The year was 1954, the place a small market town in the West of England. I was 18 years old, and had just finished public school. I was enjoying the summer holidays at home before going up to Oxford. I was an only child, and had lost my mother several years before. My father lived with our housekeeper Polly and gardener Bill in a large, rambling, Georgian house with a moderate garden of just under an acre. My father was part of the town's upper ten. All in all, we were happy. My father was a circuit court judge, and while my upbringing had been firm, and I had had my fair share of beatings at school and home, I can't say it was particularly strict.
It was a special time, a time of becoming free, a time of becoming truly a man for the first time. My father seemed particularly to enjoy being able to treat me more as an equal. He fitted me out as a gentleman, with my first gentleman's hat, my first pocket watch, and my first cigarette case, and took me to country pubs on Sunday afternoons. I was all set to become a bright young thing at Oxford. However, I was to discover to my cost that equality and freedom had their limits in those more regimented times.
I had become friendly with a young man about a year older than me who was an apprentice at the town car mechanics. After he finished work we would meet for a pint in the Three Tuns. I had developed rather strong Socialist views in my latter years at school, much to my father's amusement, and I rather enjoyed being so overtly friendly with someone so, well, working-class. John had was well read and had a lively intelligence. These were the days of the left-wing book club and Bevanite anger at Gaitskellite moderation and the political drift of Churchill's last years in power, and we debated long into the evening. While I had been sheltered in public school, he had lived in the real world, and had even travelled to Germany and Spain by himself, unheard of in those distant days before mass tourism. When he was called up for military service, he wanted to be sent to Kenya or Malaya to learn 'the truth about the oppression of people in the colonies'.
You will not be surprised to hear that I developed a serious pash on John, with his rugged mechanic's looks, neat leather jackets and pipes in honour of 'Wedgie' Benn. He soon developed a pash on me as well. One fateful night, when we had had rather too much scrumpy, he invited me back to the mechanics' to show me 'how to clean out a carburettor'. When we got there, of course, he wanted to show me an entirely different sort sticky pump. While I had, of course, experimented at school, this was men's love, an entirely different experience. Through that hot August, our visits to the mechanics' late at night became quite regular. Unfortunately, they became so regular that Mr. Boakes, who ran the garage, noticed. One night when we were in flagrante delicto< I>, Mr. Boakes burst in upon us.
"Bates! Simpson-Browne! What is the meaning of this disgusting behaviour. Stop that at once."
We desperately tried to pull up our trousers, but it was much too late for that.
"Don't even bother trying to explain yourselves. You come in an hour before normal time tomorrow Bates, and I might think about not sacking you. And as for you, young Simpson-Browne, I'll make _d_a_m_n_ sure your father knows about this. Go off home now, both of you."
Well, that was that. I staggered off home, only hoping that old Boaksey had had too much scrumpy himself, and that my father wouldn't find out about it. My father was a Churchwarden at the rather Evangelical town Church, and had staunchly conservative views on these, and most other, matters.
The next day passed uneventfully, and I sat in the garden reading. My father had sessions in a town 20 miles away, and I would not expect to see him before dinner. However, at lunch time, the manservant of Commander Bryson, a neighbour, arrived with a letter for me, written in Bryson's copperplate hand:
Master Simpson-Browne is expected to remain at home for the rest of the day. His father will deal with him after dinner. I strongly suggest that he obey his father's instructions.
Cdr J N Bryson< I>
I was a bundle of nerves for the rest of the afternoon. I could only hope that father would see it as a harmless youthful indiscretion.
Father arrived home at 5.30, in his severest of black suits and with the severest of looks. His message was simple, "My study! Now!"
I processed up the stairs, and did not sit in my accustomed chair in front of his desk, but stood to attention. He arrived in about 10 seconds after me, walked up to me, and smacked me backhanded full force across the face. I shrieked and reeled from the blow.
He lectured me incandescent with rage.
"I have never been so humiliated in all my life! You will be severely dealt with for the shame you have brought upon yourself and this house. To think that any son of mine would behave in that way - and with a common mechanic to boot! You will go to your room and change in to your pyjamas and you will not leave until I give you permission. Cook will bring you a chamber pot and some bread and water later. As far as I am concerned you are a common criminal and will be treated as such. You will got even open the door or I shall cane you until the blood runs down your legs. Do you understand me."
"But, Sir, I didn't mean...
"Nonsense boy! The whole town has seen you with this Bates character for weeks. Now get moving, on the double!"
Cookie didn't even speak to me when she brought me my meagre repast, and I was left alone to contemplate my fate. I cried and cried as I dreaded to think what father would do. And what had happened to poor John. I was left there all night and cried myself to sleep.
Father opened the door at 8 o'clock the next morning with some more bread and water.
"Do not even try and speak to me, boy. You have 10 minutes to clear out your chamber pot and wash. Bill will be up to fix a lock on your door post haste. I shall deal with you when I return from court this evening. While you are washing, I shall remove your gramophone from your room. You have disgraced me! Disgraced me!"
With that he slammed the door.
A bolt was fitted to the outside of my door around 9 o'clock, and I was brought some more bread and water at lunch, but neither Bill nor Cookie spoke to me at all, despite my best efforts. I had been sent to Coventry. I was full of injustice and rage. What had I done to deserve this?
The day passed very slowly indeed. I tried to read, but I was so affected my nerves, I couldn't concentrate. When my father returned from work, I paced about, expecting him to flog me very soon and very severely. But nothing happened.
After an hour or so, I remembered why. A strange collection of gentlemen in dinner suits arrived at the door. It was a Friday, and it was our turn to host the regular dinner party for the town's prominenti. Father had hinted that I might be allowed to attend this one. There was no hope of that now. Boredom makes one tired in an odd sort of way, and I had been full of frightened anticipation all day. As twilight descended I fell asleep to the sound of upper-middle class laughter from the rooms below.
It was dark. Someone was shaking me awake.
"Come awake boy, this instant!"
It was father.
"Stand to attention, that's it, here, have a glass of water."
It was pitch black. What time was it. The clock was striking a lot of times. It must be 11 or 12. I was still on another planet. I slowly finished the water.
"Now come with me, downstairs. It is time for you to receive the punishment you so richly deserve for your debased behaviour."
He must have sent the other old codgers off early, I thought blearily, their sessions normally went on well into the night. I trudged slowly downstairs after father, resigned to my fate, with the smell of port and stale cigar smoke wafting up to greet me.
In the drawing room, I had the shock of my life. There was a sub-committee of the sternest members of the town's upper ten before me, dressed resplendently in their dinner suits. Commander Bryson in his naval uniform. Sir Henry Naunton, one of the type of English gentlemen who never smiled, next to Jonathan Percival-Price, manager of the county bank looking mournful and dressed in a cummerbund and cigar. The Chief Constable of Somerset, also in full uniform. The Vicar, the Rev'd Davidson-Spencer, a rather louche former Army Intelligence man with a dog collar and his notorious long cigarette holder. And Dr. Hulme, sitting next to the table with his medical bag.
And in the corner, in a bucket of water, was a long... birchrod is not the word for it. A collection tree branches bound together. I was terrified. I turned white and began to shake.
Bryson stood up, and began to speak in his ponderous Eton drawl.
"Cecil Nicholas Simpson-Browne, we have held a serious, if legally informal, discussion of your behaviour here this evening. You have brought disgrace to yourself and your father, who has done so much for this town. We are deeply angry. Your behaviour could well have been a matter for the criminal courts. However, were you sent to prison, we fear it would merely result in your consorting with older and more depraved homo_s_e_x_uals. I suggested a spell in the Navy might do you good, but gentlemen felt that might exacerbate the problem..."
There was a chorus of laughter.
"On the other hand", he continued, "a non-custodial sentence might be seen as a mere slap on the wrists. Do you have anything to say in mitigation of your actions, boy?"
"Sir, I'm very sorry", I bowed my head and shook with fear, "I had no idea it would go so far."
"Sorry you shall be, boy", added my father, "as we have decided you shall receive a most severe non-custodial sentence. Six strokes of the birch from the Chief Constable, six from Commander Bryson and six from myself. I only hope the severity of the sentence prevents a recurrence of this sort of perversion."
At that point Naunton and Percival-Price stood up, approached me and brusquely removed my pyjamas. Naked in front of the gathering, I was ordered to go to Dr. Hulme for a medical examination. He roughly examined me with both his hands and his stethoscope, treating me brusquely and distantly. When my heart was found to be sound, and my body not frail, I was tied to a low table with four heavy belts.
There was the sound of cigars and pipes being lit, and port glasses refilled. All was quiet for a moment, then the Vicar's voice intoned. "Withhold not correction from a child: for if thou strike him with the rod, he shall not die. Thou shalt beat him with the rod, and deliver his soul from hell. Let the sentence commence."
I heard a whooshing like an eagle coming in for the kill. Then all was white and strange. I felt pain like I had never felt in my life as the mass of birch slammed full force into my backside. I gasped, determined not to scream. I felt sick, cold and a desperate need to go to the lavatory all at once as I strained against the straps.
All was silent for a moment. I could not conceive of surviving eighteen strokes. I saw Dr. Hulme give the slightest nod around his pipe, then the Vicar said, "One stroke delivered. You may continue, Sir."
Another humming noise, and I tensed myself before feeling another almighty crash. I bucked again and grunted, in agony. I heard my father say, "Good work, Sir." Another nod from Hulme, and the Vicar continued, "Two strokes delivered. You may continue, Sir."
Again the wooshing, again the indescribable feeling of two dozen streams of molten lead crashing against my rear. This time I could not begin to contain myself and I screamed like a baby. I sobbed, and sobbed, and sobbed for the rest of the time the procedure continued. My recollection gets a little hazy after this. I was in pain and in terror. There was to be no escape from my flagellation.
I barely heard the Vicar say, "Three strokes delivered. You may continue, Sir", then all was consumed in pain again. I could feel blood begin to trickle down my legs. Black spots formed in front of my eyes. I begged for mercy through my tears.
"Please, father. Please, all of you. Sirs, I beg you to stop. I cannot take any more. I shall die. I shall never do such things again. I beseech you."
"Ignore the wretch", said my father with indifference.
"I intended to do just that", replied the Chief Constable with a chuckle.
"Four strokes delivered, and with great skill, if I may say so Sir. You may continue."
My sobbing became uncontrollable. The fifth and sixth strokes were delivered and with each my screaming became louder and more uncontrollable. My tormentors seemed unmoved. I could only get a good look at Dr. Hulme, whose face was utterly impassive through a fug of pipesmoke.
After the sixth stroke there was a more considerable pause. Dr. Hulme checked my pulse.
"All in order with him, old boy?", asked Percival-Price.
"Of course", replied Hulme with complete indifference, "in a lad of that age I'd be surprised if it weren't. Still, there's no point taking chances."
All was in anything but order. The cold of the table contrasting against the heat of my backside drove me mad. I was ill with fear, and had I had anything substantial to eat, I'm sure I would have vomited all over the place.
The Chief Constable lit a cigarette and came down beside me. "Getting through to you I see. I'm glad to see you're not trying any mock bravery. This must hurt if we're going to beat the filth out of you. You'll thank us for it later, son."
He blew smoke in my face with a grin, before shaking hands with my father out of sight.
"Chief Constable, thank you so much for your help in this matter"
"Not at all, old Beeching at Bridgwater's been waiting since '48 for the chance to make one of those again."
"Are you staying for the rest?"
"Of course, old chap, wouldn't miss it for the world. Wish I'd done this to my boys years ago. They're far to lenient at schools these days. All set, Bill?"
"Indeed I am, Sir", replied Commander Bryson, "just waiting for the Vicar to sound the all-clear."
"In that case", said the Vicar tartly, "the all-clear is sounded. You may deliver the seventh stroke, Sir."
They all spoke like they were in the smoking room in their clubs while I was tied here and tortured.
Of all the men in the room, it was Bryson who seemed to enjoy it most. Decades later, I still recoil at the overt pleasure this sadist took in whipping me. I was really losing touch with the world now. He would intersperse his strokes with comments such as, "No hard feelings, son, we have to make sure you don't end up queer", and "Buck up lad! If it isn't hurting, it isn't working, what?" To which the others chorused "Well played, old chap."
My world consisted only of pain by that stage. My eyes were all red, and I saw only Hulme's insistent little nods and smelt only his sickly-sweet pipe. After a while I felt a stinging sensation in my nostrils and cold against my nose. A bottle of smelling salts was being held up to me.
"I say, can we continue Hulme, old chap?", I heard my father say.
"Of course, he's just passed out for a while. No point wasting a flogging on an unconscious body, is there?"
"I should say not!", said father.
"Of course, not", said the Vicar, "but he's awake now. Eleven strokes delivered, you may continue with the doctor's permission, Commander."
Hulme nodded his assent nonchalantly while reliting his pipe. I was really very queasy as another dose of crunching pain crashed into my flagellated rear. I felt blood streaming between my testicles and my thighs.
"Twelve strokes delivered", continued the Vicar, with a bright note of schadenfreude in his voice, "Jolly good show, Sir. Another brief interval while we refill glasses?"
Again the clink of glass against glass. Again the sound of matches being struck. Again the inane Sixth Form chatter in the background. And always, the smell of fear, the dripping of blood, the agony of the lump of meat which had once been my rear end.
"Thank you for your assistance, Commander. You will remain with us for a while?", asked my father.
"Certainly, Sir. It's been years since I've been able to give a proper flogging.", replied the Commander, with relish, "And of course, I wish to see how the lad takes the full dose."
After a period of time - I was no longer capable of determining how long - I heard my father's drawling tones.
"I can assure you, boy, this gives me no pleasure." I knew that wasn't true. "But buggery is an especially perfidious vice. You must be cleansed of it. A boy of lesser standing would not be given the opportunity we now afford you. The Vicar will assure you, indeed, we are carrying out the will of God. And with his permission I will resume your castigation."
"My permission is in that case granted, Sir.", replied the Vicar archly.
"Chin up lad.", said my father. The sound of his footsteps and crash. I screamed, a scream which must have split the stillness of the night-time of a little provincial town.
"Making an impact at long last, I'm glad to see.", said father sternly.
"A most fortuitous thirteenth stroke delivered, Sir. You may continue.", said the Vicar enthusiastically.
If Bryson flogged with obvious pleasure, my father whipped with a cold fury and a force as far removed from the others' as theirs was from a child's first slippering. There must have been little of my backside left to whip by that stage, for the fourteenth stroke landed firmly, on my thighs, which until that point had been spared the agony.
"Fourteen strokes delivered, you may continue, Sir."
And again the birch lashed my thighs, opening up a whole new set of wounds. I should have cried, but there were no more tears left.
The next stoke took a new and most unpleasant turn. The birch ripped against the middle of my back. I was consumed with terror.
"I say, Sir!", said the Vicar astonishedly through his cigarette holder, "Fifteen strokes delivered, and you may continue at will."
And again the brute crashed a stroke of astonishing force against my back. At that point I lost control from fear, and felt myself vomiting and urinating at the same time.
"Sixteen strokes delivered, but I feel a brief pause is in order while we clean up. Doctor?"
"The little blighter peed all over your good table, old chap. I'll say that deserves another few.", said Naunton, high-pitched and excited.
"He's having enough already, Naunton. Even I'll admit to that.", answered father.
"He's soiled my best Dunhill as well!", added Dr. Hulme, more concerned about his pipe than about me.
"By Jove, your made of stern stuff, Simpson-Browne!", exclaimed Percival-Price, "I've given my boys - and girls - what they deserved in their time, but I shouldn't think I have the pluck to do this. It's an honour to know you, Sir. A model of fatherhood!"
"Navy spirit! Navy spirit!", said Bryson piously and enthusiastically.
The Doctor cleaned the vomit away from my face with a "can't have you spoiling the dénouement by choking, can we lad", but I was left to lie in my own urea as the gentlemen heaped praise on my father.
"You may continue, Sir.", said the Vicar after what must have been two or three minutes.
The next stroke landed square on my backside. Again I screamed, again to no effect.
"Seventeen strokes delivered. You may continue, Sir."
This time there was a longer pause, as my father paced the length of the room. He swished the birch several times, making an almighty moan as he did so.
This stroke landed with indescribable force, and I head the birch branches breaking under the pressure. I screamed before a fresh stream of vomit emerged from my stomach.
"Eighteen strokes delivered. Sentence has been carried out. You may be at ease, Sir, and thank you for your example to all of us. I only hope your son has the decency to thank you when he realises what you have done for him. Naunton, Percival-Price, if you would be so kind as to undo the straps. Boy, you may stand up at will."
The Vicar's words had no effect on me as I lay on the table moaning, even after the straps had been released. Hulme caused further agonies as he removed birch splinters from my posterior with tweezers, then washed the wounds thoroughly before treating them with some liquid that burned fiercely. The men laughed and smoked at I suffered the final indignity.
Eventually I was hauled to my feet by Naunton and Percival-Price, and they bore my weight as I came face to face with father. He stretched out his hand, "No hard feelings, son, and I hope you'll have the courage to do the same to your boys in the unhappy event you are faced with the same circumstances."
I knew what I was expected to do. I took his hand and said, "Yes, Sir. Thank you, Sir."
After that Hulme covered me with plasters and gauzes before I was put into my pyjamas and carried off to bed. It was a long time before I went to sleep, with the distant verbal backslapping of my father continuing into the still watches of the morning.
After that, things were never the same again. John and I avoided each other, and he had evidently suffered a severe beating at the hands of his boss, although not of the same... quality... that I had. He went off to do his national service in the colonies, and afterwards ended up in Amsterdam, where, to the best of my knowledge he still lives. I saw him a few years ago on holiday. Evidently he still remembers that summer with fondness, though its climax left little room for warmth on either of our parts.
My relationship with my father never recovered. He was happy to live with the coldness in the knowledge, or at least his knowledge, that he had saved me from buggery. I inherited a tidy sum of money from him. Unfortunately they were the only riches in our relationship from then.
I had enough of a scare that night that I went terribly straight. I turned to the right and met a young lady through the Oxford University Conservative Association. I married, and produced three sons. I became something of a disciplinarian with my own children. They were sent to one of the few public schools that still maintained a régime of cross-country runs and beatings into the 1970s. It was one of the few things I did that pleased my father in his declining years. And all of them felt the hot, sharp, taste of bamboo across their bare backsides as they grew up, both from me and from my father. He approved of them more than he approved of me. They took their beatings from him - more severe than I ever gave them - like men. They were interested in field sports and two of them joined the Army. One of them, to the best of my knowledge, although I was not told, was given a beating by him aged twenty-two while at Sandhurst. The other one died in the Falklands, in a meaningless war fighting for the fag-end of the Empire.
My marriage broke up in 1988, in a most embarrassing way. The birch might instil fear of gay _s_e_x_, but it cannot, nor can anything, cure the homo_s_e_x_ual urge. While Deputy Leader of a Conservative run shire district, I was arrested performing fellatio in a public lavatory. My wife divorced me, the army son who is still alive has never spoken to me since. The other son remains close both to me and his mother. He occasionally thanks me for the stern upbringing I gave him, and complains of modern child-protection laws and how they constrain him from disciplining his own son and daughter as he wishes. He is too worried by the child abuse industry to cane them, so he must confine himself to belting them. A little dose of the cane, child abuse? Hardly - I know what true child abuse is!
Part of the rage I still feel towards that evening comes from the fact that in later years I met both Commander Bryson and the Rev'd Davidson-Spencer in certain establishments in London, the former keen to bugger and flog, the latter keen to be buggered and flogged.
My grandson, to my eternal shame, has received the belt from me on a number of occasions, the last for failing to study for his A-Levels adequately when he stayed with me last Spring. I felt his fear as I came into his room in the early morning, woke him, and took down his pyjama bottoms for a sound thrashing. My son approved wholeheartedly. I know the limitations of corporal punishment better than anyone, yet I cannot conceive of family relationships without it.
Oddly, I now understand my father's mentality better. I did not enjoy beating my sons, nor do I enjoy beating my grandchildren. At best, I might get a grim satisfaction for a job well done. But beating young people is instinctively unpleasant. Although my head tells me it isn't necessary, my instincts say otherwise, and I know Simon was a lot more attentive to his revision afterwards. I am pleased to say he has now followed me into my old college.
Nor can I conceive the mentality of those unfortunates who enjoy receiving a beating. That birching divided my life into two periods, before and after. The period before full of joy, the period after more complex and difficult. The only things that remains of that magical summer before the beating is the love of pipe-smoking which John taught me. It is a love which I continue to indulge in to this day, whatever the bleatings of the politically correct nanny statists.
Beatings and tobacco. I know
the harm they can bring to people, yet used responsibly they can bring
pleasure and order to many lives, and their imperfection is merely
a reflection of that imperfection that being human is, they are dingen
an sich< I>.
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