Growing up in the 80s in Scotland, it was still quite common to get spanked when naughty and my own mum was a firm believer in a well smacked bottom. Being Scottish, my mum never used the word ‘spanking’. Naughty children were always smacked, skelped, leathered or thrashed.
The following episode happened at the end of the decade, when I was nine years old. It began as just another normal day – the weather was lovely and my friend Richard and I got off the school bus home, as normal, at about 3.30pm.
We walked the short distance up to my house, where my sister’s boyfriend’s car was parked outside. My sister is seven years older than me, so she would have been about 16 or 17 at the time, and her boyfriend about a year older. Anyway, for some reason Richard and I thought it would be a good prank to let down the tyres on his car. We let down one tyre each.
We thought nothing more of our mischief, and went off to play for an hour. I had to go to my grandmother’s house for dinner at around 4.30. I was standing in the kitchen, waiting for Gran to finish preparing our meal, when I saw the back gate open.
The visitor was a woman called Rhona, a lollipop lady who lived across the road from my gran. She immediately began to tell her about what Richard and I had done – it turned out she had seen everything from her crossing position just a bit down the road.
Rhona called us ‘naughty little monkeys’ and after she had departed, I was treated to a rare scolding from my gran. Dinner turned out to be a very silent meal.
After we had eaten, I told Gran I was going back out to play. To this day, I’m not sure why she let me. Anyway, I again met up with Richard and we kicked a ball about for a bit.
It must have been around an hour later when I saw my Mum come round the corner after finishing work. She went into Gran’s house, where no doubt she was told all about my misbehaviour. She called Richard and I sternly into the house, and made it clear that we were in big, big trouble.
Mum ended up marching the two of us down to Richard’s house, where she informed his own mum of just what we had been up to. Anger flashed across his mother’s face and he was taken inside.
My own mother then turned to me. “Just you wait!” she yelled. “Get up that road now!” I walked slowly behind my mum on the five-minute walk home, all the time looking down at the ground. I remember the sound of her black stiletto pumps clicking on the pavement as we made our way home.
We went around to the back door of our house, where I stood frozen for a moment until Mum shouted: “Get in this house right now, you naughty boy!”
The back door led straight into the kitchen, where I stood, scared out of my life, in my school uniform. “Get those shoes off right now!” Mum barked.
She pulled out a kitchen chair to use for the inevitable skelping. I took my shoes off as instructed, and was quickly grabbed by my wrist. Three or four hard smacks were planted on my bottom. It was clothed at that point but it hurt enough to already have me crying.
Mum stood me in front of her and began to unzip my trousers. After she had taken those down, she pulled down my pants too. Before I knew it, I was over her knee. I remember the feel of her rough black woollen skirt against my genitals.
The smacking began straight away, hard and fast on my young and sensitive bare bottom. I was bawling like a little boy in no time.
As she smacked, Mum scolded. “Don’t you ever, ever do that again, you naughty, naughty boy!” I don’t really know how long the smacking lasted but my bottom felt like it was on fire afterwards.
Once she was finished with my backside, Mum marched me straight upstairs to my bedroom, trousers and pants still bunched around my ankles. I got put into my pyjamas and was given three or four smacks with Mum’s hand as she put me into bed. “Don”t you dare get out of that bed!” were her last words.
So that was me – nine years old, crying like a naughty little boy and put to bed for 6.30 with a red hot, well-smacked bottom. Richard and I never talked about what happened to either of us that night – but I’m pretty sure my friend got the same treatment from his own mother!
Contributor: John