When I was 15 my folks travelled overseas for six months. I went to stay with Uncle Seb. He was a farmer, twice my age, muscular and fit. He was not married but had a girlfriend and they got hitched later on. On weekdays a woman came in and did the cleaning. She left a meal on the stove. At weekends we roughed it.
When my father handed me over to Uncle Seb he said, as parents did in those days, "Any trouble give him a hiding". Now I worshipped my uncle. He was very masculine and I liked him a lot. I could not imagine him ever taking his belt to me like Dad did.
The first Friday I was there I forgot to latch the gate properly and let cattle beasts out on to the road. It took my uncle hours to get them back into the yard. He was rightly furious and warned me to stop daydreaming or he'd have to whack my bum.
It was a Saturday morning ritual to go into the small town three miles from the farm. We stopped at a hardware store. Uncle had a word with the Chinese owner who cut off two 3 foot lengths of whippy rattan. Mr Lim looked me up and down. From the knowing grin on his face he understood what Uncle Seb wanted the canes for. I was dead embarassed.
When we got home my uncle put the rattan rods on top of the door frame in the front room. He warned me not to do any more day dreaming unless I wanted him to whack me on the bum. That I did not - I'd been caned at school and respected The Stick for its awesome ability to hurt.
The country was in the grip of a drought and my uncle switched on the wireless to listen to the weather forecast. No relief in sight. He went over to the sink and turned on the tap. No water. After a frantic investigation he discovered his thoughtless nephew had left the bathroom tap running that morning. Thanks to my careless stupidity, all the precious rain water from the home-supply tank had all been wasted.
Uncle Seb was mad as hell. He grabbed a bucket and disappeared across the yard. Some time later he returned with it filled with water from the creek.
"I'm sorry, Uncle Seb".
"It's a bit late for that"
I hung my head.
Uncle Seb scratched his own muscular buttocks.
"I think you need to be taught a lesson. Agreed?"
My stomach lurched and I attempted to delay the inevitable.
"Can I do Number Twos first?"
He looked grim.
"Yes. You'll be too sore to do a job for yourself afterwards".
I walked along the verandah, past the store room and the wash house. The toilet was at the end of the verandah. I was shaking so much I had difficulty unbuttoning my flies.
When I returned to the kitchen, Uncle Seb took me through to the the front room. He retrieved one of the canes and tapped my shorts.
"Better get those off. Underpants as well.".
He rolled up his shirt sleeves and I saw bulging biceps. I got undressed. My uncle picked up my underpants and looked inside them.
"Skid marks!" He was disgusted. "Get over the end of that sofa".
All too soon I was in position with my bare bum sticking up in the air. My uncle got a wet flannel and gently wiped the inside my bum-crease.
"Too lazy even to clean yourself properly. Well, this should help buck your ideas up".
Uncle Seb laid into me long and hard with the stinging rattan. It hurt like blazes but there was an intimacy about it. Getting it on the bare bum from my favourite relative, I mean.
After the 12th stroke he stopped.
"You'll be needing a break", stated Uncle Seb. "Put your shorts on and go to the kitchen."
A break! I didn't think my poor bottom could take much more. He rang Muriel, his lady friend. She heard me bawling in the background and asked Uncle Seb what was going on.
"I'm in the middle of giving young Cecil a few whacks on the bum".
Any sympathy she might have felt evaporated, just like all the water I'd wasted had. Country born and bred, Muriel understood the enormity of my crime. They chatted for a bit and then he rang off.
Once again I was over the end of the sofa.
"How many whacks do they give you at that flash school?"
"Six", I sniffed.
"And they call themselves educators!" His voice was scornful.
I felt his hand on my blazing buttocks. He was counting the weals.
"Twelve".
I heard him get the other cane down from the ledge.
"This one will really warm you up".
Being thicker, it hurt even more than the first cane had. I yelled and wriggled my burning bum but Uncle Seb was unmoved by my distress. He just waited until I was still before delivering another stinging cut to my scorched posterior. It really was a very painful hiding but I knew I deserved every one of those 24 cuts.
Afterwards, I lay on the sofa crying,
Then Uncle Seb said: 'Listen!'.
I muffled my sobs with a hand and heard the sound of rain falling on the iron roof. The iron was corrugated - as was my backside! It rained for days and the drought was over.
My six months with Uncle Seb were great. Those whacks on the bum taught me that actions can have most unpleasant consequences. He did not need to repeat the lesson.