Matt beckoned Edna and she allowed him to kiss her and then, very briefly, put his hand between her legs.
The fourth girl was even younger than Mike and me. She was shivering with cold and terror. Mike gave her a brief kiss and then I did the same. Almost with relief we allowed her to find her clothes and get dressed.
"Come and look at this," said Mike. We climbed up on to the bank and on our bellies wriggled our way along to where we could look down on to the couples in the bushes. To my amazement, Marcus was lying on top of the girl. His trousers were round his ankles and his bare backside was moving rapidly up and down. The girl's legs were wrapped round him and she didn't seem to be arguing with him any more.
When Mike explained to me later what had been happening, I couldn't believe it. The thought of putting my prick into some sort of hole in a girl's body filled me with a kind of excited dread. I couldn't imagine how it would be at all pleasant. But then Mike asked me if I knew how to toss off.
Later, when I was in bed, I tried it, the way Mike had shown me, thinking about the girls I had seen and what Marcus and Simon had been doing with them. I was amazed and delighted at the way the sensation that started as a tickling, grew till it filled my body. Everything, all sensation, was concentrated into my prick. How soon, I wondered, would an opportunity come for me to do it properly with a girl? Was it as nice for them as it was for a boy? It was a mystery – and one that I couldn't wait to find out about.
But the excitement of that night wasn't repeated. Mike and I went to the pool often, but there were never any girls there and that happened was that we ended up tossing off together and measuring our pricks with a twig to see who had the biggest.
Instead, we took to a life of crime. There were the usual thefts that boys were almost expected to commit – from orchards and fields. Mike showed me how to take fish from the river when the bailiff wasn't looking and I led the way into the rector's garden where we filched strawberries until the gardener chased us off with threats to tell our fathers.
But over the next year there were also more serious crimes, and this led to the next big change in my life.