Literary pursuits

Expect to hear a lot about the wordy Welsh wizard Dylan Thomas next year because it's the centenary of his birth and it's going to be all over the media. That's my prediction, anyway.

Dylan and Caitlin

In the last few weeks I've been working on commission from a magazine that has involved going to see the home of Dylan and Caitlin Thomas at Laugharne in Carmarthenshire. And it has resulted in a couple of discoveries that I won't share with the magazine's readers - but thought you might like..
In case you don't know it the 1940s radio play has become a classic of Welsh writing in English. It's at its best on the version voiced beautifully by Richard Burton and was also a film with Elizabeth Taylor and Burton.
Have a look at the trailer here. The topless girl in the pink pants is at Fishguard Old Town, Pembrokeshire, and I think she's the lovely Angharad Rees (who went on to star in the BBC's Poldark series).
 Anyway, startles.The first is a line or two from 'Under Milk Wood' that I can really relate to. It comes in a section that describes the sleeping townspeople's dreams; this is it:

SECOND VOICE: Willy Nilly, postman, asleep up street, walks fourteen miles to deliver the post as he does every day of the night, and rat-a-tats hard and sharp on Mrs Willy Nilly. 

MRS WILLY NILLY: Don't spank me, please, teacher,

SECOND VOICE: whimpers his wife at his side, but every night of her married life she has been late for school.

Every night... such commitment. Then when I was reading up about Laugharne I spotted this article. It's in section two about the corporation.
I'd heard about the tradition of beating the bounds before - it happens in lots of other British villages. But I particularly like the detail that the owner of the bottom that gets beaten at Laugharne is 'usually a young lady'.
There was a whole spanko world out there back then, but you're usually only aware of it through the odd nudge or wink. 

Wartime romance

What did (or do) your parents get up to when they were in the first flush of romance? For most of us I think it's something that we'd rather not give too much thought to, isn't it?
Reading your parents' love letters must be quite an experience, especially when they were written in wartime. Putting them on the web for everyone to see is really, really brave.
Let me back track a little. Last night I was using a page from Thursday's copy of The Times when I was doing some painting. Reading as I worked I came across a thorough startle. 
The heading said 'Ripping wartime romance with a happy ending', but a quote was picked out in bold and it was that which caught my eye. It said: "Darling one, it's just as well you aren't here as you would probably have to spank me hard — but what a heavenly spanking!"
It was a story about a daughter who had put all her mum and dad's wartime letters on a site called With Love from Graz. He was a soldier, she was a nurse and they served in different places, so there were regular letters from one to the other. 
The story is here, but The Times has a paywall. But it turns out that it started out closer to home to me in the South Wales Echo, which you can read for free - it's here.
The daughter says the letters "can be a bit like reading Shades of Grey..." Which made me think about how I'd feel if it were my parents - and about what my kids would discover about me if they ever stumbled on some of the stuff I've written.
I do like the site, but looking around I can't see much more in the way of grey shades. You can read about the "heavenly spanking" in a letter dated May 12, 1946.
I'm not sure why Katie thought she deserved the hard spanking. Possibly it was just because she was beging a bit negative and letting her stiff upper lip sag a little.  

Friday fiction: Farm life

“By rights miss, I should let the District Commissioner deal with this,” she said, maintaining eye contact with her employee in a way that Bee found difficult to return.  “But as you’ve agreed to take your medicine then we can keep it between ourselves. Is that correct?”

“Yes Mrs Jones,” Bee said quietly.

“Ladies?” asked Mrs J, sweeping the other three with a searchlight stare. They all chimed in with a mumbled “yes Mrs Jones”.

“A good dose of strap oil it is then,” said Mrs J, taking a tightly-coiled strap from her cardigan pocket. With a flick of her wrist the strap uncoiled like a snake and Bee watched with alarm noticing how heavy and supple it looked. 

“Now then,” she said, stepping up to Beryl and taking her by the arm.  Bee felt the firmness of the grip and yielded, allowing herself to be propelled to the foot of her bed.

The metal frame formed a half-circle and Bee was positioned at its centre. Then Mrs J’s hand was moved from her arm to the back of her head and she was pushed face down into the quilt.

Bee felt acutely aware of the shape and size of her bum. “Pants down to your knees, please.”

“Really, I don’t think that’s fair...” Bee began.

“Two extras,” said Mrs J in a businesslike way.

Reluctantly Bee tugged her tight knickers down, and over, her out-thrust buttocks. She had to wriggle a little to help them along, which made her bumcheeks quiver in a eye-catching way.

It certainly caught the eye of each of the watching girls, Bunty, Anne and Gladys. Four girls – all new to one another - sharing a room had to be prepared to undress in one another’s presence.

How they dealt with the intimacy differed. Bunty’s background was much like Bee’s and she was used to unselfconscious nudity from years in dormitories.

At Annie’s terraced home in Yorkshire five sisters shared a room, so little room for shyness there. However, for Gladys, a bank manager’s daughter, sharing a room was something of an ordeal; at her comfortable detached home in Hertfordshire she bolted her bedroom door before changing clothes.

Over the week each had got more comfortable with the enforced closeness of arrangements at Bryn Farm. When they dress and undressed they did it hurriedly to avoid baring too much flesh to either cold air or curious glances.

So, each of the three was shocked and fascinated by Bee’s nakedness. With her head down and legs straight her round bumcheeks were opened wide, exposing what she called her bits and bobs to view.

Gladys felt she should look away, but couldn’t. How different Bee’s fanny looked, she thought. Gladys was a little embarrassed at the way that her own “down there” hair was thick and dark, and was intrigued by how Bee’s fine, light ginger curls did little to hide her new friend’s most intimate parts.

All three witnesses held their breath as Mrs J planted her feet wide apart and rolled up the right sleeve of her blouse. “Let this be an example to you all,” she said, swinging the strap through the air so that it whispered like the wings of a bird.

“Beryl, hold onto the sides and don’t let go,” Mrs J told her. “Stay in position.” With the next swing Bee clenched her cheeks up tight hiding her bumhole for a moment.

As she did, Mrs J measured her distance just right and the heavy leather caught Bee’s tensed buttocks low and hard. The girls saw Bee’s bum flatten momentarily before the strap swang back, fast and low. Bee had just enough time to squawk out her shock at the flash of bright pain before Mrs J followed through with stroke number two.

Another three strokes followed up at lightning speed and Bee’s screeches of anguish rang into one another.

The unwritten Bullington code stipulated that a girl took her swishing well, which meant keeping noise to a minimum, staying in position and never, ever begging for mercy. Bee was rather ashamed of how far below the standard she was falling.

That she was making so much of a racket was a shocker, but Mrs J was turning out to be a very proficient disciplinarian. Worse was the struggle she was having maintaining position.

For a start the bed frame was a little too high for her and the cold iron cut into her waist. And she could only just get handholds on the sides to keep in place.

Through watering eyes she could see her left hand locked into place, knuckles white. She had had eleven strokes when her grip was broken and – with a howl - she sprang upright, palms pressing to her tormented cheeks.

She took two handfuls of burning buttock and kneaded away at them like a baker.

“Don’t be a baby, Beryl,” said Mrs J after allowing Bee a moment’s dancing on the spot. “Bear up, there’s a war on. Back into position or I’ll have to double your ration.”

With some difficulty Bee did as she was told. There was, she accepted, a war on and meant having her backside leathered.

Back in place, Bee’s bottom sustained a barrage of strokes at a steady pace. She clung on and howled her way through to the last, which came in rather low across her thighs.

Somewhere between the second dozen and the third Bunty decided she couldn’t watch and covered her eyes.  Gladys, on the other hand, couldn’t tear her gaze away from.

“There, three dozen give and received,” said Mrs J, popping the strap back into her apron pocket. “Let that be a lesson.”

She moved closer to Bee and patted her on the shoulder before sitting on the side of her bed. As Mrs J’s weight settled onto the mattress the bed springs squeaked and Bee lifted her head, her mass of curls a curtain around her face.

Gently Mrs J parted the curls so that Bee could see her. “Can we be friends again?”

Bee was a little puzzled by the remark. Mrs J smiled at her in a way that was almost shy and said: “Come along stand up then.”

Bee straightened up with one hand on her smarting, striped bottom and the other trying to tidy her hair. Watching her, Mrs J sat very upright and with her knees pressed together.

She smiled again, patted her lap and nodded. Bee understood and went to her employer and, a little awkwardly, sat on her knee.

She allowed herself to be pulled into the older woman’s arms. For a moment she stiffened, but then relaxed into the hug, burying her face into the older woman’s shoulder.

It felt so good, so comforting. But at the same time she could feel how in that position she was making an exhibition of herself, with her red-raw bum sticking out.

I’m certainly giving the girls something to goggle at, she thought. Her behind felt all round and hot. It made her feel ashamed of how big her bottom was and that it deserved to be swished hard and often.

It also made Aunty start to get wet and tingly, which made Bee worry that Mrs J would notice her inappropriate reaction to the situation she found herself in. As that thought was crossing her confused mind she felt Mrs J’s hand drop from her waist and her cool palm settled gently on one of Bee’s jutting buttocks.

Bee shivered with the thrill of the contact and she lifted her face out of Mrs J’s hair. She found herself looking into warm, smiling eyes.

“I don’t want to have to do this to you again Beryl,” she said. “So you’ll try to be a good girl, won’t you?”

“Yes, Mrs Jones. I promise,” she said.

“Good,” said Mrs J, then she looked to the other three. “All of you, do keep my rules in mind, that way we’ll get along very nicely. Let me down, and there’s plenty more of the medicine Beryl’s just taken. Understand?”

“Yes, Mrs Jones,” they answered nervously.

“Now then,” said Mrs J, patting Beryl smartly on the bottom. “Beryl get into your pyjamas and into bed. You’ve all got an early morning tomorrow.”

A while back I was in the habit of posting snippets of writing on Fridays as 'Friday fiction', but it hasn't happened for a while. I thought I'd put things right with this chunk of 'Beryl gets Stuck In'  which sits on my computer a third written - it's about the adventures of a Land Army volunteer called Beryl, or Bee for short.

It isn't going anywhere at the moment - it just seemed to run out of road. So, I thought at least a little of it probably deserves an audience.

Undercover investigation

Socks or stockings? Under a school uniform, that is. When I'm trawling through vintage spank-related images I've always assumed that stockings under school uniforms were a re-imagination of reality to make the image a little sexier.

Now I'm not so sure. The past is another country, as they say, and it's never easy to pick apart fact and fiction. The history element of historical fiction is rarely more than minimal.

But it's nice to at least try for a bit of authenticity, isn't it? I'm working at the moment on a 1940s story that has quite a bit of action set in a girls' boarding school, which means uniform has been an issue.

Knowing exactly what a 1940s boarding school girl wore is quite difficult to establish. Yes, there are old school photos that give an impression of outer-wear - but what about the all-important detail of underwear?

Perhaps I should approach ex-pupils on the pretence that I'm doing genuine historical research. The problem is by my calculation a member of 1940's Upper Sixth would now be in her late 80s...

So, I'm really grateful to Mr Tawse for giving us this great picture and for his thoughts on 1960s school skirts and stocking tops. Clearly the older schoolgirl back then had stockings when she was in class.
I'd imagined Beryl and her chums in gymslips or pleated skirts and knee-length socks, but now I cna see I'm probably wrong. Stockings would probably been the order of the day then too. It looks like I need to go back and re-write the chapters I've completed so far to put my naughty girls in the right undies.

Friday fiction: Disappointed

"I'm very disappointed. You know that, don't you?" She nodded, but couldn't lift her gaze. In her peripheral vision she could see the tip of the cane and could think of nothing but the ordeal to come.

"Look at me when I'm talking to you, young lady... You've let yourself down, you've let your form down - you've let the whole school down..."

Yes, I've had months to work on my project and what have I produced? Almost nothing. It's a shockingly poor effort and, if things were as they should be, I deserve to suffer a severe punishment. 

Months back I started out on my Beryl novel - set in 1940s Britain - full of enthusiasm, but as time has gone on I have run out of steam. Two chapters in I've hit writer's block and just can't seem to get round it.

By way of an excuse ("...I don't want to hear your excuses, my girl...") I must say I've loads of real life writing and editing to do at the moment, so doing more in my free time seems like a chore rather than fun.

Now I'm torn. I feel like I should leave Beryl and her pals on hold and try something different; I rather like the idea of finding out what happened next for the Week in the Country characters (a week in the city, maybe). Perhaps I could come back to Beryl in the future.
Then again, maybe it just needs immersion in all things 1940s for a time and a bit of a push to get through the block. Am I giving up to readily?

Anyway, I thought I'd share a snippet with you so that at least a bit of Beryl's story sees the light of day. In this bit she has an encounter with an old friend from school:

Mrs Jones had been joined by the others by the door and all looked at Cassie and Bee in confusion. Further away, across the yard, Bran came come out of the barn with a wheelbarrow and he stopped too. “Miss Wordsworth, whatever is the matter?” Mrs J asked.

“I suggested that this girl - this very rude girl - might care to help me start the car. It takes a turn or two with the starting handle. She answered me with very bad word,” she said. “I really am quite shocked.”

“I certainly d…” Bee began, before being cut off by Mrs Jones.

“I’m very disappointed, Beryl. The Assistant District Commissioner is our guest, so please say sorry and help her with her bag – jump to it.”

“No, – that won’t do. Given what the DC has said about discipline Mrs Jones I think Miss Daley needs a little lesson, don’t you? Do you have a slipper?”

“Certainly, I’m sure I can find something…,” said Mrs J. As she went to the door Beryl took her chance to screw up her face and stick her tongue out at Cassie.

Cassie’s grin signalled that she was still at least partly the mischievous Sixth Former of days gone by. “Actually Mrs Jones,” she called in through the open door. “A good, solid hairbrush might be more appropriate, if you’ve something suitable for a minx with a big bottom.”

Seconds later Mrs J reappeared carrying a large ebony brush with an aged, well-used look.

“How about this?” she said to Miss Wordsworth, holding it out to be taken.

“No, no. You keep it. I have to fly – other appointments to keep,” said Cassie, opening her car door and slipping in behind the wheel. The door slammed shut, but she wound down the window.

“Well thank you for splendid tea, Mrs J.”

“My pleasure. Have a safe journey.”

Cassie’s reply was lost as the engine spluttered into life – no need for a starting handle it seemed. Cassie engaged the gears and as she released the clutch the car began to pull away, which meant she had to shout at the top of her voice to make herself heard. “And remember Mrs Jones, that girl – lay it on smartly, won’t you? All part of the war effort…”

Shame and spanking

'Oh, the shame of it. Stripped bare and soundly spanked...' No, not me - stripped bare and soundly spanked sounds good to me - but my 1940s heroine Beryl.
Working on the Victorian novel 'A Week in the Country' I found shame turning up on a regular basis. It's very much part of the whole Victorian erotic sensibility, isn't it? 

Sort of 'as her bottom was bared she was overwhelmed by the shame of it and covered her face...' It seems to just right for all those disobedient maids, fearsome governesses and old-school squires.

But it seems less appropriate in a 1940s setting. Embarrassment, yes. Shame, no. I don't think Beryl's shameless, but she's a lot more matter of fact about sex, nudity and the rest. If she has to take it on the bare bottom she'll take it on the chin, if you see what I mean.

Wartime sacrifice - land girls and 'leathering'

My thoughts have been way back in the 1940s with the Women's Land Army today, while I've been trudging around doing mundane stuff thanks to two bits of reading matter.

Firstly, as reserach for my current fiction project of the moment I've been reading Angela Huth's 'Land Girls', a novel I wouldn't have touched under any other set of circumstances.

I was so gripped I had to take it with me to the supermarket so I could get through the last 10 pages in the cafe. The book was published in the early 1990s but you're more likely to have heard of the film, which starred the excellent Rachel Weisz.

It really is a touching story, without being sentimental, and is beautifully written. The way Angela Huth has managed to evoke the changing seasons on her imagined Dorset farm is particularly good.

Quite direct about sex too, which surprised me. Huth's Land Army girls have sex lives and, in the case of one character, Prue, are pretty direct about the need for a "shag" (North American readers note, that's getting laid - not the seabird of the same name). 

Huth's novel is not a lot like the spanko spy adventure story I'm trying to magic up. My heroine Beryl is selfless and shares Prue's interest in outdoor sex, but she's also going to get into lots of scrapes fighting Nazis.

And there will be lots of CP too, of course. Which is where the second bit of reading comes in, discovered tonight on DJ Black's top notch Voice in the Corner. 

DJ relates a snippet about a Land Army volunteer on a Norfolk farm where land girls had to become part of farm family life. Totally part of, including taking a leathering - a strapping - when it was necessary. Inspiring stuff...

The school uniform question

Got up early and did a bit of writing this morning. I've decided to add in a flashback scene to when my main character (Beryl) was on her last day at school because it helps establish her relationship with her best friend.
But I'm not sure. I'm a bit uncomfortable about school uniform in a work of spanko fiction. My characters are over 18 and consenting adults, but... That said, where would porn be without the adult schoolgirl?

Wrong?

I hated what I had to wear at school, but now uniform makes me feel all tingly. And if that's odd then I'm a member of a very big minority, aren't I?  The "naughty schoolgirl" is now a fancy dress standard, so the uniform thing has resonance with lots of (presumably) well-adjusted adults.
Zille at Fetish Fantasies was talking school uniform yesterday and exploring some of the issues around authenticity. She says: "It’s just one of those weird things: I feel emotionally nakeder in the longer skirt, with big ol regulation knickers under that!)."
Is an adult in a near-real school uniform more of an affront to all things decent and true than one in a cartoonishly tarty, fancy dress shop one? Do grown up women in shirt and tie encourage wrongun's to view real schoolgirls in an inappropriate way?
Last thought, should I start out on Beryl's story long after she's left school and joined the adult world? Is it wrong to put the classroom into a work of spanko fiction (a school scene that will, of course, have to include a little corporal punishment - it is spanko fiction after all). Or should I just go for it?
PS Someone emailed me to draw my attention to this. The marvellous Poppy apparently had to where a uniform hat - a boater no less. Unbelieveable, and she says it was only 20 years ago!

Roger Benson and picture perfection

The perfect Forties figure?  I've found it - in the great art work of Roger Benson.
I've managed to spend a bit of time this weekend on my story about Land Girl Beryl and have resolved the question of her figure. She has to have a Benson bottom.
I've looked for 1940s art, but not really been that inspired, but Benson's 1950s girls seem just right for my Beryl. What's 10 years here and there.
It's that mid-20th Century movie star ideal. The girls defy nature, but then a good fantasy shouldn't let reality tie it down, should it? They have long legs, narrow waists and marvellously full bottoms.
So, my character file now has a few Benson images in it to remind me of how Beryl looks. All I need now is a few free hours to get working on chapter two in earnest.

Bottoms - a question of proportion

This?

'Should my bum look a bit bigger in this?' That's the nagging question that my new heroine Beryl keeps asking me.
My leading lady in 'A Week in the Country' just had to be full-figured. After all Flick was a Victorian, so the hourglass curves seemed a no-brainer.
Sitting down to novel two, which has the working title of 'Beryl Gets Stuck In' - or Begsi - I decided on different. Different historical period and, of course, different characters.
So, Beryl - or Bee to her friends - has started out as the anti-Flick. I was looking for as much difference as I could write into the new character.
Up to now she's been sporty, lithe and gamine. As a Land Army girl she has to be fit and strong.
But last night the scene I was writing had her driving a tractor while an over-sexed farm hand watched from a distance. In the 1940s tractors didn't have cabs and the seat was a big, buttock-shaped slab of metal; for the sake of the horny guy watching the bottom bouncing about on that tractor seat just has to be curvy and plump, doesn't it? 

Or this?

Something like this picture above that I came across on a photoblog, in fact. The question is should I stick with sporty girl Bee, a Joan Hunter-Dunn type or go back and re-write her as someone with more curves? 
Should Bee have 'junk in her trunk' or not?  Perhaps I should put it to a poll...

Viva the Fifties

It feels like I haven't had a moment to myself for weeks now, what with travelling, visiting family and spending nights sharing unbearable budget hotel rooms with snoring kids. No surfing, no blogging and no time to disappear into the fantasyland that is spanko fiction project no. 2 (poor Beryl must feel very neglected).

Image: olderoticart.tumblr.com

I'd even forgotten that my little blog poll on the subject of historical period as fantasy setting has come to an end. It was a close run thing with 1950s/60s beating the Victorian period by just one vote, but the sample of just 37 votes isn't what you'd call statisically significant...

If you did vote, many thanks. I think I may have made a mistake though, as with hindsight I think 1940s and 1950s would have gone together much better. Lumping in the 1950s and 1960s doesn't really work. The uptight, guilt-ridden 1950s don't sit well with all that 1960s free love stuff, do they?

Anyway, I need to go and get ready to see in 2012. Have a great night wherever you are and I hope you'll enjoy exploring the theme of the strict, no-nonsense 1950s with me during the coming year.

Poetry corner

I'm really enjoying spending time in the 1940s at the moment. The novel I have in mind is going to be set in the war years and I'm at that stage of gathering material, mood and feel.

As well as reading up on the Land Army I've been re-visiting an old collection of the poems of Sir John Betjeman. I had a fierce crush on his work a few years ago, but then fell out of love - so it's great to go back.

1940s tennis girl

My heroine is pretty clear in my mind now. She's positive, sporty and likes - to use an old-fashioned phrase - to get stuck in. So it seemd like meeting up with a friend when I got to to 'A Subaltern's Love Song' and its object of desire, Miss Joan Hunter Dunn.

Written in the early 1940s, Betjeman's  poem is a marvellous tale of unrequited love and pokes fun at the manners of the English middle classes. For some reason that I can't quite put my finger on I find lots of JB's poems sexy in a repressed, buttoned-up sort of way, and Miss Hunter Dunn has 'it' in spades.
She's 'furnish'd and burnish'd by Aldershot sun', sporty, strong and confident.


Love-thirty, love-forty, oh! weakness of joy,
The speed of a swallow, the grace of a boy,
With carefullest carelessness, gaily you won,
I am weak from your loveliness, Joan Hunter Dunn.


I want to be her, I want to be him. It's all a bit confusing (as is his mention of her boyish grace...) And it also feels a bit voyeuristic:


On the floor of her bedroom lie blazer and short,
And the cream-colour walls are be-trophied with sports...


And is it just me but do I dectect a hint of the spanko sentiment? 

Oh! Surrey twilight! importunate band!
Oh! strongly adorable tennis-girl's hand!

Betjeman's dream?

Probably not, but you never know. According to Paul Johnson he liked 'pigtails, gymslips, black stockings and navy-blue serge bloomers' and wrote of his own early CP experiences.
 
PS There was a real Joan, who apparently died in 2008. JB's poem was, she said, mostly fantasy.

Taxi service

Up before six this morning to drive a friend to the train station in the cold and dark. Lots of 'are we going to make it' stress and no time for a coffee. Three hours later I'm now in front of the computer and do have that coffee, but don't want to get on with the Day Job.
Driving back home I had talk radio on, but can't remember a word that was said. My mind was completely taken up with the adventures of my new heroine, who at the moment is known only as B.

So far I know the setting is rural and 1940s and that B is a Land Army girl. I've done a fair bit of reading into the Land Army story, including some great oral history docs on the BBC website.
Reading about uniforms, bunk beds and the dangers of getting nettled while 'spending a penny' under the hedge I can feel B's world coming together. The village hall dances and fresh and flirty Italian POWs are all just too good to pass up. Anyway, that will all have to wait. There's 'real' work to do, so  will have to wait until later.