The deputy headmistress of a school for naughty adults – where corporal punishment was never abolished – explains all.
“Come up to the front Jennings, and share with the whole class whatever it is you find so amusing!”
Whipstock Grange is a school for adults. Once a month, a dozen or so overgrown pupils spend a day in an authentic 1950s classroom, wearing uniforms, having lessons, singing hymns, suffering school dinners, drinking milk from authentic little bottles – and being beaten.
I’m deputy headmistress. I take lessons here about four times a year, lecturing and beating my way through a school day that runs from 10-5. I absolutely love doing it – the creativity, the power – although it’s flipping knackering: my caning arm aches for days afterwards. Jennings, a jolly schoolboy in his Seventies, who likes to keep tabs on the pupils’ errant behaviour, tells me I managed around 2000 cane strokes on my most recent visit.
My pupils are absurdly naughty. They keep sweets and smutty magazines in their desks, fling plastic spiders at me from their catapults, try every trick to steal my teacher’s file, which contains answers to all the tests. Of course they do. They want to be caned. There are dozens of canes, birches, plimsolls, tawses, all littered about the teacher’s desk. Naughty Jennings has put posters up around the classroom offering a go on his girlfriend for sixpence. Over my knee for a dose of the slipper. His girlfriend blushes and squirms at the sight.
Oh yes, women attend Whipstock too. The ratio is usually around 1:2 female to male, although many boys prefer to attend as schoolgirls. All must suffer a uniform inspection first thing, to ensure they are wearing regulation school undergarments, their shoes shiny, their socks pulled taut to the knee. Otherwise, it’s over the horse for six of the best. Jennings looks smart, but under his pressed grey shorts I find silky pink knickers embroidered with the word ‘sissy’. Over he goes.
“And did those canes, in ancient times
Fall upon Whipstock’s poor young bums…”
So we sing, to the music teacher’s thundering rendition of Jerusalem, and I hope that William Blake, who rather enjoyed a spanking himself, would approve our efforts.
It’s relaxing and exhilarating to surrender to a different personality for a day. When I first arrive we are our usual vanilla selves, all in mufti, sipping coffee; everyone gets a hug, and we take a few minutes to catch up with real world guff, children, careers, traffic jams: but as soon as the bell rings, we become our other personas. I am stern and foreboding, most unlike the placid, charming, everyday Melissa. It’s the ultimate in mindfulness.
Is it odd that people so love to play as schoolchildren? It’s a huge industry: Whipstock is just one of many such schools scattered about the UK. For many of us, school was a time without any real responsibilities – no bills to pay, no career ladders to climb: someone else in charge of us, always. It’s a soothing, simple state, and many yearn to rediscover it. Additionally, many of us had our first sexual awakening or encounter at school, so the familiar uniform and smell of chalk dust can kindle something, some possibility, some promise.
Not for me, you understand. I hated school and couldn’t wait to leave. But I do like spanking, and the excellent school dinners, so I put up with the ink wells, the satchels and catapults.
Geography exam next. What percentage of the Nile is in Egypt? Which is the only major city located on two continents? The pass mark is 75%, and you can perhaps hazard a guess what happens if you fail. Poor Jennings is devastated to learn he’s scraped a pass.
The Headmaster, John, runs the school alongside his sister. He’s been on the kink scene for decades, running spanking parties and events, but it’s always been his dream to run a purpose-built school of his own. Eventually, he bought a bungalow along the south coast and made it into a classroom, headmaster’s study, cloakroom, dining hall and detention room, where each pupil sees me alone for a few minutes after lessons.
I’m glad that Whipstock Grange exists. A community of like-minded souls playing together peaceably makes me happy. We all need to play more and worry less, I reckon. Long may its halls swell with rowdy song. “I vow to thee, headmaster! It’s punishment with love. It’s punishment with love.”
MELISSA TODD
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