My stepmother had been a keen equestrian when my father and her first married. Unfortunately, she was thrown from her horse (spooked by a passing car) and left in a wheelchair, paralysed from the waist down. I was lucky enough to still have my Father around, and for a while my parents got by with me being sent to my room to ‘wait till your father gets home’.
When he did so, Father would come upstairs, put me over his knee and smack me over the seat of my trousers. To be honest, he was pretty soft with me and it didn’t do me a lot of good.
Before I go on, it’s worth explaining something about how things were in the early 1970s. Back then, it was customary for all children to address adults as either ‘aunty’ or ‘uncle’, regardless of whether they were actually related. It was simply a sign of respect and familiarity, and everyone in the neighbourhood did it.
But the truth is, most of these so-called ‘aunties and uncles’ were, at best, rather dull people—unremarkable, with little to say that interested a child. At worst, they were interfering busybodies who could never quite mind their own business. They always seemed to know who had been up to what, and were quick to offer their opinions on how other people’s children should be raised. Looking back, I can almost laugh at how seriously they took their self-appointed roles as guardians of neighbourhood morals, but at the time, their constant watchfulness made childhood feel like living under a hundred pairs of eyes.
And among all these interfering busybodies, our neighbour Auntie Deirdre was in a league of her own. She was a humongously large lady, the sort who seemed to fill a doorway just by standing in it. Auntie Deirdre was never seen without her trademark dark blue housecoat, which looked as if it had been designed to withstand a hurricane, and she always wore a hair net bristling with curlers, as if she was perpetually preparing for a grand event that never arrived. Her presence was impossible to ignore—she seemed to cast a shadow over the whole street, and her voice, booming and confident, could be heard from one end of the block to the other.
If there was ever a conversation to be overheard, a bit of gossip to be shared, or a child’s misstep to be noticed, Auntie Deirdre was always right there—front and centre, never missing a beat. She had an uncanny knack for inserting herself into everyone’s business, and when it came to keeping tabs on the neighbourhood children, she was unmatched. She seemed to have an ill-informed opinion on absolutely everything, but especially on the disciplining of the younger generation. No matter the topic, Auntie Deirdre would weigh in, her words delivered with the certainty of someone who had never once doubted herself, even when she was clearly mistaken.
So, when I mention Auntie Deirdre, she wasn’t a blood relative, but that’s how we addressed all the grown-ups around us.
One day, I was out playing in the garden. My stepmother was there too and talking over the fence to our left-hand neighbour, who I called Auntie Deirdre. She was in her 50s and had two grown-up children.
My stepmother must have been moaning about my lack of discipline when I heard Auntie Deirdre. You can imagine that I cocked my ears up at the remarks.
My stepmother then said something to the effect that my Father didn’t really like smacking my bottom much. Auntie Deirdre replied, her voice carrying across the gardens: “Well, if you want him properly smacked, I’m happy to come round and do him anytime you like. It kept my two on the straight and narrow, that’s for sure.” She said it with the air of someone who believed she was the final authority on the subject, her housecoat rustling as she gestured for emphasis.
By now really embarrassed, I went a bit further up the garden so I couldn’t hear the rest of the conversation, but then my stepmother shouted at me: “Peter! Come here!”
I reluctantly and slowly went back towards the two women. Auntie Deirdre looked at me appraisingly, almost as if she was already sizing up my bottom. She loomed over me, her massive frame and the ever-present housecoat making her seem even more formidable. Then my stepmother said: “Auntie Deirdre and I have been talking. You have been getting a really naughty boy just lately, and I won’t have it. So when you misbehave in future, she and I have agreed that she will come round and smack your bottom. Do you understand?”
I blushed deeply at the mention of something so embarrassing as corporal punishment but managed a nod. “Have you been a good boy for your mother today, Peter?” Auntie Deirdre demanded, her voice booming and her curlers bobbing with every word. Fortunately, my stepmother answered for me. “Yes, he got a bit of a smacked bottom off his Father last night so he’s behaving himself for now.” “Boys his age need father to take a belt to their bottoms,” Auntie Deirdre shot back, as if she were reciting gospel. “Well, see you behave yourself from now on, Peter – you won’t like my medicine, believe me!”
For a few weeks, I was the best behaved boy in town. Just the threat of Auntie Dierdre coming round to smack me appalled me. The thought of having my bottom smacked by a woman who wasn’t my stepmother was mortifying. I thought about it a lot. Would Auntie Deirdre use the belt she said my Father should employ? Most worrying of all was her remark about bottoms – would she take my pants down if called upon to smack me?
As I say, I was a good boy for a long time, but such is the nature of small boys that they can’t be good for too long. I forget exactly what I had done naughty, but one afternoon, soon after I got home from school, my stepmother exploded on me and said: “Right – I’m ringing Auntie Deirdre!” I begged her not to but she was having none of it. She scooted her wheelchair over to the telephone and made the call. It was a relatively short one.
“Right, young man, sit on the sofa – while you still can – and we’ll wait for Auntie Deirdre to come.” I sat there, misery personified. I remember listening to the lounge clock ticking for what seemed like hours but of course it was only a few minutes.
Before too long, we heard the back door open (this was in the days when doors were rarely locked, except at night) and Auntie Deirdre calling out. “We’re in the lounge!” my stepmother shouted back. Our neighbour came through the door, her bulk filling the frame, the dark blue housecoat swishing as she moved, curlers and hair net firmly in place. In her right hand was a ladies runner soled carpet slipper. She sat down on the sofa next to me, the furniture creaking under her weight.
“Well, Peter, what have you been up to?” she asked, her voice rumbling like distant thunder. Before I could open my mouth, it became clear that this was a question not really aimed at me, as my step mother described my misbehaviour, adding to the list one or two little sins I thought had been ignored or forgotten.
“Well,” Auntie Deirdre, now looking me right in the eye, her face framed by the net and curlers. “It sounds to me like somebody needs his bottom smacked.” My mouth opened in protest but no words would come. “Yes, he does,” my stepmother confirmed behind me to my horror.
The room was a combined lounge-diner. Auntie Deirdre got up, took a chair from under the dining table and placed it in the centre of the room, facing my stepmother’s wheelchair. Auntie Deirdre sat down on it, put the slipper down on her lap and called me to her side – which I did very reluctantly.
Auntie Deirdre looked me straight in the eye again, her massive arms folded across her housecoat. “This is what naughty boys need, isn’t it?” That was another one which didn’t need an answer from me. She picked up the slipper. “Lie over my knee!”
My heart thudded in my chest as I shuffled forward, the carpet prickling beneath my socks. The slipper in her hand was a heavy, well-worn thing—navy blue, with a thick, rubber sole that looked almost comically large in her grip. I could see the faint scuffs and the way the light caught the ridges of the sole, hinting at years of use. As I bent over her knee, the scent of lavender from her housecoat mingled with the faint, rubbery tang of the slipper. Her lap was broad and unyielding, and her arm, thick and strong, wrapped around my waist like a steel band, pinning me in place. I felt utterly powerless, my face burning with shame and dread.
Auntie Deirdre’s demeanor was all business—her lips pressed into a determined line, her eyes fixed on the task at hand. She adjusted my shirt, exposing my bottom, and I could feel the cool air on my skin, heightening my anxiety. Then, with a practiced motion, she raised the slipper high. There was a brief, terrifying pause, and then it came down with a sharp, echoing smack. The first blow sent a jolt of pain through me, the rubber sole landing with a sting that was both deep and immediate. The sound was unmistakable—a loud, flat crack that seemed to fill the room and make my ears ring.
The slippering that followed was relentless. Each smack landed with a heavy, rubbery thud, the sole biting into my skin and sending waves of heat and pain radiating through my backside. The rhythm was merciless—Auntie Deirdre’s arm rising and falling with mechanical precision, her housecoat billowing with every movement. The slipper itself seemed to mold to the curve of my bottom, amplifying the sting with every strike. I could feel the texture of the sole, the way it gripped and released, leaving behind a tingling, burning sensation that grew with each blow.
I cried out, the tears coming fast, but Auntie Deirdre was unmoved. In fact, the more I sobbed, the firmer her grip became, and the harder the slipper seemed to fall. She aimed most of the strokes low, right where I would feel them every time I sat down—a calculated cruelty that made the punishment linger long after it was over. The room seemed to shrink around me, the only sounds my own wailing and the relentless slap of rubber on skin.
When it was finally over, I was let up—a blubbering wreck, my bottom throbbing and hot, my face streaked with tears. Auntie Deirdre took my hand—her grip engulfing mine, rough and warm—and steered me over to an empty corner of the room. I was ordered to put my hands on my head and was left there, the sting of the slipper still burning, my heart pounding with humiliation and relief that it was finally done.
When Father got home, my stepmother delighted in regaling him with all the intimate details of my punishment. “Do you want me to smack him again?” Father asked. To my relief, my stepmother replied. “No, I think he’s suffered enough for today.”
To say that the results on my behaviour was spectacular would be an understatement. Even Father stopped smacking me when he saw how much better the results were when I was turned over Auntie Deirdre’s knee.
Our surname is Royal and it was Auntie Deirdre’s little joke that she was ‘bottom smacker by Royal appointment’. It was a gag she wheeled out at parties and get-togethers (causing much reddening in my upper set of cheeks, needless to say) even when I was a young man. And always, she would be there in her dark blue housecoat, curlers and hair net in place, ready to offer her opinion—however ill-informed—on the upbringing of the younger generation.
