"I don't know what things are coming to," said John Hatherleigh. He was in his usual seat at the bar of the Queen's Head.
"What's up now then, John?" said the man next to him, Bill Scudder.
"It's our Stuart," said John. "Another bloody letter home from school yesterday. Caught smoking in the bogs. Suspended for three days. I don't know what sort of a _f_u_c_k_ing punishment that's meant to be. Looks pretty much like a holiday to me."
"Too right. My Martin was sent home before Christmas for hitting some kid. I've got to go up and see that Mr Franks 'cause he's been bunking off and hanging round the snooker hall."
"What, you too, Bill?" It was a third man who had just come up to the bar. His name was Joe Prince. "I got one of they about our Steve. Little bugger. I can't do a thing with him."
"What is it with boys today, eh?" said John.
"Right," said Bill. "In our day, if we behaved like that we got a _f_u_c_k_ing good hiding."
"That's right," said Joe. "Remember that bastard Duckworth and his _f_u_c_k_ing cane?"
"Do I ever?" said John. "I wish I had a tenner for every time he give me six of the best."
"And I bet you got another dose from your old man when you got home," said Joe.
"Too _f_u_c_k_ing right. There was no messing about with my old man. Caw! The times he give me the razor strop! Over the end of me bed. Pants down too. He didn't _f_u_c_k_ about with stopping my pocket money."
"Well, fathers didn't in them days," said Bill. "My old fella kept a special cane in his shed out on the allotments. He'd march me up there, take me pants down and thrash the living daylights out of me."
"My old man had a riding crop that he kept on top of the kitchen dresser," said Joe. "A couple of dozen stripes of that across your arse and you knew what was what, I can tell you."
"D'you remember how we all used to show off the weals across our bums?" said Bill. The others laughed. "I remember once I was showing off the marks after Quackers had give me the stick, to Phil Grey and another chap, I forget his name, and he come in and caught us. Well, he marched us all straight back up to his office and give Phil and this other chap three good ones with his cane. Then he says to me, 'If you're so keen on showing off your marks I can't have hit you hard enough.' And he makes me drop me trousers and touch me toes and he gives me another six, hot and strong. Caw! My arse was burning for the rest of the day."
"Those were the days, lads, eh?" It was George Tresize, the landlord, who had come and leaned on the bar near them. "I bet there isn't a single bloke round here our age who didn't get his backside warmed for him."
"True," said Bill, swigging back the last of his beer. "Same again, lads?"
George pulled the pints and set them on the counter. The men were silent while he was doing it and Bill handed over the money.
"What I don't understand," said John eventually, "is why we don't treat our own lads like that."
"What d'you mean?" said Joe.
"Well, look. Here we are. We've all got teenage boys. All of 'em are a _f_u_c_k_ing nuisance at school and round the estate. So, how come we let the little buggers get away with it?"
"Times have changed, John," said Bill.
"And not for the better, in my opinion," said George.
"'Course, they can't hit 'em at school no more," said Joe.
"More's the pity. Listen. When we go up there Mr Franks'll give 'em a good talking to."
"Yes, he will. Good man, he is," Joe put in.
"But he won't actually do anything, will he? 'Cause he can't. It'll be our responsibility. And I suppose we'll keep 'em in or stop their pocket money. But it won't stop 'em doing it again."
"The last time we kept our Martin in it was worse than letting him out. Felt like we were the ones being punished."
"If you feel like that," said George, "why don't you smack their bums for 'em? It never did us any harm."
"The times have changed, George," said John. "You can't treat boys like that no more."
"There's some as does."
"Well, yes. But we're not talking about hitting kids about, like," said Joe.
"I know. I don't mean that. I could tell you the name of at least one man on this estate who keeps a bamboo in his son's bedroom. And uses it too."
"Who's that then?"
"Sam Hicks. His lad hangs about with Wayne, Shirley's boy. Her that works in here sometimes. She said that young Wayne slept at the Hicks's place one night when the boys were going fishing and young Michael, I think his name is, showed him the marks across his backside."
"And I know Bill Hendry's taken a strap to his lad, more than once," said Joe.
"Well, I put Stuart over my knee once when he was a little lad," said John. "And I must say he minded his manners for quite a while after that. But I didn't like doing it."
"'Course not," said George. "I don't suppose our fathers, or the teachers at school for that matter, enjoyed walloping us –"
"I reckon that _f_u_c_k_ing headmaster enjoyed it," said Bill, and they all laughed.
"But that isn't the point, is it?" said George. "They didn't like doing it, but they did it because we bloody well needed it."
"And they knew it worked," said Joe.
They were silent for a while.
"No," said John at last. "We couldn't do it now. It's a _f_u_c_k_ing thought though, isn't it?"
Two days later, Bill Scudder and Joe Prince met Mr Franks, the deputy head in charge of discipline at the local school. Martin and Steve were given a thorough tongue-lashing, promised not to play truant again and gave every impression of being sorry. They left the room two very chastened boys, but their fathers were sceptical about how long this repentance would last.
"I suppose," said Joe, when the men were alone with the teacher, "there's no chance of you giving the pair of them the cane."
"No," said Mr Franks. "Corporal punishment has been banned for at least five years."
"Yes, I know," said Joe. "But if we asked you particularly."
"No. I don't even have a cane any longer."
"So you used to cane boys, then."
"I certainly did. I was the bastard who everyone was afraid of."
"You still are," said Bill and the three men laughed.
"So you thought it was a good system then?" Joe persisted.
"Yes. I thought caning was the best punishment for most boys."
"So why can't you cane Martin and Steve when we ask you to?"
"Because it's against the law. But there's nothing to stop you doing it, is there?"
A seed had been planted. Neither boy suffered a beating when they got home that night. Martin was told he was staying in for the rest of the week. Steve's pocket money was stopped – but since he didn't get any money apart from what he earned from his paper round, that didn't mean much.
Bill Scudder went up to his son's bedroom that night after the nine o'clock news. Martin was lying on his bed reading, with his Walkman headphones on. He switched the tape off and propped himself up on his elbows.
"What did you think of what Mr Franks said this morning?" Martin shrugged his shoulders as only a fifteen-year-old boy can. "Was he right?"
"I suppose so."
"And your mother and I have got to punish you, haven't we?"
"Yes. But school is such a f - , sorry, drag."
Bill ignored the near swearword. "When I was your age...."
"Yeah. You'd have had the stick. I know."
"That's right. I would."
"Well, they don't cane kids no more."
"But suppose I was to give you a hiding instead of grounding you."
"Eh? You're not going to, are you?"
"No. But think about it. Would it be so bad? A few licks of a belt across your bottom, instead of being stuck in here for the rest of the week?"
"It'd hurt though."
"'Course it would. That's the idea. But it'd stop hurting in less than half an hour and then tomorrow you could go out. But I reckon you'd remember it better than a week without telly." Martin was silent, thinking about it.
"I reckon – " He stopped.
"What?"
"It'd be better getting the cane at school than having detentions. And being suspended is just stupid. But I'm not sure about you doing it."
"Well, you think about it."
"Dave King says he got the cane when he went to school in South Africa. He says it was much better than what we get."
"Just think about it," said Bill, ruffling his son's shock of blond hair.
Over the next fortnight, many conversations took place between the men of the estate, most in the pub, but also in various workplaces, over garden fences, even in church between the few men who went. No-one disagreed with the first analysis of the problem. The boys were out of control: nothing was going to sort them out till their fathers gave them a _f_u_c_k_ing good hiding.
John Hatherleigh, Bill Scudder, Sam Hicks, who had been an enthusiastic recruit, and Albert Roper, who had two boys to bring up on his own, sat for long hours in the quiet of the pub's bowling alley. They were convinced this was a problem that could be cracked. They drew up a plan; they recruited Mr Franks from the school to help them (though they understood that there was no way he could personally apply any corporal punishment), and they tested their ideas out on the other men, their friends and neighbours. It was going to work.
And then came a surprise. They had to tell their wives about the plan and were amazed by the reaction. Why just the boys? Weren't the girls just as much of a problem? Look at the three pregnancies there had been in the last year; the staying out till all hours; the dressing up like amateur whores. Before they knew it there was a women's committee, led by Irene Scudder, making plans for the boys' sisters and the other girls of the estate.
And the children never suspected a thing.
Then all the men had a meeting in the bowling alley. All the men of the estate who had sons were there, along with a few others for support, and Mr Franks was there too.
John Hatherleigh spoke for all of them.
"You all know me. I've lived on The Ricklands all my life and I think all of you agree with me that things have never been as bad as they are now. We've got gangs of our sons out on the streets till all hours. They're drinking at the weekends till they're out of their heads. They're smoking like _f_u_c_k_ing chimneys, and not just tobacco either. Half of them are bunking off school regularly, as Bob Franks here will confirm. They're being a flaming nuisance in lessons, some of them, when they're there, so that the teachers aren't bothered if they do bunk off – and I don't blame them. We've got old ladies afraid to come out of their doors after dark. We've got graffiti on the garages that makes you sick to look at. We've had three girls in the last year with babies, and it's got to be our lads that gave them to 'em. I've heard little lads still at primary school effing and blinding and – yes, I know my language is _f_u_c_k_ing ripe, but I'm an adult and I know how to talk properly if I have to and if I _f_u_c_k_ing well swear it's because I _f_u_c_k_ing well choose to. And I know I smoke and I drink, probably too much, but again, I'm an adult and I've earned the right. These young lads haven't.
"Now, I know I'm as guilty as the next man and I'll put my hand up and say that I've neglected my Stuart. I haven't taken enough interest in him and as a result he's turning into a lad that I can't take much pride in.
"But it doesn't have to be this way. We're the fathers of these boys and we can change the way they are. Over the last few weeks there's been a good deal of talk and I think we're all agreed that a bit of corporal punishment round here would make a big difference. But it's got to be all of us or none of us. If there's a man here who isn't prepared to take a bamboo or a leather strap or even a _f_u_c_k_ing plimsoll to his son's backside when he needs it, then now's the time to say so."
None of the thirty or so men in the room said a word. Some may have had reservations; some may have been thinking that it was a good idea – but it wasn't their son who was going to need beating. But the meeting was unanimous.
"This isn't something that would work everywhere. In big cities, there's too much to fight against. But this is a little place. There's less than a hundred houses on this estate. Most of us have lived here all our lives. We all know each other. There's less than thirty boys we need to sort out. We're away from the rest of the town. And the rest of the town thinks we're scum anyway. But we've got Bob Franks here on our side, and he's going to keep us up to date with what's going on at school. And we've got to be on top of whatever's happening round the estate.
"So here's the list of what we're going to face the boys with. Bob's very kindly duplicated it on the school photocopier and there'll be a copy for every boy at the meeting tomorrow."
He and Bill handed round the sheets and the assembled men read them through. Many of them had seen them already, and contributed their ideas.
CORPORAL PUNISHMENT
From now on boys of The Ricklands estate will be punished with a whacking if their fathers or other adults find out that they have broken any of the estate rules listed below.
You will be whacked with a plimsoll, a strap or a cane, or anything else your father or another adult thinks is appropriate. You will be whacked on the seat of your trousers or on the bare bottom as they think fit. You will only get more than 12 whacks in exceptional circumstances. You will be whacked either at home or wherever your father decides.
Boys without a regular father or step-father will be the responsibility of a nominated man, who will have the right to whack you as they see fit.
RULES
1. No smoking.
2. No drinking alcohol.
3. No drugs.
4. No staying out after 10.00pm.
5. No bunking off school.
6. No foul language.
7. No damage to property.
8. No contact with girls in private.
9. No frightening of old folk.
10. No loud music.
You will also be whacked for anything else which your father or another adult thinks deserves it.
"I still reckon we should have the birch," said Albert Roper.
"Albert, we've been through this," said Bill. "None of us wants to give 'em a birching."
"My old man got the birch when he was a lad," Albert persisted. "Did him the world of good, he used to say. All right. I know it's too much."
"Now," John resumed. "There's got be another side to this. If all we do is clamp down hard on the lads we won't get anywhere. Like I said, we've been ignoring our boys and it's time we put that right. So we're going to encourage as many different activities as we can. The lads who go to football or other sport, we'll encourage 'em and go and watch 'em play. And three nights a week we're going to run a club for all the boys of the estate, here in the bowling alley. It's only used on a Saturday, so we can have it the rest of the week if we want.
"We'll having bowling sometimes and then other suggestions have been to start some kind of boxing club, and cards and Joe Prince reckons he can get some old cars for 'em to mess about with. There's several of us go fishing and I know lots of lads would like to take it up. I know where we can lay our hands on some scrambling bikes, and it's been suggested that in the summer we try and take 'em camping somewhere.
"But the thing is, we've all got to take our turns at this. It's no use leaving it to just a few, because there isn't any of us can give up every night. Agreed?"
There was a murmur of agreement. Every man there wanted this to work.
"Right tomorrow night is when we start. Every boy has got to be brought down here, seven o'clock sharp. Me and Joe and Bob Franks will explain what's going to happen. Then the ones who have agreed give their boys a whacking with all of 'em watching, just so every boy knows what's what. Then, when we leave here, every boy goes home either with his dad or the man who's taking him over. We sort out with them what they've done wrong. And then every single one gets a good hiding. No exceptions. Tomorrow night, every boy on The Ricklands goes to bed with a warm backside."