My father died in a road accident when I was just seven years old, and my mother was left to bring me up on my own, no mean task for a woman in the early 1980s.
Given the time, I wasn’t exactly a stranger to corporal punishment. It was still in use in schools, and I got my bottom smacked a few times at home, though mostly when I was quite a young boy, probably getting my last at about six or seven years old. That was until one memorable summer’s day.