Susan was 14 going on 24 you might say and was already an insufferable teenager in the throes of puberty. The year was 1941 and calling your mother a stupid cow had one certain outcome – knickers would be coming down.

The story continues in Part 2: Embarkation Leave

In 1941, at the age of 19, I had just been commissioned into what I thought was a very smart regiment, and was billeted on a doctor and his wife in North Yorkshire, and was I pleased with myself! The doctor was a Territorial and had been called up earlier and was already with the RAMC in the Western Desert (Egypt) and news came shortly after I started my billet that he had been captured which naturally upset his wife. I was soon on Christian names terms with her, Bernie, (she had the most unusual Christian name of Bernadina always shortened to Bernie) and her daughter Susan who was at a local private day school. She was 14 going on 24 you might say as she was already an insufferable teenager in the throes of puberty, as I now realise, though at the time I didn’t understand the connection.

She came back from school one day obviously slightly excited and blurted out that her friend Peggy had been spanked by her father “and she had to take her knickers down!” I pricked up my ears at this as you may imagine, but Bernie said “Hush, Susan. We don’t want to hear about that, though she probably deserved it. If your father was here I daresay he’d take a hairbrush to you one of these days, if you go on as you are!” End of conversation though I stored it up for future reference – you never know when these things may come in handy.

The very next evening when I came into the house, mother and daughter were in the middle of a verbal set-to which ended with Susan calling her mother “a stupid cow”. I suppose Bernie was about 35 but to me at 19 she was definitely a grownup, not to say an old grownup, and Susan at 14 was definitely a child as far as I was concerned, and children did not say things like that to grownups, not in my book at any rate, so almost without thinking I said, “If I hear you talk to your mother like that again I’ll give you such a spanking that you won’t sit down for a fortnight!”

Like a lot of young men in those days – and I may say I was only just beginning to think of myself as grownup, I’d only left school six months before – I was totally inexperienced sexually and while I meant this as a threat I could see from Susan’s reaction that she took it as something between a challenge and a promise, while Bernie also was clearly mildly excited by it. Later that evening I apologised to her but she replied “Don’t apologise I’d be delighted if you did – she’s too much of a handful for me, and Richard probably would if he were here, though in that case I expect she wouldn’t be behaving the way she is. You must realise that we both miss him enormously – in different ways.” People didn’t talk about sex in those days and this was the only hint she ever gave me.

To say that I thought no more about it would be the understatement of the year because I actually thought about it most of the time, but life did resume its even tenor and I was kept pretty busy with Regimental duties as we went on a long exercise prior to embarking for Egypt. I had just had leave so the Colonel asked me to stay and look after the shop when everyone else went on 10 days embarkation leave, a request which I could hardly refuse in view of my recent week at home.

There wasn’t much for me to do in the regimental office so I knocked off early and went back to the house to find a monumental row going on between mother and daughter which ended with Susan calling her mother an extremely rude word which I was surprised that she knew, but that was enough for me. “I warned you Susan what to expect if you spoke to your mother like that” I said to her “now go to your room” an order which somewhat to my surprise she obeyed without demur. I followed taking a large clothes brush which hung on the hall hat-stand and which I had marked out as a suitable instrument for punishment.

Anyone about to spank a girl has to decide on the question “To bare or not to bare” (to slightly adapt Hamlet) but at this point I was still undecided, being rather conscious of a recent case which had resulted in a prison sentence for an over enthusiastic schoolmaster, but when I got to her room I was surprised and delighted to find that she had already tucked her school uniform skirt into the waistband and was waiting for me by a chair in just her navy blue knickers and white school blouse and tie, obviously ready for the promised spanking.

Before I could say anything she said (presumably with memories of her friend Peggy) “I suppose I’d better take my knickers down” and without further comment she proceeded to pull them down to her knees, presenting me with a sight that I shall never forget. Framed between the blue of her upturned skirt and the blue of her lowered knickers her bottom appeared startlingly white, though not to remain so for long!

I sat on the chair which she had placed conveniently at hand, and without my saying anything she draped herself over my knees saying as she did so “Not too hard” to which I replied “No, but hard enough” and began the first spanking I had ever delivered. Over the knee spankings are not like bent-over canings in that one tends not to count the number of strokes but just carries on until the subject’s bottom is a suitable shade of red and she is showing signs of understanding why she is being punished.

To begin with Susan just wriggled and made little grunting noises but after about 10 or so strokes of the brush she started to squeal a bit and her bottom was turning a nice shade of pink and as I continued she started beg “No more please, that’s enough” but I took no notice and the tears began to flow as her bottom turned a rich shade like a ripe tomato. When I eventually stopped I pushed her off my knees and she stood up with some difficulty. “Go and apologise to your mother” I told her, “and if there is a next time I shall use a cane” though I didn’t really know where I could get one.

I followed her downstairs to the sitting room where Bernie was obviously rather excited having heard the whole procedure, and it wasn’t till we got there that I realised that her skirt was still tucked up at the back and her knickers were half way to her knees; from the front she just looked slightly dishevelled but when she turned round Bernie drew in her breath quite sharply and after a good look at her daughter’s bottom she said “ Perhaps that will teach you to learn some manners. Now pull your knickers up and go and finish your home work – I’ll come and say good night to you later.”

She went off sniffing somewhat and rubbing her bottom with a hand inside her knickers, and Bernie thanked me for my exertions. She continued.

“The last time that happened to me”, she said, “I was sixteen and my father was on leave from France, and he used a birch; this was still the traditional instrument though a bit old fashioned by then, but my mother and he had both been birched at school as I subsequently discovered, so I suppose he didn’t think of using anything else. It was easy to make one from the trees in the garden and I suppose one of them had got one ready in case they felt any of the children needed it, though in fact I was the first one to get it. Anyhow I had to pull my knickers down and bend over the table for a good dozen swishing strokes which quickly reduced me to tears.”

“After he’d gone back to France my mother continued to use one and actually in spite of what I just said that wasn’t the last time, which didn’t come until I was 18 and engaged to be married. I can’t say I liked having to take my knickers down to bare my bottom and bend over the table, but afterwards I did get a kind of warm feeling which I rather enjoyed”

I was a bit slow in the uptake but I was beginning to realise that this was all a big sexual turn on so I said, “Perhaps I should make one in case you want me to take Susan in hand again” to which she replied “It wouldn’t be a bad thing if she should deserve another spanking, so you could make one, and if you show it to me I’ll tell you if you’ve got it right”

The story continues in Part 2: Embarkation Leave