Please read Part One first to make sense of this:

This is a slightly different story in that it is both a recollection of a real life event and I have added a couple of possible alternative outcomes had things gone just a bit differently.

The real life bit first. ........................................................

I went to school in Scotland in the 1970's when 'the belt' (no one ever called it by its real name, the Lochgelly Tawse, named after the village of its most prolific manufacturer, it was always the belt or the strap) was at its highest point. Every single teacher had their own tawse, some (the enthusiasts !) had several. They were in a myriad of shapes and sizes but they all had common features, they were about 24 inches long, an inch and a half or so across, around a quarter of an inch thick with the business end fringed into two or three 'tails'. They were made of the most dense stiff leather I have ever seen and they had but one purpose, to burn and scorch the palms of schoolboy's hands. The most popular by far was a tan two tailor made by John J. Dick of Lochgelly (he stamped his name in the centre of the belt). I rarely got belted (wimp) but some boys seemed determined to keep the class average up.

I rarely got the belt at school, only three times in total, and then only single strokes, but I never ceased to be fascinated by its look. Watching a classmate come out tom the teacher, hold his hands out at shoulder height with one hand supporting the other and watching the ritual of the belt coming out of the drawer, being 'measured up' then raised over the teachers shoulder for the downswing, a bit like chopping wood, as the hard stinging leather tails lashed down on someone's hands and seeing the reaction as a teenage boy tried desperately to show his friends he could take it was almost worth going to school for ! The strap was only permitted for school use across the hand (s) with a legal maximum of 6 strokes, but more than two strokes often got tears from even the toughest teenage lads. Some parents kept a belt at home for use on the bottom but no one I knew ever admitted to this.

When I was about 15 I pestered my parents to buy me a guitar for a birthday or Christmas. I duly got my cool guitar only to discover it wasn't something a cool teenager could get the hang of by trial and error. After being nagged for not using the acoustic guitar I had been obsessed with only a few weeks earlier I figured out that there were community (free!) night classes in beginner level guitar and I signed up for 2 nights a week. I discovered it was taught by some guy who had a day job but the actual classes were held in a classroom in my Grammar School Music Department although most of the students were in their 20s or 30s. The classes began early enough to make coming home after school inconvenient so I sort of hung around and lugged my guitar, in a plastic carrying case, into the music department. The first few nights I was alone in the class for a half-hour or so until the first arrival came wandering in for class. Being nosy and bored I started poking around in things I shouldn't, writing on the board etc (but always careful to rub it off, I was a schoolboy and I was in my school after all, even if it was well after hours.

On about my 4th night of this boring class I sat at the teachers desk and fiddled around (I needed to be a bit careful as there was a very small window in each door and someone outside could have seen, but no-one had ever disturbed me this early before) and I discovered the desk drawer had been left unlocked. A bit of (very nervous, this was a definite no-no) poking about amongst the sort of junk a music teacher keeps in his drawer then my hand froze. I was looking at a 2 tailed, stiff as a board, tan Lochgelly H (for Heavy, they came in various models) schoolteachers strap. I shut the drawer quickly (wimp) and almost ran to 'my' seat in the classroom. My heart was thumping as I decided to do two things quite out of character; take a huge risk and steal something I decided then and there, my hands must have been shaking, that I would steal the teachers belt. Before I could change my mind I went to the drawer, took the belt and returned to my seat. If you have ever seen a tawse you will realise they are most inflexible, you literally couldn't bend it more than 30 degrees or so without cracking the leather finish. I was in a quandary. Then I realised I had my guitar case and I slid the strap up where the neck of the guitar sits.

Throughout the class I was focussed on how I was going to manoeuvre the thing back into its case at the end of class without the illicit strap falling out. I succeeded and went off home to fantasise in my room that night and mess around with my first real schoolteacher's belt. It was the best night ever !

The next time I went to night class the teacher's drawers were securely locked.

I hid it securely in my room for a week or so then it disappeared. I panicked as I realised my mother must have found it cleaning up. The subject was simply never raised. It was as if the whole thing had been a dream. I now realise she probably had her suspicions as to my interests but decided to leave well alone.

So that is what DID happen; here's what MIGHT have happened. Version Two ..............................................................................

When I got home that night I had great fun playing around with the belt, it was mine, all mine !

Two weeks later though, when I got home from school my mother was sitting on the couch with 'my' belt lying on the coffee table. I was taken aback, stunned and stuttered. She just looked at it and at me and said "Explain!" Maybe if I had had a few minutes (months!) to think about it I might have been able to concoct a half decent story about looking after it for a teacher who was away or something, as it was all I could get out was a stutter and a mumble.

Mum was having none of it. In best Interrogation Technique she quickly wormed out of me (my face was beetroot) that I had stolen it. I had no plans to tell her why though, no matter how much she pressed me, I just kept on insisting it was a prank to annoy a particularly nerdy teacher. She kept pushing; I kept sticking to my story. "All right young man. We'll just see what your father has to say about this when he gets home." I tried to get out of that one but got sent upstairs to wait in my room.

I was nervous as Hell, sitting on the end of my single bed looking at the pop group posters on my bedroom wall (that _d_a_m_n_ed guitar..). Dad wasn't a violent man, and I was 15 for goodness sake, but I knew he would be right royally pissed off at me for theft. Stealing was something I had had drummed into me was absolutely inexcusable. When I heard him come in there followed a period of silence. No doubt he was getting a blow by blow account from mum. Then the bedroom door opened. He had 'my' belt in his hand. He closed the door and came over to me. I got a long lecture about property, shame, theft, and yadda yadda yadda. Then the thunderbolt.

"You are going to take this strap to school tomorrow morning with a letter from me. I wouldn't be surprised if they give you 6 of the belt and it will serve you right if they do. But before it goes back it is going to get some use here and now. Take your trousers down."

I started to plead and to 'explain' but I was getting nowhere, if anything just making him more mad. Slowly I unclipped my black school slacks and let them land in a heap at my ankles. Dad bent me over the chair in my room and told me to hold the seat of the chair really tightly. Then I felt him pull my white shirttails up and, to my horror, disbelief, he yanked my jockeys down too. I started to protest but was pushed back down. There was then a second of silence; then..

WHAAACK!

The two tails of the strap curled around both bottom cheeks and set a strip of fire across my behind. I had never felt pain like this before and I yelled my protest.

WHAAP

The second stroke had me jumping around and yelling. The neighbours must have thought I was being killed. I just couldn't believe how much that strap hurt. When I had played around with it myself I realised it could sting but I had never given myself a sound wallop with it, It was unbearable. But bear it I must, 6 strokes in all. I was a sobbing bubbling little boy at the end of it. There I was at 15, white briefs and my slacks at my ankles, a hand on each burning buttock and dancing around with tears pouring from my eyes.

Dad turned around, taking that God-awful belt with him and I was left to try to calm down and inspect the damage. It was magnificent. My backside was scarlet in colour and you could clearly make out where the separate tails of the tawse had landed. The welts were livid red and one was turning purple. The thing is designed so as to not break the skin hut the pain it could inflict was awesome. I tried to sleep on my tummy that night but I couldn't help but relive the incident in my fantasies. 4 times :-}

But who could sleep with the thought of what might be in that letter to school tomorrow..............