I grew up in a fairly rural area of the UK in the 1960s, and a lot of the properties in my village had large gardens with apple and pear orchards. I was really never the sort of lad to get into trouble, but still at about 13 I was vulnerable to the odd bully […]

In 1941, I was almost 12 and in a day school for boys in Oxford. I had no siblings, and my father had been killed in the war in late 1939.  Lots of others who lived nearby had also lost their fathers, and many more men were away fighting. Everything in Oxford, though, was much more peaceful than elsewhere in England, […]

My sister and I are what’s termed fraternal twins – the product of two separately fertilised eggs, rather than the conventional divided one. My sister Cassie is slightly older according to our mother – who should know of course, because she was there to welcome us! We loved each other, still do, and shared everything […]

In addition to parental punishments, kids are sometimes spanked by someone closer to their own age, most commonly an older brother or sister or a babysitter. In my case, it was my older sister Cathy who introduced me to both the pain and the pleasure of a sound spanking. Cathy and I were best friends […]