That was it! No mention of what corporal punishment exactly she had received, and no matter how hard we pressed her Helen refused to say any more on the subject. Of course we all speculated and discussed, and several of the girls, myself included, even considered grabbing hold of her and pulling her trousers (Helen always wore trousers!) and knickers down to check on the state of her bottom. Several boys also supported this course of action although felt they shouldn’t be present when we did it. In the event, we did nothing and after a couple of days the matter was more or less forgotten.

For the rest of that year there were no major incidents of any note. Boys in the lower forms continued to be slippered in class and the headmaster caned some of the more serious transgressors but so far as I know there were no incidents involving anyone in the lower sixth.

Almost a year after Helen got her mysterious ‘corporal punishment’, we were now in the upper sixth and beginning to be awarded extra responsibilities like becoming prefects. By April, I had still not received ‘the call’ and so remained a humble sixth former. I was now well settled into the school and my only regret at this time was my friend Jane having to move away from the area because of problems in her family. I got on well with the boys and so it wasn’t unexpected that I was asked down to the local pub one lunchtime for a drink with a boy whose birthday it was and three of his mates.

Of course we all knew drinking alcohol in the middle of the school day was not allowed, but we were all eighteen by this time so it wasn’t actually illegal. We were also very careful not to overdo things and in the event we each only had one pint of lemonade shandy. We were, though, spotted by a member of staff and on our return to school told that we should report to the headmaster at eleven o’clock the following morning.