Pressure of work has meant I haven't had a chance to read this forum for a while - now I return, and have decided to share something I wrote for another place.

Names have been changed to protect the innocent. Except for those changes, this is as accurate as I can make it. But I must stress that this is a memory I have relived dozens or hundreds of times since I was 13, and it's a memory I have a rather romanticised recollection of - so I can't absolutely swear to its 100% accuracy - especially on matters like the exact things said. It's how I remember it - but memory isn't perfect.

This happened in my last year at prep school - when I was 13 years old. That year was Australia's Bicentenary and the country was celebrating wildly. The whole year was full of major celebration events. At school, even though we'd always studied Australian history and geography to an extent, that year it was given more emphasis than normal. It was the 'Celebration of a Nation'. And at my school, they decided to take the whole school to the nation's capital - Canberra. Canberra is actually a pretty small city but because it is the capital it contains quite a lot of educational tourist attractions, so this was to be an educational trip.

As it was, they actually took us up there in two different groups. The 11 and 12 year old boys went up first. The 10 and 13 year olds, the youngest and oldest boys in the school went up a couple of weeks later. Part of the reason for doing it this way was the idea that the older boys could help to supervise the younger boys.

We were only going to be in Canberra for two days and one night, and the school wanted to cram as much education into that time as was humanly possible. So we all assembled at school at around 6am in the morning (which meant most of us had to get up at 5am or so), and headed off in buses to the airport. All our class teachers were with us, plus some of the specialist teachers, plus some parents who'd volunteered to come along and help supervise. There were over 100 boys altogether, so it was a fairly large group - we took up most of the plane, actually. We were all dressed in our best winter school uniform because we had to be impeccably dressed because we were representing the school.

So we were told that we had to be on our absolute best behaviour when we were in public on this trip - especially those of us who were older. Every older boy was assigned a younger boy to supervise and we were partly responsible for his behaviour as well (he'd get in trouble if he misbehaved - but so would we!). Out of the public eye, while we were expected to behave reasonably well (as always) they didn't expect perfection of course. But in public - oh gosh, did they want perfection.

We visited a whole bunch of places that first day. Parliament, the Mint, the War Memorial, the High Court. I can't really remember which were which on which days - I think all of those were the first day and I know the Institute of Sport and the Science Museum were the second, but there were a bunch I can't place. The idea though was to squeeze as much as we possibly could into two days, so they ran us ragged.

So many schools were going to Canberra that year, that the normal school accomodations - school camps - were full. So we actually stayed our one night at a motel that the school had almost entirely booked out. We arrived there probably around 6pm and had dinner - we'd had a long, very full day, and I'm sure most of us were quite tired. I certainly was.

I'd been assigned a 10 year old named Sebastian as my charge for the day. It was my job to keep an eye on him, to monitor his safety and behaviour - not obsessively or totally - he was 10, I was 13, it's not like they really expected me to take full responsibility for him. But I was supposed to maintain some control.

And he wouldn't do anything I said. He'd given me a hard time all day. Now I admit I was probably being a little bit too restrictive with what I tried to get him to do. At dinner, I told him that I thought he should eat all his vegetables and what he said in response is more or less unprintable and could have resulted in him eating soap if a teacher had heard him. He just wouldn't comply with what I said, and he was supposed to - at least up to a point, I probably didn't have the right to forcefeed him brocolli (although as I'd just eaten mine thinking I should set a good example and he refused, that was annoying!)

After dinner, just to fill in some time - probably because there's no way on earth you're likely to to get a large number of 10 and 13 year olds into bed at 7.30, no matter how tired they are - we all walked from the motel down to the shores of the lake. Before we went we got the standard lecture for about the fifth time that day, about being on our best behaviour in public.

Sebastian went very close to the edge of the lake. I told him to step back. He went even closer. I walked forward and grabbed his arm and started dragging him back. He started struggling and somehow, I guess out of frustration that he would not do what I had told, I lashed out and I punched him in the chest. He fell backwards onto the grass and he started crying.

And Mrs B. saw it happen.

Mrs B. had been my teacher when I was 10, and I loved her like something close to a second mother. Most of us did, I think. She was a marvellous teacher for little boys - kind, patient, compassionate, and gentle - and as hard as nails when she had to be. And she was totally obsessed with protecting her boys. Everyone knew that if someone hurt one of her little boys, they were DEAD. And I'd just punched one right in front of her.

I kind of faded back into the group. While she helped Sebastian up and comforted him. Everybody around the lake seemed to be looking at us - I'd really embarassed the school in public. I faded further and further back and my classmates moved to surround me - I think instinctively getting between me and Mrs B. - because while I'm sure everybody felt I'd gone too far - I'd hit a ten year old - they didn't want to see me torn into little pieces by an angry She-bear.

After she'd finished tending to Sebastian, she walked over and spoke to my Form Master, Mr P. Technically speaking he was the one most responsible for my behaviour and for disciplining me. After they'd spoken for a minute or so she turned, and faced us - and just pointed straight at me, and then gestured at me to come to her with her index finger. Reluctantly I went.

When I got close enough, she reached out and grabbed my hand, and began striding back towards the motel, towing me along behind. Everyone still seemed to be looking at me, and this was horribly embarassing - she was towing me along in her wake like a naughty toddler. I'd have gone with her - I wasn't even in my home state, where would I have gone if I'd run.

As we arrived back at the motel, she asked what room I was in and I told her. It was a room with two sets of bunks - actually an annex to another room. She left me outside it telling me not to move an inch while she went off. I stood there wondering if they'd brought a strap with them or not. After about two or three minutes she came back with a key and unlocked the door.

She didn't have a strap with her, which made me think she was almost certainly going to spank me. That was really something I didn't want to happen. At my school, junior boys (10 and 11 year olds) were normally spanked for mildly serious misbehaviour. Senior boys (12 and 13 year olds) normally got the strap on the hand. There was no rule that said a 13 year old boy couldn't be spanked - and it was certainly not unheard of. But it was a little boys punishment and at 13, I didn't really like to think of myself as a little boy anymore.

At the same time, I was very aware that the fact that I was so scared of being spanked meant that I really was still a little boy, and if I'd been offered a choice between a spanking or a strapping, I don't know which I'd have chosen. Embarassment at being treated like a little boy - or the increased pain of the leather swinging down. Very hard choice.

I also knew Mrs B. very well. She'd taught me for a year, and I knew how she worked. She had a very no-nonsense approach to discipline. She looked at the facts and then she made a decision as to how you were to be punished. And once she'd decided that, nothing would change her mind. I knew, I'd learned in her class, that if she said something would happen, then it would happen.

She looked around the room. "Take off your blazer, Dean and put it on that bed." She reached for the only chair in the room - a metal framed chair, straighlegged with a padded seat and back. Almost exactly the same design as the chair behind her door in her classroom - the chair which we did refer to as the spanking chair, because that was close to the only time it was pulled out from behind the door.

So I knew I was going to get a spanking. I put my blazer on the bed and was left wearing my long grey woolen trousers, my white shirt and school tie. I knew the procedure - I knew where I had to stand from my time in my class so as she sat down, I stood next to her.

"Dean, you hit a ten year old boy. You punched a little boy who you were responsible for. That is despicable behaviour. It is intolerable. It is disgusting. You know that, don't you?"

"Yes, Miss." I was wondering why she didn't get it over and done with. Why did she have to talk?

"We cannot accept that." Her hands moved to my belt buckle. "You need a serious spanking for what you did." I realised in horror that she was undoing my belt. My hands moved to grab it. She slapped one of them hard. "Put your hands on your head."

I put my hands on my head. My body seemed to be shutting down as she undid my belt and then my trousers. She was going to pull my trousers down. How far would she go? How far could she go?

Now, she'd seen me in my underwear before. When I had been in her class she'd helped supervise us while changing for PE sometimes. She'd seen me wearing nothing but speedoes at swimming lessons and at sporting carnivals. She had even seen me naked a couple of times. We'd had medical exams just after starting at the school, and she supervised the line, and she'd also walked into my cabin while I was changing on camp the year she was my teacher. At 10, I didn't have much sense of modesty, and I wasn't expected to. It hadn't worried me. At 13, my sense of modesty had developed quite a bit - and my body had started to develop a bit as well. What was happening to me was embarassing - very embarassing. I didn't want it to happen - but I didn't see I had a choice. As she pulled my trousers down I was thinking "Please stop here, please stop here. I can handle this if you stop right now!" Then she placed her hands on the waist band of my underpants and my hands came off my head, and flew down to grab my last shred of dignity.

"PUT YOUR HANDS ON YOUR HEAD!" She smacked the back of both my hands hard, but I didn't let go.

"Dean, put your hands on your head, right now."

"Please, Miss..."

"No. No 'please, Miss'. You did a very naughty thing and you need to be punished for that. I am going to spank you. I am going to spank your bare bottom. This is going to happen. You hit a smaller boy. You hit one of my boys. I am not going to let you off on that. You did the wrong thing and you are going to be punished for it. You do not get a say in what happens now."

I let go. She was right. I knew I'd done the wrong thing - and part of me (a very small part of me) wanted to be punished for that. But more importantly, I knew she'd made her decision and nothing would change that. And I didn't want it to, in all honesty - it would have been like the sun rising at midnight if she'd backed down. I wanted her to punish me to make it better. I couldn't handle her being angry with me like this, and I knew that when she'd punished me the anger would be gone.

You hit one of my boys. Hearing her say that hurt - it hurt a lot. I was one of her boys, too. At least I wanted to be again.

She tugged down my underpants and pulled me across her lap quickly, preserving some of my dignity. As soon as I was in position, she placed a hand on one of my two bottom cheeks. And then she hit it hard. Then the other. I was crying like a baby after three spanks, partly from pain, mostly from sheer humiliation. She spanked harder. She was too experienced to be deterred by tears. She'd stop when she felt it was over and done with. I have no idea how many times she spanked me - it seemed like over a hundred, but I really doubt it was anything like that. It was certainly the worst spanking I ever received - not quite as bad as my worst strapping in terms of pain but very effective. She avoid patterns it could be three on one cheek, then two on the other, then four on the next.

Whe she was finally finished, she helped me to my feet - I was completely beyond caring about what she could and couldn't see by this stage, and pulled up my underpants.

"All right, Dean - I think you'd better put on your pyjamas." She left the room.

I undressed, put on my pyjamas and climbed into bed. I heard everyone else coming back and just lay there sniffling as they went passed. I was still feeling very sorry for myself when after ten or fifteen minutes the door opened and Mrs B. came in.

"Everybody else is having Milo before bed. I thought you might like some."

I didn't actually like Milo much - but I really liked the fact that she had brought me some. So I sat up and she sat down on the bottom bunk next to me and handed me the mug. I took a few sips, not wanting to say anything, not knowing what to say. And as I drank, she stroked my arm, and then my head.

"Sebastian is fine. You should really apologise to him in the morning, though."

"I will."

"Oh dear... I'm sorry, Dean, that I had to do that. You understand you deserved it though, don't you?"

I nodded. I couldn't speak. She took the mug off me, put it down and wrapped her arms around me. I started crying again, and she held my head to her chest, stroking my hair.

She stopped when she heard my classmates approaching. And she picked up the mug. I looked at her.

"I'm sorry, Miss. I'll never be bad again. I promise."

She smiled. "Yes, you will. But that's all right, Dean, it's part of growing up. For now, it's over. All is forgiven."

"Yes Miss."

She left as my friends entered.

"Hey Deano, are you OK?"

"Yeah."

"What happened. I bet Vincent that she smacked your bottom for you."

"Well, yeah, she did."

"Heh, that was a sucker's bet."

I apologised to Sebastian the following morning and he accepted my apology. He also did exactly what I told him to do all day. Apparently Mrs B. had had a conversation with him about that.

Dean,

I rarely post but have been a reader for a long time - in fact right from the days when George made us laugh - and I just wanted to say thank you for all the work you put into your excellent posts here. Your account above was beautifully written. I was able to picture the whole scene vividly.

Dean's story lacks only two things: the opening line 'Once upon a time' and a closing reference to all the characters' living happily ever after.

Get off your high horse, Lotta. You are not some divinely inspired savant who can judge what is is true and not true with 100% accuracy. I have made huge efforts in the past to try and provide this forum with accurate, factual information from a wide variety of sources, and received precious little thanks for it. Fantasy seems to be all a huge amount of people here want to see, so I'm not surprised that the site attracts a huge amount of it.

But what I described is as accurate a description of what happened to me on one occasion in my schooling. I don't make things up. This really happened.

“Get off your high horse” - that’s a line from the greatest film ever produced!

‘Horse’ - I like the sound of the word. It’s the kind-a word that makes a man wanna get down off his and say thank you to Dean for sending in such a brilliant piece even though he receives precious little thanks for it.

Take no notice of Lotta, Dean – her never ending series of negatively oriented one-line responses on this forum only serves to highlight the accuracy of her profiler's findings. Her sarcasm and cynicism are only surpassed by her arrogance and insistence in taking herself too seriously as though anybody really cares what she thinks.

People like you, Dean, who actually take the time to pen interesting accounts for the benefit of the forum audience, are what keep this forum alive and vibrant. Detractors like Lotta and the back-stabbing brigade are what may well end up killing it.

I enjoyed your account and appreciate the time you took posting it.

a form reader

Dean; You may not have gotten the responses you wanted, but at least this one didn't sit around collecting dust.