AD 2022: Welcome Back Cane & Birch!

This time he gave four swingeing cuts parallel and then two final cuts diagonally, with the greatest force he could muster. which left all four lads screaming with pain. Sutcliffe and Huntley stood there, hands on their heads, quaking with fear as they saw what their younger classmates had just endured. They were acutely aware that that morning they had received a more severe beating then the younger lads and they were now terrified at the thought of what the Headmaster had in store for them. It was not long before their fate was announced to them.

The Headmaster made the four young lads stand up in line against the wall, again with their hands on their heads. He now moved two chairs into the centre of the room and motioned to Sutcliffe and Huntley each to bend across the back of one of them. "Choose either chair you wish, boys," he said, "There is no special position. Now as to your complementary punishment, I have decided to make an example of you two boys. You are both older than the four new boys whom you knowingly led astray. You knew full well that the lake was strictly forbidden and so I am afraid that you will now suffer the most painful punishment that the school can visit upon you: nine strokes of the birch across your naked buttocks. And believe me boys when I tell you that this is something you will never ever wish to experience again; by the time I am finished with you, you will wish your posteriors belonged to someone else."

"Now brace yourselves boys and I will begin. I shall give you the first stroke to you, Sutcliffe, and the second to your partner in crime. And then I shall continue giving each of you an alternate stroke with, of course with a pause of ten seconds between them in order to allow you two delinquents to "savour" the full "flavour" of the birch. As you are about to find out, it is quite unlike the cane. At first you will not find it terribly unpleasant; but as the strokes continue, the pain gradually builds until it reaches what you will find are unbearable levels; but unbearable or not I am afraid that you will have to bear the ever increasing pain until the full nine strokes have been given. Let me just say boys, that I am being very lenient with you, for in all you will have had nine cuts of the cane and nine of the birch today. The school regulations allow a boy to receive a maximum of twenty-four strokes for any one offence; so you see that I am being very lenient with you as your punishment is well below the maximum limit."

The Headmaster paused for a moment and went into his bathroom where he had left the newly prepared birch soaking in a bucket of water in the traditional way. The two second formers were already in tears now that they realised what was about to happen to them. They both shook with fear as the Headmaster approached them, swished the birch a few times through the air, and said, "Nine strokes of the birch for each of you, young men; so kindly brace yourselves and keep perfectly still and take your punishment as young gentlemen should. This is going to be the most painful experience of your young lives to date, but I have to tell you that whole purpose of the exercise is to teach you through pain to be better boys. It has been my experience to note that a well beaten bottom does wonders to improve the to improve a boy's behaviour."

The dreaded birch rose and fell eighteen times and the two boys howled and screamed with pain and begged the Headmaster to stop, but the rod rose and fell inexorably and they just had to bear the pain it inflicted. The four new-boys who were watching their classmates' punishment were equally terrified by what was happening. If ever an example had been made of two young delinquents, this was it. The Headmaster realised that by allowing the younger boys to witness a thorough birching would have a damping effect on the mischievous enthusiasm of other would-be miscreants.

A well-birched arse looks quite different from one which has been caned. The cane leaves discrete ridges whereas the birch, by virtue of its twiggy structure, fans out and leaves small marks. Three well applied cuts of the cane are much more painful than three cuts of the birch, but by the time a boy has had his arse well and truly birched there is no comparison as the pain builds up and up with each successive stroke and he knows that he has had an exemplary punishment: one to be avoided like the plague in future.

Sutcliffe and Huntley exhibited very picturesque arses to their roommates that night in the showers, as they had the distinction of owning richly inflamed backsides left by the birch, overlaid by nine clean cuts of the cane they had received earlier the same day. If ever two lads had well beaten arses, it was this pair and they knew it. The Headmaster knew it too and took a great deal of satisfaction from his handiwork.

And here we leave The Headmaster, Mr Moulton- Danvers MA Cantab and Rigby School, settling to the agreeable idea that as of now, things were back to "normal". The cane and the birch again occupied their rightful place and would, henceforth, be in regular use: Rigby Rigour would again become the byword for excellently enforced discipline and the bench mark against which other public schools would judge themselves. The Headmaster felt very contented with what he had achieved in the first week after the reintroduction of the cane and the birch: his contentment was even greater when he reflected that in the last few years of his career before retirement, he would once again be able to exercise his undoubted talents with the rod. There was a great deal of satisfaction to be got from thrashing a boy and he intended to see that any deserving naked arse received its just deserts; the crack of a well-applied cane mating with a boy's naked arse, was music to his ears. After all those years in the wilderness things had finally come right again.

North London Magistrates Young Persons Court

Colonel Benjamin. W. Wheatley (retired)

Head Magistrate

What used to be known as Juvenile Courts had had their name modified by the latest legislation to take account of the fact such courts now deal with offenders up to twenty years of age. As you might well imagine, the North London Magistrates Young Persons Court was a busy place. Its catchment area covered several of London's most depressed areas and as such was a rich source of young delinquents who took delight in any and all forms of antisocial behaviour; so it is not surprising that the Court had a regular throughput of misfits and delinquents of all sorts. The Court dealt with offences committed by young persons aged eleven to twenty; its main "clients" were males. The Head Magistrate, one Colonel Benjamin Wheatley, held a stipendiary position (he was paid a salary) whilst his two co-magistrates on the bench held unpaid positions; positions held by persons who thought it was "their duty" to do something "for the good of the community".

Colonel Wheatley had inherited his two co-workers when he was appointed to his present position in January 2021. Much to his eternal regret he was flanked left and right on the bench by two females; "two bloody interfering do-gooders" was how he thought of them, but, being a gentleman fully versed in the niceties of the hypocrisy of good manners, he never allowed his true feelings to show and so there was relative harmony on the bench when it came to making decisions. In fact, at the end of the day, by sheer force of personality, the Colonel usually got his own way and so decisions were pretty well always unanimous. However, there were times when his lady co-workers insisted on arguing the toss with him and on such occasions he heartily wished that they would take themselves off to the Women's Institute and make jam or chutney or whatever it is that that organisation actually fostered.

It goes without saying that the two co-magistrates were both from the same social class as the Colonel himself and as such, none of them had any real understanding of the conditions under which people in the poorer areas lived and worked or of what motivated them to commit the crimes they did. And so, with the then regulations favouring leniency and rehabilitation and no corporal punishment of any kind allowed, the sort of sentences which the Court imposed were really very mild and certainly not conducive to dissuading offenders to mend their ways, Occasionally a died-in-the- wool recidivist was sent off to an Approved School, essentially a junior prison, but the normal punishment was a fine and several hours of "community service" a concept dear to the hearts of the female magistrates but considered next to useless by the Colonel who was made of sterner stuff.

So it is not at all surprising that when in 2022 the government of the day finally took hold of its senses and decided that enough was enough and that the dissolute youth of the country had to be brought to heel, that the cane and the birch (but not the whip!) again found their place in English life. The Colonel was so overcome with joy at the news that he would at last have the means to teach the young tearaways who came before him a proper lesson, that he almost had an orgasm, so aroused had he become just at the homoerotic thought of seeing a lad's naked arse being beaten. The Colonel had, in his earlier days, been in charge of discipline of his regiment and until the abolition of the cane had been an enthusiastic devotee and enforcer of corporal punishment among the cadets, many of whom found themselves having their naked arses flogged with a cane by some sadistic NCO whom the Major (as the Colonel then was) had nominated as punishment officer.

The Colonel was a bachelor, with all that that implied and in his earlier career in the army had never hesitated to indulge his sexual proclivities with like-minded fellow officers. He was also aware of the fact that the punishment officer often went far beyond his strict brief of administering the official beating and that buggery was quite a common sequel to a flogging. This, as a practising homosexual himself at that time, he fully understood; having beaten the enticing naked arse of some young private, he could well see that the flagellator could not resist exercising his own cock on such a tempting prospect.

Buggery was forbidden by the army regulations, as were all homosexual practices; but rules were rules and the reality was often quite different; and so as is so often is the case, a blind eye was often turned on what was a strictly prohibited activity. And often the poor recruit who had just been beaten, welcomed the unexpected and impromptu sequel; a little anal stimulation as it was generally known, was a great alleviator of the severe pain of which the poor sod had just suffered. But there was, of course an additional factor which made illicit homosexual practices common in the army, especially among the young recruits.

More or less isolated from female company for much of the time, the young recruits released their sexual desires among themselves. This was the only alternative to jerking oneself off and that, as we all know, is not the same as reaching orgasm by having sex with someone else; so lack of any females meant that anal sex was a common, albeit forbidden, occurrence, on which a blind eye was turned. The only thing was not to get caught in the act by a commissioned officer, for that led inevitably to very painful consequences.

The Colonel, fully aware of all the ramifications that naked arse beatings in an all-male environment might bring with them, wondered how to arrange things for the best. That he wanted most fervently to introduce the cane and the birch into his court and to be able to sentence young miscreants to formal beatings, was foremost to his thinking. The new rules simply said that the cane and the birch could again be used at the discretion of the Senior Magistrate, but did not actually impose their use; there was no list of crimes and their appropriate punishment; everything was left to the discretion of the Magistrate. The only restriction was that no person could receive more than twenty-four cuts of either the cane or the birch on any one occasion. So the Colonel along with countless other magistrates throughout the land had more or less carte blanche to do as they pleased

The first thing that the Colonel saw he had to do was to overcome what he foresaw as the resistance of his two female colleagues on the bench. In the event, it was much easier than he had envisaged. Both ladies were of a certain age and from that social class that had in earlier years sent their sons to public schools where the cane and the birch had reigned supreme until their final prohibition in 1998; so beating of miscreants seemed perfectly acceptable to them. The Colonel heaved an internal sigh of relief that the first obstacle had been overcome, but he wondered at the same time how much the two ladies knew about the sex-life of older boys at public schools.

The North London Magistrates' Court was located in a detached building of the 1920s in a quiet street in North London. The Colonel had never explored the place other than the courtroom itself, the day cells where defendants were held pending being called to the dock and the offices associated with the actual court itself. The place was staffed by a number of policemen and administrative staff who assured the smooth running of the operation. Beneath the courtroom itself were a number of cells with beds and a shower room which could be used to hold young delinquents for a few days whilst awaiting transfer to an approved school. There was however also a large spacious punishment room with a waiting ante-room, neither of which had been used since the ban on corporal punishment over twenty years previously. And then there was a changing room with a shower room adjacent.

The Colonel found that the punishment room was equipped with a stout early twentieth century birching horse and two chairs with padded backs, top rails and retaining straps which were clearly intended for miscreants who were to be caned. The height of the back of each chair could be adjusted, thereby assuring that the naked arse presented by the unfortunate offender was always in the optimum position to receive the rod. The birching horse was also a seriously made professional piece of equipment. The unfortunate offender who had to submit his backside to the birch was bent cross a padded bar and his hands and feet were fastened with a set of restraining straps. The height of the bar over which he was bent could be adjusted by means of a simple screw mechanism so ensuring that the target arse was firmly presented in the correct position to be flogged. The front of the horse was also in padded leather and there was a space cut out to accommodate a prisoner's genitalia to ensure that his sexual organs were not damaged in the beating process.

The Colonel saw that all these bygone creations were in good condition and admired the attention to detail of the designers of the equipment; they had clearly intended to see that any offender received a proper thrashing. He opened a cupboard to find a large selection of rattan canes of all gauges and all in good condition. The only problem was where did the birches come from? He had every intention of sentencing miscreants to that most painful of punishments so a regular source had to be found as the birch has a short "shelf-life". So all in all in terms of equipment, the Court was practically ready to go.

In the event the problem with the supply of the birch resolved itself within the next few days; ever ready to exploit any new opportunity, several enterprising small companies, essentially in the school supplies business, saw that the change in the law offered them a chance to re-enter the CP market and so they again began to offer the rattan cane, so beloved of English schools before the 1998 abolition and so detested by the thousands of English schoolboys who had taken blows from that instrument across their naked But there was now a new string to their bow; they could also supply long life birches, a miracle of human ingenuity made possible by the advent of plastics. From their promotional blurb, the long-life birch was the greatest breakthrough since sliced bread; and in many ways it was.

The problem with the birch, always considered at school level as being the ultimate punishment which could be inflicted on a boy, was that it had a very short useful life. Made originally from twigs of the birch tree, hence its name, and then, as these proved too fragile, from hazel twigs before moving onto a variety of twiggy shoots from other species, the birch needed to be used freshly made. Like a cut flower whose vase life even in water is limited, so it is too with the birch; the greenwood from which it is made starts drying out immediately after it has been cut and quickly and becomes brittle. For this reason, birches were usually kept in bucket of water to ensure that the twigs remained flexible; but in any establishment where the birch was in regular use, a new supply was needed on a weekly basis.

So most public schools had relied on one of their gardeners to fashion such instruments on a regular basis to ensure the freshness of supply. So feeble was the wood of many birches that when a boy was slated for twelve strokes, it was quite common to need two separate instruments due to their fragile nature. and when a twelve stroke birching was finished it was quite usual to find the floor around he birching stool littered with small fragments of twig which had broken off due to the force of he blows. And be under no illusion; when the birch was used it was usually applied with as great a force as possible; a birching was not a simple swishing with a bundle of twigs, but a thorough flogging.

One might ask oneself why, when the birch was such a fickle instrument, was it so widely used. Well, it was generally agreed that a sound birching was just about the most painful experience one could visit on a school boy without actually taking a whip to him. It was a traditional means of punishment in British public schools, where tradition counted for an awful lot; and so it hung there like a virtual Sword of Damocles, over the heads of the boys: the ultimate punishment which many of them, for their sins, experienced.

But because of the need for it to be freshly made, state schools, which seldom had the grounds and the staff to make birches themselves, rarely if ever used it. So use of the birch was essentially confined to public schools that had no objection at all to flogging their pupils to turn them into young gentlemen; or so the theory ran. Equally parents of public school boys were usually in favour of regular corporal punishment and had no objection at all to it being used on their offspring.

So the great breakthrough was the "synthetic birch" of which there were two competing versions. One was made of the sort of heavy grade semi-rigid plastic "wire" of the type commonly used in what we call garden strimmers. I say wires because it really is too stiff to be a cord but it is still very flexible. Lengths of this wire were fixed into a handle and made a very useful alternative to the true birch. The other version was made of sterner stuff. There is available today, a series of flexible cables made of fine gauge steel wires spun together and covered in a polythene or some other plastic casing. Such cables are very flexible, do not kink. They are very strong and come in different calibres and are available by the meter in any do-it-yourself store today. Usually to be found in the boats' accessories section, these cables, with their metal cores, are considerably heavier than their plastic competitors and when fashioned into a "birch", they are capable of imparting unbelievably excruciating pain to the receiver. At present "cable birches" as they are known, are available in varying lengths and in 2 and 4 mm calibres.