I was brought up in a small town on the west coast of Scotland. In 1966, at the age of 11, I enjoyed a fairly normal, if strict, childhood. The usual punishment was loss of freedom, with spanking – or smacking as it was known – reserved as the ultimate sanction. There were about four occasions on which I was spanked – this story is about the most memorable.

That day, I had done something wrong and so I was told that I wasn’t allowed out. This was terrible, as I knew my friend – let’s call him Bill – was going to call. I waited upstairs, watching from my window, to try and meet him before he pressed the front door bell, thereby alerting my parents, who would have told him to come back tomorrow.