Wednesday 24 November
A depressing day, at every level. I came home early from my lunch-break and caught my trusted secretary , Celia, red-handed, going through my drawers. She insisted that she was just looking for some blotting-paper, but one look at her face told me that was a lie. My first instinct was to sack her on the spot but, for better or worse, I decided on an alternative strategy. If the cane concentrates boysí minds, there is no reason why it should not concentrate the mind of a married woman of thirty-five!
I made her wait around after school, then informed her of my verdict, non-negotiable: she was to receive ten strokes of the senior cane, having first removed her underwear. She found the second element of the punishment even more objectionable than the first and begged me to let retain her knickers to protect her modesty. ëModesty be damned!í I said, reaching for my cane. It felt odd flogging a woman ñ hopefully, for the first and last time. Celiaís buttocks were much fleshier than those of a teenage boy, and the caning made a terrible racket. But she took it stoically and, as she rubbed her bottom afterwards, thanked me for giving her a second chance. But it was a dispiriting incident. I didnít become a teacher to whack grown womenís bottoms.