My first two years at public school (for non-English readers that means private secondary school) were spent in hopeless admiration for another boy in my year. I had an overwhelming crush on him that, in retrospect, is not easy to understand. This is the first time I have written about it and I suppose I had better give a little background information first.
The school was actually what was known as a direct grant school. Some of the boys were funded by the state alone, some by a combination of the state and their parents and some by their parents alone. About two thirds of the boys were day boys and the remainder, including me, were boarders. Again, roughly two thirds came to the school at the age of 11 (having taken the 11+ examination) and one third came at 13 (having taken the common entrance examination). I was in the latter category. Boarders who came at 11 were put into a junior house. At the age of 13 they moved up to one of the senior houses. Those of us who came at 13 went straight into a senior house. Mine, the largest, was School House.
I had boarded at prep school and was, therefore, already familiar with the fairly spartan conditions in private boarding schools at the time. I had long overcome home sickness. I accepted cold baths, wholesome but fairly disgusting food, slipperings and canings as being par for the course. To that extent, my early days at Belhampton were not as terrifying as those of boys who had had a more gentle introduction to education in day schools. But, inevitably, I still felt at something of a disadvantage compared with those in my year who had already spent two years in the junior house. Bowood Minor was just such a boy. But he had other advantages as well. His older brother, Bowood Major, was captain of School House. A yet older brother had been head boy of the whole school in the previous year. His father was a distinguished old boy. He was clearly destined for great things. In addition to all that, he was an extraordinarily good-looking lad. He was slightly taller than me. He had blond hair and blue eyes. He was slim, but far from weedy. He had the well developed muscles of a natural athlete. His legs were long and slim. His voice was in the process of breaking when I arrived, but he was not plagued with the spots which so often accompany the onset of puberty. His complexion was clear and smooth. He had already demonstrated his prowess as a sportsman by becoming captain of the Under 13s cricket XI in the previous term. We quickly discovered that he also had a talent for rugby (the sport we played in my first term).
From that brief description of Bowood Minor, it will not surprise my readers to learn that I, a new boy without quite such abundant advantages in life, was somewhat in awe of him. To be fair, most others in my year were similarly admiring. Looking back, I can see that he was not only aware that he was something of a hero to us, but he also used that position in a rather manipulative way. We were all eager to be seen as his friend and any request from him for assistance of almost any sort would be positively received. Perhaps that was a fault in his character, but I am not so sure. He was physically stronger than most of us and, had he not been a naturally kind boy, I am sure he would have resorted to bullying to get his way. That he never did. Indeed, on more than one occasion, he came to the assistance of smaller boys who were being bullied by others. I really don't think (I certainly did not at the time) that he took unfair advantage of his popularity.
I have mentioned that I was far from being alone in hero worshipping Bowood Minor. What I am not so sure about is whether others had quite such a crush on him as I did. It is almost embarrassing now to recall how desperate I was for the smallest sign of friendship from him. And that was the case from the very first day. I distinctly remember lying in bed in Junior Dorm on the first night of term listening with unbounded admiration as he told Fulwood (another boy who had spent two years in the junior house) about his success with girls during the summer holidays. Of course, now, I realise that his accounts that night were almost certainly vastly exaggerated. But, then, I lapped it all up. The most I had ever achieved was a peck on the cheek from a rather ugly twelve year old girl at our village barn dance. The thought that a boy of my age could actually have engaged in what we called French kissing with a gorgeous 14 year old, and been allowed to put his hand right up her skirt, was absolutely astounding to me. I can even remember some of what he said word for word.
"I can tell you, Fulwood," he said, "if the hols had gone on another week I reckon she'd have let me go all the way. Still, I had the best wank of my life that night."
Obviously, there had been a certain amount of "dirty talk" in the dorms at my prep school, but, somehow, Bowood's report to Fulwood seemed to me to be the height of sophistication. When I indulged in "wanking", I tended to be overcome by guilt and a feeling of being sordid. Bowood made it all sound so mature and natural. When I had had to lie awake listening to another boy's bed creaking in my prep school's senior dorm, I had been embarrassed and resorted to childish jokes. That night, once Bowood's bed began to squeak, I was lost in admiration for him. I even, what a dreadful confession to have to make, thought of him with his hand up a beautiful girl's skirt and his tongue down her throat when I indulged in my own night time exercise.
It took some time for me to be able to claim any sort of real friendship with Bowood Minor. I am sure that that was partly because I tried too hard. I remember offering him ludicrously lavish amounts of my tuck. I used to do his fagging duties for him without even being asked. Perhaps I ought to explain what "fagging" means in English (as opposed to American). There was nothing sinister or perverted about it. It was just a system under which junior boys at school would have to perform various tasks for prefects: things like polishing shoes, making tea and cleaning studies. At Belhampton the fags (the junior boys) were not attached to particular prefects. We had a rota instead. There would be ten fags on each day's list. If a prefect shouted out "fag" from study corridor, the first fag on that day's list would have to run to offer his services. When the next call came, the second boy on the list would attend, and so on. More than once, I volunteered to take Bowood Minor's place when I was not even on that day's rota. He always seemed grateful for what I did for him, but he did not exactly go out of his way to seek my company. Oh how envious I was of Fulwood and the other three or four boys who were in Bowood Minor's gang in those early days.
One of the great bonds between boys at an English boarding school, at least in those days, was the shared ordeal of punishment. If you had been punished with another boy, you tended to feel much closer to him than you otherwise would have done. I had not been at Belhampton for very long before it dawned on me that my desire to be Bowood Minor's friend might be more readily achieved if I could be punished at the same time as him.
It may help if I explain the punishment system then in force. It was actually very simple. Poor work in class would sometimes lead to a detention. One or two masters would very occasionally use a cane on a miscreant and the PE master always had a large gym shoe at hand in case of trouble. But, generally, the masters had little responsibility for discipline. That was left to the prefects. They could award us house or school demerits (which we called "Ds"). A house D would be given for an offence which might be described as a boarding offence. A school D would be given if the offence was one committed during the ordinary school day (and not in a boarding house). A demerit would remain in force for one calendar month. At the end of that period it would be crossed out in the punishment book and one would start afresh without any additional penalty being imposed. But, if at any time one accumulated three or more Ds, all of which were in force, one would be punished. The punishment was always the same. A boy with three Ds would be given a minimum of three strokes of the cane by the captain of his house or by the head boy. House captains caned boys who had three house Ds and the head boy caned those who had three school Ds. Once a boy had been caned, all his Ds would be crossed out. I should explain that school Ds and house Ds were entirely separate. It was therefore possible for a boarder to have up to four Ds at a time without being caned (two house and two school).
House canings were always carried out in the evenings, during prep on weekdays and during pre-bed free time at weekends. School canings were carried out during morning break or after lunch, depending on the time of day when the third D was awarded.
It was about three weeks into the first term when I got my first house D. It was for talking after lights out. I knew that Bowood already had two. That night I devised my little plan. I would endeavour to get another D, without being too obvious about it. Then, I would wait, and hope that Bowood Minor got a third. As soon as he did, I would make every effort I could to get another one myself, before the next evening caning session. With any luck, if the plan worked, both he and I would be called out of prep at the same time to be beaten.
I think you may now be getting some idea of quite how besotted I had become. I had always done my best to avoid the cane at my prep school (although not always with great success). I hated the ordeal of waiting for the punishment almost as much as I hated the pain. The combination of the two was, to my mind, really dreadful. And I was not so stupid as to think that canings from the incredibly strong and muscular Bowood Major were likely to bear any great resemblance to the canings I had been given by my elderly prep school headmaster. I certainly dreaded the day when I would first find out quite how painful a prefect's beating would be. But, even so, my admiration for Bowood Minor was such that I was prepared, in effect, to volunteer to be caned at the same time as him.
As it happens, there was one problem with my little plan. Unknown to me at the time was the fact that the school always endeavoured to ensure that new boys would avoid the cane until at least their second term. True, I had already acquired one D and I was therefore, theoretically, on the road to a caning. But I didn't know that the prefects were under strict instructions to go easy on new boys who already had one or two Ds. All my efforts to get my second D in the next few days came to nothing. I remember waiting for a prefect to come into view before pretending not to see him and putting my hands in my pockets. All he did was shout at me to take them out. One evening, in prep, I waited for the supervising prefect to turn the handle of the door as he entered the room and immediately started talking to the boy next to me, again pretending that I was unaware of the prefect's presence. All he did was tell me to shut up. I chatted away, nineteen to the dozen, every night after lights out, but no prefect bothered to come in and ask me to own up. But I still had hope. Even if I could not get a D for a minor offence, I could surely do something absolutely outrageous (leading to two Ds) as soon as Bowood Minor collected his third.
It was about a week after my first D that my plan was completely scuppered. We were just filing in to our prep room for evening prep. As he sat down, Bowood Minor turned to the boy next to him and spoke.
"Oh well, I suppose I'll be getting my bottom smacked in a few minutes."
I didn't immediately grasp the significance of what he had said. I assumed it was some sort of private joke. But my ignorance was short-lived. The boy to whom he had addressed this jocular remark replied.
"I heard you'd picked up another D, bad luck".
It was now far too late for me to act. Even if I threw a book at the window and broke it, I would not be caned that evening. I might be given two (or even three) Ds. But I would have to wait until the following evening to be punished. That was because all beatings had to be approved by the housemaster and his session with Bowood Major for that day would already have been finished. I felt a sudden surge of sadness as I thought of my lost opportunity. But, after a few moments, a semblance of sanity returned to me and I admit I felt a degree of relief that I would not be bending over for the cane that night.
There was no opportunity to learn more about Bowood Minor's misdemeanour: the presiding prefect arrived and we all settled down to work. Or to pretend to work. In my case, I could not concentrate on my Latin prep: thoughts of Bowood Minor's impending fate were far too exciting. He was sitting three desks away from me, but I had a good view of him. Like the rest of us, he was not wearing a jacket and I could see his legs and the side of his bottom on the chair. I think it was only then that I fully understood that I had not only been excited about the prospect of sharing his ordeal. There was also a part of me that was strangely aroused by the thought of his bending over and being beaten. I was not actually physically aroused at that moment, but I was, unaccountably, sharing some of his concerns about what he was shortly to undergo. I hasten to say that he was putting on an excellent show of nonchalance. But he must have been worried. I found that I had that feeling of butterflies in my tummy which had always preceded my own canings and slipperings. I even felt the palms of my hands beginning to sweat.
For some reason which I have now forgotten, Bowood Minor's summons to attend on his older brother in the gym did not come until right at the end of prep. I don't know how much useful work he managed to do, but judging from the fact that I got a detention the next day and he didn't, I must assume that he was able to concentrate rather better than I could. Anyway, finally, with only minutes to spare, a prefect appeared at the door and addressed the room.
"Bowood Minor is required in the gym".
I watched him avidly. He put his books away in his desk and slowly rose to his feet. As he did so, and no doubt unconsciously, he gently stroked his bottom. His school trousers were a tight fit and I had a very good view of the outline of his buttocks through them. My pulse raced as I watched him walk from the room, casting a no doubt rather forced grin at Fulwood as he passed him. Then he was gone. Moments later the bell for the end of prep sounded and we all replaced our books and rushed off to junior study.
There was only one topic of conversation as we waited for our hero's return to us. Rutherford started the ball rolling.
"Do you think Bowood Major will go easy on him, what with him being his bro and all?".
"Of course not", said Fulwood, "he told me that he had agreed with his bro during the hols that when he had to be swished it would have to be really hard to make sure no one thought he was getting special treatment."
Simpson readily agreed.
"Bowood Major may be strict, but he's a bloody decent bloke. He'd never give a light swishing to a chap just cos he liked him and there's no way he'd favouritise his bro."
So the chat went on. I suppose it was only about five minutes or so before the door opened and Bowood Minor came in. He was his usual jokey self.
"That did me a power of good", he said, as he furiously rubbed his bottom.
"How did it compare with old Swanson?" asked Fulwood.
Swanson was the housemaster of the junior house, where prefects did not have the power of the rod.
"Put it this way", replied Bowood Minor, "my bro is in a completely different league, and it's not a minor league either."
Boys were crowding round him throwing questions at him all at once. He answered them in a good natured way. I stood back a bit from the throng, eager to join in but uncertain about how I would be received. Eventually, when the bell for junior dorm went, I managed to get beside him as we left the study. We walked together towards the stairs.
"Um, Bowood", I stammered, "you know when you called your swishing 'getting your bottom smacked', I mean, well, does that mean you used get smacked at home?".
What a stupid question. But his words had been preying on my mind all evening. I had had a picture of his slim body draped over his father's knees with trousers and pants round his ankles and his firm round bottom being soundly walloped into a deep red colour. That picture had been causing me to become extraordinarily excited as the evening wore on. I just had to know whether it had ever really happened. It was kind of him not to be too dismissive in his reply.
"Of course I was. Come on, can you think of any boy our age who hasn't had his bum spanked at home?"
"No, I suppose not. I mean I used to get it, you know, on the bare bum and all that and I suppose my friends at home all did as well."
"Course they did. If young boys didn't get spanked occasionally they'd just run wild."
Once we got to the dorm I am sure that we all had the same wish to see Bowood Minor's stripes. But he teased us like mad. He slowly undid his tie and then removed his shirt, carefully folding it and putting it in the bed side cabinet. Then he bent down and took off his shoes and socks. Finally, he turned and stood with his back to the wall as he took off his trousers and pants. Then, infuriatingly, he put on his pyjama trousers while his back was still to the wall.
"Come on", shouted Baxter, "you've got to show us, none of us has seen your bro's handiwork yet."
Several voices were raised in agreement. Bowood Minor just smiled, picked up his pyjama top and put it on. Then he lay face down on his bed and closed his eyes. By now, we were all gathered around, desperate to see his injuries. But he just lay there. We knew that the duty prefect would soon appear and the fun would be over. The calls for him to do the decent thing and drop his trousers became more and more agitated. Finally, he gave in. He pulled his pyjama trousers down to his knees and we all got a view which I am sure none of us ever forgot.
I cannot believe that there was anyone there who had not, often, seen the results of canings before. Certainly, at my prep school, no one ever got the cane without showing off his stripes afterwards. I am sure that that was the same in every school up and down the land. Even so, there was an audible gasp from all of us as we saw the vivid, raised welts across the middle of Bowood Minor's bottom. They continued round his right thigh, where the end of the cane had obviously whipped round. There were three. They were very close together, but did not overlap. I knew, from my own experience, that the pain was actually much greater when each stroke was separate from the others. If the cane landed on top of a previous stroke, there tended just to be a feeling of numbness. But when a new part of the flesh was bitten into, the pain was exquisite.
I think I spoke first.
"Bloody Hell, your bro must be one of the hardest swishers in the country, and his aim is just terrific."
Just then, the duty prefect came in. I noticed that he didn't call an immediate halt to the show. Instead, he walked over to Bowood Minor's bed and took a good long look at the stripes. Eventually he spoke.
"OK lads, into bed. And you", this was addressed to Bowood Minor, "can pull your pyjama trousers up. From the look of your bum, your bro doesn't need any lessons in how to swish a boy."
Once the lights had been switched off and the prefect had left us, we started whispering to each other about the evening's events. It was Bowood Minor who called a halt.
"Put a sock in it lads. I want to do a bit of practising for when I see Sarah again at half term."
"You're _s_e_x_ mad", said Fulwood, "if you can get a hard on straight after a swishing like that, you're a better man than me."
I remember wondering whether Bowood Minor could possibly be thinking more of his own striped bottom than he was of Sarah. I was, by now, fully erect and my own thoughts were only of what I had just seen. I had sometimes thought of boys being caned or slippered before, when I did the sort of 'practising' he had in mind. What is more, I had noticed, in my last year at prep school, that one or two boys did occasionally have to take steps to hide their excitement when striped bottoms were on display. That, together with the fact that pictures of really attractive girls could also get me going, had given me considerable comfort when I had worried about whether I was some sort of pervert. If only, I thought, Bowood Minor was like me in this respect. What bliss that would be.
I could hold off no longer now. My hero's bed was creaking already. Several others had started. Mine now joined the orchestra.
Bowood Minor's was the first of several canings that term. But none of us new boys was on the receiving end. In the next instalment, about my second term at Belhampton, I will be able to give a more first hand account of what Bowood Major's ability as a caner were!