Growing up in the late 70s in a small, conservative English provincial town, it’s no real surprise that my parents believed in smacking the bottoms of naughty children when they deserved it. However, by the time of this story, I was 12 and my sister Joy 14, and it had been a long time since either of us had been put over either Mum or Dad’s knee for a tanning.
In both cases, smacking certainly stopped well before either of us were into double figures. While we were certainly sometimes told, in a moment of frustration, that neither of us was ‘not too old for a smacked bottom’ I don’t think anyone in the family seriously envisaged such a thing happening, not even the parent making the threat. But that all changed on this particular day.