A memory jogged

A very early memory, from junior school - so I was less than 10 at the time. The word in the playground was that some older boys were seriously in trouble and - they said - it was because they'd been caught looking up girls' skirts.

They were going to get the cane, or so the playground voices said. It seems very, very unlikely as I'm pretty sure caning was history by then. But we believed what we were told. I didn't find out who the bad boys were, if they really did do the upskirt peeping - or what punishment they suffered for whatever it was that they did.

But the story fascinated me in a really disturbing way at the time, and it sprang to mind when I found Mr Tawse's post today. Funny how things stay tucked away in the memory vaults only to pop up decades later, isn't it?

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.

Scales of justice?

It's great to see an old friend, isn't it? So, thanks to Tush Spanking for sending an old friend my way. This is one of those pictures that pop up from time to time, but I've no idea where I saw it first. Janus maybe?
Anyway, I like it for all sorts of reasons. The uniform has a very authentic English 1930s (I love the hat) and her stance suggests resignation - she knows what's about to happen is unavoidable, will be unpleasant and is, probably, deserved.
And I like that stuffed fish. It adds a weird touch to the whole thing. I find myself wondering why she's in a room with a stuffed fish. Perhaps it's the private study of some whiskery old guardian who is a dedicated angler - and devoted disciplinarian.

PS If anyone knows where I can see the rest of the set please do let me know.

Scotland's gift to the world?

Who wouldn't feel the need to lift a naughty little tartan skirt and apply at least one firm spank? I suspect even the vanilla-erest vanilla would derive some pleasure from doing so.

Someone arrived at this blog a day or two ago via the admirably straightforward search 'tartan + spank'. And why not? There's definitley some natural linkage between the two.

But I think there's a bit of a attitudinal split between how North America thinks about tartan in this context and how us Brits do. I'm no expert on US culture (never been farther west than Donegal as it happens), but from what I've seen the short tartan skirt is an essential part of the schoolgirl uniform in the US of A. Or at least of the popular school uniform fantasy.

Britney Spears added fuel to the fire, of course. So, for example, if you go looking for a schoolie outfit at UK online store Ann Summers you find something that's at lot more to do with hitting Britney one more time than St Trinian's. The Spanking Art Wiki article on the subject says tartan has been fetishised just about everywhere. Proximity to Scotland isn't an issue, this is a connection that works as well in Japan as it does in the US. Tartan's links with strict school discipline mean that it switches on a naughty little lightbulb thought in the minds of those who are receptive to those thoughts. But it doesn't quite work for me. Yes, a tartan mini is cute but here school uniform skirts should austere, plain and grey.

To my way of thinking tartan is more about men's kilts and the British army, which has a long traditions of fighting men in what really amounts to a skirt. And there's the question of what they wear underneath.

If you can believe what you're told (and I have no first-hand experience here) it's supposed to be nothing. Bottoms and the rest are supposed to go bare under a kilt.

Which I've always thought left the wearer at a disadvantage. For a start, it's never that warm in Scotland and often breezy.

But also, isn't a young man wearing a kilt and nothing else is in a very vulnerable situation when around a tawse and someone strict?. Scotland seems to have a very sound tradition of no-nonsense discipline and perhaps that's what the no underwear rule was about - making sure the disciplinarian always had easy access when there was punishment to dish out.

The Joy of Sox

Saturday morning chores to catch up on. The worst of which is doing the washing. When I was done I had, as ever, loads of odd socks. How does that happen? In a house of four adults (or three adults and a teen) how can we lose so many socks?

As I was messing around trying to match up stray socks I found myself thinking about the phrase "pull your socks up". When I was young I heard it all the time - it was used at home and at school, to me and to others, with tedious repetition. 

Usually it was delivered as an ultimatum. "You'd better pull your socks up or..." Or what? Or you'd get detention, lines, extra homework, whatever. From time to time at home it was: "You'd better pull your socks up or you'll feel my hand. Do you want that to happen?" I didn't at the time and the threat was never carried through. Ironically, since adulthood my answer to the question would be an emphatic "yes".

Somewhere over the years I'm sure I've been told that the origin of this once-popular British idiom had a spanko element. That bending over to pull up socks was an expected precursor to corporal punishment.

But I've just had a bit of a Google around and haven't been able to find anything that backs that story up. Perhaps it was just a bit of spanko wishful thinking.

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!