Go and fetch me that chair,’ she sud­den­ly instruct­ed, indi­cat­ing a low wood­en chair near the win­dow, ‘and put it in front of thedesk.’

I slept that evening at a Kenilworth hotel, where Miss Langley rang me up and asked me to prepare to speak to some of the older girls who were being disloyal. [...] She further stated that the girls had written letters to their parents describing the punishments at Kenilworth. I told her that these letters should not be posted, but I would talk it over with her the next morning. There's no such thing as ghosts," replied Thomas, trying to sound confident and knowledgeable. "How many apples do you want?" Show your support by donating any amount. (Note: We are still technically a for-profit company, so your

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As I walked out I was still very scared about what was going to happen, and, fearing that tears were coming, looked down at the floor as I walked out, but I do remember that I felt fortunate at least inasmuch as it was Mrs Seaton who would be caning me and not the headmaster. Maybe twoooo.…errr…’ the boy hes­i­tat­ed and looked across to Miss Pren­der­gast who was shak­ing herhead.

I ended up bottom or next to bottom of the class and moved up year but down to J4 with class teacher, Mr Smith, a very tall, thin youngish man, always very well dressed with sharp collars and a neat conservative tie, navy or maroon mostly. He seemed rather prissy to me. I had a couple of run-ins with him that had me sent up to my nemesis, Mr Rattray for punishment. The tawse was the worst as it was delivered with the same force as the cane but only seemed to cause lingering pain in one place. This was a similar feeling to having fallen very heavily onto a garden gnome wearing a cone shaped hat. It maybe that only one corner of the tawse is ‘making an impression’ and that is what is producing a weird slightly ‘unpunished’ feeling as, apart from the one small area on my right bottom cheek, the rest of my bottom was pain free. It was the last week of term and, in the main hall, after morn­ing assem­bly, the mem­bers of Class IVB were wait­ing with more or less appre­hen­sion for their turn in Miss Svenson’s study for an indi­vid­ual pupil review. This was a rou­tine estab­lished by the Head­mistress when she first came to the school some five years before and the I.P.R. had now become a reg­u­lar tra­di­tion. Each child had to have a short inter­view with the Head in the pres­ence of their form teacher to assess their progress dur­ing the pre­vi­ous term in aca­d­e­m­ic and oth­er school activ­i­ties and gen­er­al behav­iour. Some of the four­teen and fif­teen year old young­sters had come to call it “Judg­ment Day” and oth­ers, more irrev­er­ent­ly, “The Confessional”. Thomas looked over towards the window, trying, but failing, to appear casually interested, face still glowing red. So, here she was, see­ing off the hares into the dull light of a Novem­ber after­noon. Set over the exten­sive grounds of Cams­ford, the win­ner should come home with­in an hour and a half. All should be well and tru­ly home with­intwo.

Aw muss, gonae pass they busses so we can gie them the finger?’ ‘Certainly not. We must get there safely children.’

At the house I was shown to my room, a different one from normal. It looked like a large box-room and had several extra items of furniture, including a big old dressing table. I asked Miss Langley why she had not tried it first on the hand and she said she did not believe that the girls would take any notice of this form as they now knew they would get it on the seat and would only think her weak if she did anything else. The school girl looked a lit­tle per­plexed by this ques­tion, then replied ‘I went with the hare and hounds.’ I am going to give you one chance to answer this ques­tion, Miran­da,’ began Miss Sven­son, ‘so think about your reply carefully.’

Miss Sven­son gave the boy a dis­mis­sive but good humoured wave as he let him­self out of theroom.