One by one we had to step up to the table to receive a little cup filled with this dreadful substance, which we soon found out was known as ‘white mixture’. She knows the procedure all too well and goes over the desk, presenting her bottom for a long punishment session.

I was fine while bending over to fasten them up, but imagine the pull on my shoulders when I stood up. She appeared to move about by a sort of short stepped waddle, which of course fascinated the rest of us, and we whispered to each other ‘she must be a cripple’.

United States: pretend paddling of senior student at a high school in Arkansas, posed for jocular effect, c. I often hear people saying that childhood is the happiest time of your life, or that children don’t feel things – they are too young … how wrong they are and how lucky they were if they never experienced any seemingly heartrending catastrophes.

I can remember how patiently she repeated particular sounds and hard words over and over again until we got it just right, just right. In the summer time the big sliding door could be pushed back making the room almost an extension of the playground, and a haven from the rain. I remember kneeling down beside the bed – as instructed by the prefect – and trying to say my prayers.Aged 18 and 19, the two girls are used to receiving corporal punishment, but they certainly feel the strokes Headmaster Mark gives them as he rises to the challenge.

Towards the end of assembly the senior mistress announced that she would be punishing a fourth year girl for smoking.

This cane was even more painful and by the time I heard her say twenty four I started to feel a very fine spray. Molly had won every race in which she had competed and at the end of the day made more trips up onto the stage to receive her prizes than any other girl.