Friday 2 October 2009

The Head Girl

Here is a little story I once received from an acquaintance. It illustrates very well the kind of power that a head boy or head girl had over juniors where the right to slipper juniors was granted to the in some schools in England.
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I know that 12-year old brothers are annoying, especially to older sisters when they invite their friends around and little brother plays up. But it was only so that he would get noticed!

My sister was in the sixth form at the same school and she was best friends with Sarah Jenkins who was incidentally the head girl. At school, she wore a little red badge in the shape of a shield on the lapel of her blazer and had the reputation of being a thoroughly responsible girl and good in nearly everything. She was tall with long blond hair as well as being well spoken and confident with it.

When she came round to see my sister, I used to lie in wait. I loved annoying them, it was good sport. Squirting water on their heads from my bedroom window as they left to see some boys, putting butter on the handle to my sister’s bedroom door are just a few of the ways I amused myself at their expense. They, on the other hand, were usually not amused at all and I should have paid much closer attention when Sarah told my sister, promised her in fact, that she would see to it that I would pay dearly when I made snow come in late June with a packet of flour which accidentally fell out of my hands and landed on Sarah’s head!

That was on a Saturday back in 1975 and by the next Monday morning, I had forgotten all about it. Unfortunately, Sarah had not. It was during lunch time when I was meandering along a small path that led to the playground that I saw her coming the other way. It meant squeezing past her and instead she blocked my way and stood over me (she was a great deal taller than I was at that time).

“Andrew!” she said with a look of seriousness in her eyes, “Do your tie up and your top button with it.”

I co-operated knowing that she was head girl after all and head girls did have some power over us juniors.

“And sort your blazer out,” she added.

I tried my best to turn back lapels, straighten my uniform out and then hopefully be able to move on. I was beginning to not like the expression on Sarah’s face, a faint glint lurked in her eye, as though something had been pre-planned.

“Here let me help you,” she said with feigned exasperation in her voice. With that, she thrust a hand into my blazer pocket and instantly removed it again, with a small packet of Embassy Number Ones in it. I looked at her with utter consternation in my eyes.

“And what’s this?” she enquired as she held the packet up to my face. “You’d better come with me, Andrew. I think we’ve got a lot that needs sorting out!”

I followed Sarah, wondering how in Heaven’s name the cigarettes had got into my pocket. It was obviously a plant, but from whom? I could only guess that it was my sister. But, apparently, I was wrong about that and shall never quite know who planted those cigarettes upon me.

Sarah led me into the school gym. It was empty and smelled faintly of old socks. “Andrew,” she said looking at me, “Get into your PE kit now!” she ordered.

I looked back at Sarah enquiringly. “But I haven’t got it with me!”

Sarah walked over to a wooden bench where there was a single large gym shoe and a PE bag sitting on top of it, my PE bag in fact!

She slung it over to me. I caught the bag clumsily in my arms and then protested.

“This isn’t fair!” I said loudly to her. The echo of my voice was immediately added to by the sound of footsteps, a teacher’s footsteps. From nowhere, Mr Malden, my PE teacher walked in to the gym. He smiled benevolently at Sarah and then scowled at me. He had never liked me and I could see that I was now in a trap.

“Hello Sir!” Sarah said to the teacher. “Just dealing with Andrew . . . I hope you don’t mind me coming into your gym, Sir.”

Sarah was all but fluttering her eyelids as she spoke. Mr Malden cleared his throat and then smiled back at Sarah, not forgetting to send me another quick scowl of disapproval as her looked round.

“No worries, Sarah – you’ve got your duties as a head girl to be getting on with.” he said as eh turned towards the door and began to leave.

“Thank you, Mr Malden,” Sarah replied.

Mr Malden stopped for a second and glanced back towards the wooden bench. “Don’t forget to put it back where you found it, will you now, Sarah,” he said as all eyes rested upon the large gym shoe sat next to where my PE bag had just been.

“And as for you, Andrew,” he added with disdain in his voice, “I’m leaving you in her charge and if there’s any trouble you’ll have me to deal with – is that clear?”

“Yes, Sir!” I replied, but he didn’t hear since he was already gone.

I finally did as I was told. I quickly changed into my PE kit and stood before Sarah.

Sarah pointed to the climbing bars on the side of the gym and showed me that I needed to bend over and place my hands on the lower rungs with my bottom pointing outwards. I got the idea. I glanced fearfully at the large gym shoe and then did as |I was told once again. Once in position, I felt exposed and anxious. Sarah picked up the show and moved towards me. She tapped it gently against my backside a couple of times and began to speak.

“Yes, Andrew,” she said half laughing, “You’ve been set up. So let’s get to why you’re really here. I’m going to give you the thrashing of a lifetime with this gym shoe and, oh yes, this is going to hurt you a lot more than it’s going to hurt me!”

With that she placed a mighty whack across my bottom and I gasped. It hurt a lot, a lot more than I had imagined it would and I looked around and exclaimed, “For God’s sake, Sarah!”

Sarah saw the look of anguish in my face and shrugged her shoulders and then smiled.

“Oh dear, Andrew,” she said as she began to remove her school blazer with the shield on its lapel. “I was just warming up. You do know that I’m a brilliant tennis player don’t you?” she said menacingly.

Sarah then rolled up the sleeve of her right arm, stepped back a good few paces and ran up like to me at full pelt placing an almighty thwack upon my backside.

A terrific yelp emanated from me and reverberated around the empty gym. Being under Sarah’s charge was proving to be a very unpleasant experience and I was panicking inside.

“God, I’m sorry, Sarah,” I pleaded back to her. “I’ve learnt my lesson, I know what you’re doing and I won’t annoy you and my sister ever again . . . I promise!”

Sarah made no reaction. She walked back up to me and laid a volley of three thwacks upon my backside in fast succession. I cried out as loudly as anyone could and the moaned pitifully as I felt the harshness of Sarah’s stinging gym shoe spread across my buttocks.

Sarah continued for a fair while. One thwack was laid upon another. I closed my eyes and took my medicine, vowing to never cross her or my sister again. Through the pain, however, I appreciated that I had gone too far in annoying the girls, that they had deserved more respect and with the kind of whacking skills Sarah was inflicting on me, I hardly had any other choice than to show her all the respect I could.

When Sarah had finally finished with me, she let me change back into my school uniform for afternoon lessons and, after checking that I looked neat and tidy, she sent me away with my hands held over a pair of burning cheeks. That next Saturday, Sarah stayed for dinner. I was very polite to her and my sister was genuinely surprised by my change in attitude towards her best friend. She hadn’t known a thing, and she never did find out.

As far as my sister is concerned, her little brother just became more respectful over night.

2 comments:

  1. Nice blogg, you are wraiting of schoolboy uniforms history in here, congratulations for this idea and blogg.....

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  2. I think your interests are similar to my own. Thank you for such well written tales of preparatory school life. I attended similar schools in both West London and Somerset during the 1960's.

    I was caned only twice at school, both times by the headmaster. Never actually received a caning from a female at least not until I was old enough to persuade a like-minded girlfriend. I do however remember one fearsome young schoolmistress much like the one you describe. She would, when displeased, tell younger boys of seven or eight to take their short trousers down before administering a severe bare bottom spanking. Older boys got smacked with a long ruler on the back of the legs instead. Nowadays of course she would end up in court but in those far off days it was considered completely normal if a little unfair! My only regret is that my behaviour was always impeccable.

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