At home, though, it was always bare bottom. Mum would take down my trousers and pants and take her sweet time examining the cane marks on my bum, usually remarking that the headmaster had done a good job but she was about to do an even better one. Then she would get the smacking slipper out of her dressing table and put me bare-bottomed across her knee, big boy as I was. This childish form of discipline continued up to the age of 14, by which time it was truly humiliating.
The worst part of the home smackings was that unlike school, when the cane was applied and everyone moved on, Mum would talk about how naughty you’d been – and the sore bottom you’d been given – for days on end afterwards, even to relative strangers in front of you. That was the real shame and pain!