Despite a generous dose of pain killers I had a crappy night. I hated sleeping on my back but with a pillow under my knee it was the only available position.
When Mum woke me at 7am she unceremoniously pulled back my covers and pulled up the leg of my pyjama trousers to look at the knee.
It was obvious that I wasn’t going anywhere on that leg so she covered me back up and promised me breakfast in bed. By the time she brought it I’d gone back to sleep, it had been well after 3am when I got to bed.
I apologised over and over then begged her to forgive me. She gave me a slightly odd look. Of course she forgave me but that didn’t mean she had any intention of interceding with Dad on my behalf.
That was fair, I’d put myself beyond the pale and whatever befell me now was essentially my own doing. I spent the whole day in bed, apart from assisted toilet breaks, reflecting on the very serious error of my ways; I wasn’t certain that the situation was redeemable.
I heard Dad come home from work and about 2 hours later he came in to see me, just to inspect the knee. It had gone down a fair bit but was still visibly swollen, I thought it would be OK for school in the morning, providing I had it well strapped.
He said no, another day off school was probably best and anyway I had a task to complete for him tomorrow. I was to write 2 personal letters one to each of the police forces that I’d disrupted with my childish behaviour; they were to be ready for his approval when he got home from work.
The next day I dutifully wrote 2 suitably penitent letters, not the same one twice and then spent most of the day reading. There was an uneasy silence between Mum and I for the most part.
By the time Dad got home I was in my room practicing and I thought it best to let him decide the timetable. Eventually he called from the bottom of the stairs and I went down to face whatever he’d got in store for me.
The letters were approved and put in the already addressed envelopes, a small piece of initiative from me using the phone directory. Then I handed him some money for postage before he had to ask, knowing that I wasn’t going to be trusted to post the letters myself.
Then Mum left the kitchen; the final act was about to start and she didn’t want to watch, I couldn’t blame her. The punishment commenced.
Humiliating? Definitely, instead of the conventional dropped trousers and pants I had to strip.
Painful? Absolutely with tears and screams loud enough to be heard several houses away.
Memorable? Profoundly so, before stripping I had to take off my belt and hand it over to be used on me, that added a nuance to the punishment that set it apart from the many others I’d had in 16 years.
Looking at Dad while I was dressing I saw no sign of satisfaction, just deep sadness that he’d been driven to such extremity. He told me that he’d decided not to send me to boarding school and my immediate thought was that he’d decided that as a final act of punishment.
Please don’t think I’m trying to demonise my Dad, nothing could be further from the truth. I’ve told this story in the hope that people will understand just how far I’d pushed him and why he felt that there was no alternative.
It wasn’t until after Christmas that I finally discovered that Dad had actually been merciful. Angry and frustrated he’d got talking with one of his colleagues who’d come up with the name of a school that would “sort the boy out”.
That school, about 40 miles from home had a very respectable academic record but didn’t have a music department which would have been an unendurable loss to me.
The school also had a reputation for brutality which the headmaster was actually proud of, he enthusiastically subscribed to the belief that all boys could be beaten into submission and indeed should be.
I suspected, although it was never confirmed that Mum had interceded on my behalf after all. The collision between such a brutal regime and my inherent stubbornness could have been catastrophic and she knew it.
Eventually I’d have been beaten into submission but a tremendous amount of damage could have been done in the meantime.
Love
My mother used to do the same thing. If we had done something wrong, really wrong. She would never react straight away. We were often given the belt the same way your Dad gave it too you.
It was a complete unknown for me although most of my childhood friends lived under that ‘wait until your father gets home’ regime.
In keeping with the beliefs of the time it was the default punishment for boys, even for relatively minor offences and mischief.
It made me really angry sometimes, I had 3 sisters and they never got treated the way I did.
Hello Mac. Wow I am at a loss for words. While I can understand punishment, the description of what your father did caused me to have trouble keeping my supper and I may yet lose it. To close to home I should say as it was the start of a few of my own nightmares.
I am glad that such ideas of punishment and rehabilitation have long passed in most of the world.
I have to go, much hugs and love to you.
Scottie
Scottie
Sorry if I raised ghosts but, as is so often the case the telling of these things helps to deal with some of the residual pain. I too am glad that these attitudes have, for the most part, passed into history.
I’m often astonished at what people can do to the ones they love ‘for their own good’ but I can’t overlook my part in the drama. I’d be lying if I said I was surprised at the outcome but I was shocked at the severity.
Take good care
Love
Mac
Sorry! I can understand dropping the trousers for a belting, but “stripping”? Do you mean all clothes off? At that age? There’s got to be something wrong there. Surely there were other punishments…..pocket money stopped….gating….household tasks to be perfomed etc.
Bagthorpe
Suspension of various privileges had been tried in the past and so were deemed to have failed. This had to be a lesson that I’d never forget, at least for the 2 years I had left at school. Effectively it was less a punishment and more a power struggle. If he failed to control me at that point he feared he’d never be able to again.
Having to strip didn’t actually leave as deep an impression as being lashed with my own belt, that had a surreal quality to it.
Malcolm
Oh yes, but your Father and mine both lived at least partly by the realisation that they could thrash their sons and so they did. In a sense it was the easy way out and we can probably blame no more than that – except for the excesses, of course.
Those excesses were most likely caused by the old Victorian thing about Father being the Head of the House and the one to be obeyed by all who lived there.
Not so long previously wives could legally be beaten in our country too. Thank heavens that had (officially) been stopped for if my father had started on my Mum as well, then I think all three of us kids would have helped kill him.
We both seemed to draw a short straw in Fathers didn’t we? None of the boys I grew up with was a complete stranger to getting a smacked bottom but when I was in my early teens they were all astonished by the frequency and severity of the punishments I received.
What I do find slightly ironic is that I was so envious of all my little friends at primary school. They all had Daddies and mine had run away when I was 4. When Mum told me that she was marrying ‘Uncle Jim’ in 1965 I thought I was the luckiest boy in the world. I’d finally have a Dad just like everybody else.