In my day and age, if a child was naughty, the inevitable response from an adult was: “Somebody is asking for a smacked bottom” – which of course was very confusing, because who would want that? Nevertheless, whether or not a naughty child wanted a spanked bottom or not was irrelevant because once those words […]

I was just approaching nine years old and had finished my second year at prep school. My brother had gone off to scout camp but I was deemed too young to join the wolf cub camp that year. Instead, I was invited to spend the first week or so of the summer holidays with a […]

It is now 50 years ago that I visited an aunt with my mother. On arrival, we were shown into the dining room and my aunt apologised for asking us to wait, as she had a job to finish upstairs. As we sat down we could hear my aunt sharply issuing instructions and the pleading […]

At the age of 17, in the early 60s, I was frequently earning money as a babysitter. There was one family which I doubt I will ever forget. There were three children – a set of nine-year-old twin boys and a seven-year-old girl. They were generally good kids; however. there was usually some trouble-making going […]

I grew up from grade school to high school with my good friend Marty. Marty was the class clown at school, but at home his mother Susan was a strict disciplinarian. As far as I knew, Susan never punished Marty or his younger sister, but I was witness to his younger brother’s punishment. Susan was […]

I grew up in the 50s on a small Mediterranean island off the Italian mainland, where my father was “something in intelligence”. My two sisters (one older and one younger) and I were punished when necessary and as neither mother nor father was ever around to do it, Nanny, who ran the entire household, took […]