By the time me and my best friend Gavin were 12 years old, I think it had been some years since either of us had been put over the parental knee for a smacked bottom. Nevertheless, it was a subject we were both fascinated with, and talked about in hushed whispers whenever we found somewhere suitably private.
I remember that on this particular day, we had gone to a local wood – not as vast as it probably seemed to us as children, but nevertheless a dense, dark place filled with pines, the needles of which formed a soft cushion to walk on. Presently, we got to a slight clearing where there had obviously been some felling done, and sat down on a trunk where one of the trees had come down.