Monday 22 September 1952
I am still shaking with fury after an unpleasant episode with an obnoxious boy called Hoskins, the son of the local greengrocer. He had been sent to me for throwing a piece of chalk at another boy ñ the kind of infantile behaviour that absolutely infuriates me. I probably strapped Hoskins a bit harder than usual in consequence. The ten strokes hurt and they were meant to hurt, but that is no excuse for what happened next. As the last stroke landed, Hoskins let out a four-letter word of the vilest kind. I was flabbergasted ñ and so angry that I put him over my knee, pulled down his trousers and pants and gave him a good walloping with a wooden hair brush which I happened to have to hand. He was crying like a baby by the end.