As she was too big to have me over her lap (she was eight months gone with my half brother), she instead dragged me over to the settee and pushed me down over its arm. Mum instructed my now ashen-faced little sister to fetch the hairbrush. “And the bath brush!” she added ominously as I tried to breathe, my lungs seemingly unable to absorb any oxygen.
Realising she had forgotten to bare my behind, mum pulled me up from over the arm of the settee and with one practiced movement she lowered my pyjama bottoms. My buttocks suitably presented for punishment, she again pushed my upper body downwards, forcing me to bend at the waist, my bare backside sticking up and out, presenting a perfect little target for mum’s arsenal of brushes.