My family lived in mid-Tennessee during the mid 1990s, and it was a very loving home, though Biblically-disciplined and strict. Of course, that Biblical discipline including spankings for the owners of little bottoms who disobeyed Mother or Daddy!

Spankings were mostly administered by our mother – I guess she felt it was part of the woman’s home-keeping role. Mother was a very well-built and strong woman. She only ever used her hand to spank her offspring but boy, could she make it hurt!

There were four of us. Myself, Hannah, the youngest and then Nathan, Matthew and Ruth.

As I mentioned before, spankings were by no means an uncommon happening in our home, but on this one memorable day, for the first and last time all of our bottoms got tanned in one sitting

Despite our age differences, we got on pretty well as siblings and a lot of the time played together, especially as there weren’t that many others of our age range in the close neighbourhood. Anyway, on this particular day, we were playing a fairly riotous and very loose game of football, basically just throwing the ball to each other and running randomly with it.

All went well for a while but then we forgot ourselves entirely and began to run in forbidden areas of our garden, i.e. the flower beds and vegetable patches. To make things worse, we even began to encroach on the garden of our left-hand neighbour, a fairly elderly widow named Mrs Miller – with the same disastrous effects.

Our yelling and laughing must have eventually brought Mrs Miller outside to see what was happening. “Get off my garden!” she yelled. Suddenly aware that we had crossed a line, we all beat it inside, dropping the ball by the back step as we did so.

We didn’t have to wait very long for the escalation of this little incident. The doorbell rang and when Mother went to answer it, sure enough there was Mrs Miller, looking no less mad than she had a minute or two ago.

She explained what had happened and needless to say, Mother was horrified. She invited her neighbour in and called us all into the kitchen. “Did you see which of these were responsible for the damage?” she asked Mrs Miller. The old lady considered for a moment. “Not really – they were all running around some, but scattered when I came out to yell at them.”

Mother turned to us with a stony face. “In that case,” she said, “I think I had better spank the bunch of them just to make sure.” Howls, tears and protests broke out but were quelled when Mother said: “Do you want the hairbrush instead? Be quiet, until you all have something to cry about!”

She again turned to Mrs Miller. “I think it’s only fair you should see justice done.” Mrs Miller nodded eagerly. Mother drew a dining chair out to the centre of the kitchen and began rolling up the right sleeve of her sweater – a familiar overture to a spanking in our house. Mrs Miller drew out another, then said to Mother: “You spank, I’ll get them ready.” Mother nodded her approval.

Now, normally with multiple spankings in our house, the youngest went first, I assume to get it over with quickly. However, obviously our neighbour was unaware of this tradition and she drew Ruth to her side.

Mrs Miller guided Ruth over to her mother and Mother put her over her knee in the traditional fashion. She began to spank Ruth vigorously and hard, judging by the yelling and the quick change in the colour of her heiney. After a few smacks had been delivered, and while Mother continued to chastise my sister, Mrs Miller took hold of Matthew and did the same with his lower garments. Highly embarrassed, my brother had to watch the remainder of Ruth’s spanking.

Finally, Ruth was sent straight to bed with no supper – a fate which would await us all – and Matthew was next over Mother’s knee. My mother’s hand was already well-reddened from her labours but the crying she produced from her eldest son made it clear she had lost none of the impetus or will to discipline us all thoroughly.

Meanwhile, Nathan was putting up a little fight while Mrs Miller tried to prepare him for his own spanking. But he alone of us wore shorts that day and Mrs Miller quickly brought him under control with some harsh smacks to the backs of his calves and thighs. The fight gone, and already crying, Matthew finally let the stern old lady undress him ready for Mother’s knee.

I usually watched my siblings spankings through a smear of my own tears but for once was getting the full show, and I was close to pooping my panties with the fear of what was inevitably to come my way. I watched Matthew squirming and wriggling his bottom, sobbing at the top of his lungs, as Mother spanked the hell out of him.

Suddenly, I found myself face-to-face with our nemesis.

Matthew was dismissed with a final whack to his seat, then Mrs Miller propelled me towards my waiting mother’s knee. “Last one, Mommy!” Mrs Miller said. “Make it one she’ll remember.” I remember Mother giving a grim nod and then all I remember is fire in my behind and a tearful rush upstairs to the girls’ bedroom, where Ruth was face down on the bed crying, spanked bottom on show still, and I threw myself down in the same position and hugged my teddy as I wept.

We were well-spanked that day. A couple of days later, four very chastened culprits had to go round to Mrs Miller’s and help her with restoring the damage we had done. She was quite pleasant to us that day, although there were frequent references to bottom spankings which embarrassed us all, particularly the boys thinking about what that old lady had seen that day.