There Is No Problem That Can’t Be Solved By a Sore Bottom

Free Chapters of the Woody Back to School Unit spanking saga are available at the Woodettes Publications Page and I am delighted to announce that the first two full volumes are now available for purchase at the brand, spanking new Woodettes Storefront! Electronically downloading is the cheapest and quickest means of getting to read hundreds of pages of spanking good fun!

”There is no problem that can’t be solved by a sore bottom”, so goes the mantra of Ma Brooks, the pro-spanking advocate and mother of the Woody Back to School Unit inmate, Miss Claire Brooks.

The spanking tradition in the Brooks household dates back several generations and Ma still regularly warms her twenty-nine year old daughter’s buns with the heirloom known as ‘Brooks Brush’.

Now before I continue I would like to make it extremely clear that I do not condone any kind of miss-treatment of kids. Chez Humphries of my youth was a spank-free zone with the exception of the odd clip around the ear. Both my parent’s believed that we got more than enough discipline at school. As a graduate of the Last Cane Generation I personally don’t believe it did us much harm. In a wonderful nugget my old friend Debbie’s mother observed that “it was always Debbie who needed to be spanked”. Debbie’s unconcerned response was that she had turned out okay and there’s no denying that she has. She is a successful career businesswoman and a perfectly well-rounded individual. I shall leave it to others to debate the pros and cons of such matters and move right along without further ado.

The character of Claire Brooks was inspired by a snippet of conversation when a work colleague commented that “we used to get swished by the prefects at school”. As I recounted in the post ‘Did Claire get the cane? – Another Vanilla Nugget’ that potentially tantalizing conversation was disastrously interrupted by a barmaid taking last call. That is one of the few times in R Humphries life that I have ever been truly irritated by a buxom blond offering alcoholic refreshment.

As a writer I am fascinated by the language of spanking and I found the word ‘swishing’ to be a delightfully feminine description for a length of rattan slicing ominously through the air aimed at an upturned pair of buttocks. My personal favorite term is whops, which I think resonates of the beautifully rotund sound of the cane rebounding off tautened bumbags.

I once participated in a lengthy discussion with some on-line spankettes debating the use of the word beating in my writing. Some of them found the phrase uncomfortable and commented that it had unpleasant overtones. I have discussed this matter with My Beloved Jojo and although she sympathized with their feelings she convinced me that in the context within which I write the traditional words of beating and thrashing are perfectly appropriate.

My colleague was a rather well-bred and refined character so it always amused me that she had a penchant for ribald pith and regularly interjected her observations with surprisingly blue language. She was exactly the type of gal who fits in perfectly at Woodys.

Because of her use of the phrase “we used to” I have no real idea whether my colleague was referring to the fact that she actually got swished herself or that it was just a general commentary about the school she attended. I, of course, prefer to believe the former.

Bearing in mind her refinement I have always imagined that she attended a polite establishment that specialized in etiquette and deportment. It made sense to me that the rituals surrounding Claire getting the cane at school should reflect these elements so I devised the quaint tradition of the six o’clock swishings.

I thought it would be rather nice if the Head Prefects sent the gals polite notelets inviting them over to their studies for a six o’clock swishing. Of course, as would be expected in any polite society, the gals are requested to RSVP. I rather like the idea of gals cutting though the corridors to keep their appointments after spending much of the day waiting to be caned.

When Claire keeps her first appointment the Head Prefect explains that in her opinion Miss Brooks is spending far too much time in the detention room and suggests that it might be time to try a swishing. Claire, who has been brought up head down, arse up over her mother’s knee, offers no objection to the suggestion and compliantly bends over the back of a convenient sofa. Claire later tells her Woody chums that she only received three strokes which she points out “is only half a swishing”. Clearly it did not have the desired effect as she is invited back a few days later for the other half.

Throughout her school life Claire’s potty mouth and penchant for pith results in her receiving enough invitations for six o’clock swishings to elevate her to the distinguished position of the nation’s second most caned schoolgirl in history.

Ultimately she distinguishes herself further when after being caught in flagrante delicto with a stable-lad she becomes the first gal to be horsed and birched since the end of the Second World War.

The tradition of horsing and birching is now largely obsolete, at least in the circles that I travel in. However, at one time it was extremely fashionable, especially in British reformatories. There are a number of variations of how a birching is delivered including the infamous birching horses that can be viewed at various museums specializing in such items. However, for Claire’s birching I elected the more interesting variation that was widely practiced at the famous Houses of Flagellation such as Theresa Berkeley’s salon in Charlotte Street.

Claire is instructed to remove her bumbags and is forced to mount up on a burly prefect’s back as if she is competing in a piggy-back race. The prefect bent forward and her assistant grasps Claire’s wrists and holds her arms out straight. Once properly arranged in this somewhat undignified position the skirt of her gymslip is pinned back so that the birch could be applied. The birch was constructed of a bundle of twenty Betula Pendula twigs bound together with a leather handle with a total length of twenty-eight inches.

“It was a weird sensation,” Claire reported, “the first three strokes seemed relatively harmless. I was far more dismayed at being horsed than I was at being birched. It is the most humiliating feeling. However, as we progressed the cumulative effect of the birching was getting pretty intense. Thankfully, the Grand Dame stopped at six and I was allowed to dismount from the prefects back.”

I have no idea why I selected Claire to be the recipient of this somewhat grim punishment but it must have made sense when I was writing the episodes. In a later story, while Claire is serving her sentence at the Woody unit, the evil Patty Hodge decides to subject her to a reenactment of her notorious punishment. As with many of Patty’s Machiavellian plans it all goes pear-shaped in a heartbeat and it is Patty and her sycophantic cohorts, Katie Beck and the Wart who find themselves being horsed and birched by Mr Humphries for the delighted enjoyment of the whooping and foot-stamping Woody Gals.

Based upon her fondness for colorful humor, in my stories Claire, becomes the world’s first stand-up spanking comedienne with her acclaimed Caned Laughter Revue. This is an area of humor that I have found sadly lacking in the circuit of comedy stores. R Humphries, for one, would certainly part with a few of his hard-earneds to spend a comedic evening in the company of an attractive spankette regaling the audience with tales of their spanking experiences. Food for thought all you spankettes out there!

Of course Claire Brooks is totally fictitious and she is solely based upon that previously mentioned single nugget of information. I suspect that my former work colleague is now happily married (actually I think that she was at the time) with a brood of kids and a small SUV. Who knows? But I thank her for sowing that seed that sparked the creation of an enduring character. Bottoms Up to you “Miss we were Swished” wherever you are.

Don’t Forget – Free Chapters of the Woody Back to School Unit spanking saga are available at the Woodettes Publications Page.