Interlocking her fingers and regarding him thoughtfully she kept him waiting for what felt like an eternity. We have not yet reached the stage in the practical day to day running of our schools where the responsibilities of a head teacher have been taken over by a committee or a "people's court" of any sort.

She had her bicycle with her, but was too sore to ride all three miles and her parents were worrying about her when she got home. Appeals and protests were ill advised since she was not a lady who had ever been known to back down. There is a famous cliché, of which I can't say I've ever been particularly fond, but which inevitably comes to mind at times like these. That's the basis on which we both agreed this unconventional ultimatum back in January," Miss Sternwood repeated, this time with greater emphasis. Mr Hoggett said: "This case has been hanging over my client, a responsible headmistress of this town, for a long time.I thought for a moment, but in reality I was already under her spell, and being enticed into her world and her way of thinking.

I hadn’t explored these thoughts much and they had remained just below the surface, but this revelation suggested that I was going to have to deal with them head on.As an experienced teacher, she is (they tell me) going to talk to me about life, maturity, and discipline. She could probably have guessed this from the expression on my face, but I suppose that it was on the school records. Even by her own superlative standards she knew those had been six very smartly delivered and powerful strokes. Yet in spite of the intense smarting pain that tormented his burning bottom, and he guiltily wondered if it might be precisely because of it, he was finding her even more achingly desirable. Located on an island, just off the north german coast, it housed pupils from countries all around the world whose parents cherished the old-fashioned approach to discipline.

Though I thought I knew what she meant, the moment had such a surreal quality that I think I was looking for reassurance that this was real, rather than questioning her judgment.Completely out of place among the other furniture in her office, it's only purpose seemed to be lending its rounded back as a support for the girls to bend over, gripping tightly to the edge of its arm rests, their toes often barely touching the floor. Towards the end of assembly the senior mistress announced that she would be punishing a fourth year girl for smoking.

I was sniffing away tears as I reluctantly lowered my short grey trousers and placed them on the chair. He cried out, a breathy, pained gasp and arched his back as he fought to urge to stand and grab at the streak of fire that seemed to have been lit across his bottom. Now, I am a Protestant, neither "very poor" nor "new rich", in fact, a member of the professional class, and yet I dislike the thought of my girls leaving school embittered by excessively humiliating punishments. My heavy, rubber-soled plimsoll resided in its desk drawer, from where I took it and placed it on my desk.A tall girl with long brown hair stood up and, blushing as everybody looked towards her, walked out of the hall. There was a strange atmosphere in the house, with my parents creeping around a bit with little eye contact, as though they were also on edge. At thirty-five years of age she could still clearly remember the corridors of Saint Frances and the dark wood paneling outside the headmistress's study.