Editor’s note: This contribution was originally emailed to Maman in 2002.

I know that in this permissive day and age, many of your readers might think spanking of children is dying out or indeed entirely extinct. However, I can vouch to the contrary.

I was in my local branch of Tesco the other day and was in the process of getting some rice. I finally found the right aisle and it was deserted except for myself and a young mum (in her early 20s, I’d say) and her little boy, who I’d guess to be about three or four.

As I came around the corner, I could already hear some altercation going on between mother and son, about him wanting something (probably sweets, at a guess) and how he was not going to get it. Before I knew it, the little boy had thrown himself on the supermarket floor and was engaged in a full-scale tantrum, screaming and pounding with his fists.

I don’t think his mum noticed me at that point, she was too busy attending to her child. And this is what she did. She went down on one knee, hauled the little lad to his feet, then very efficiently and quickly took down first his trousers (which conveniently had an elasticated waist) and then his underpants, which I noticed had an aeroplanes pattern on them.

Mum then proceeded to put her now bare-bottomed boy over her raised knee and began to smack his bum very efficiently and quite hard, producing more screams but eventually melting him into tears of submission. That little bottom was soon covered in red handprints.

It was only as she pulled the boy’s pants back up that mum became aware of me standing there looking at the spectacle. She blushed as if expecting a rebuke from me, but I just smiled and said: “That’s the right medicine to give them. If I had a pound for every time I’ve had mine’s pants down for a spanking, I’d be a rich woman.”

The boy was now sobbing quietly into his mum’s bosom and as she held him close, she said to me: “He’s a good boy usually but he’s pushed me too far today.”

“You did the right thing,” I assured her again. I grabbed my rice and carried on with my shopping.

Spanking might be dying out, but I’m happy to report there are still some children out there getting their bottoms smacked when needed!