Spankings began quite early for me – I have a vivid memory of being barely three and being taken upstairs by my father for a dose of the slipper.
The routine for this was always the same – my hand firmly gripped by his and marched straight upstairs to my parents’ bedroom. A finger-wagging lecture that seemed to go on for hours, me crying freely. Then the opening of the wardrobe, where the ‘smacking slipper’ was kept.