by Karl Quentin
In the very near future, in a universe closer than your heartbeat yet further away now than the Big Bang, the Brotherhood will storm into the present moment and take over the whole of the United Kingdom. They will use a small right wing party that already exists, the Back to Sanity party, as their cover while they proceed to institute a ruthless dictatorship of men over women.
The Brotherhood rule in the far future, three hundred years from now. They rule a planet in the last throes of heat death, as runaway global warming releases the methane deposits held by the oceans and human civilisation totters on the verge of extinction. To escape the inevitable the Brotherhood have staked all on a time travelling venture: they will return to the last point where global warming could be averted and enforce massive reduction of carbon emissions. At the same time, they will take the opportunity to punish the people they hold responsible for the calamity: women.
For the Brotherhood, alas, are as mad as a box of frogs. Over the centuries of collapsing civilisation a strange and terrible myth has taken hold. Global warming, it is said, was caused entirely by the greed of women for material goods and by their unrestrained emotions. The Brotherhood know what it takes to put a stop to this kind of nonsense: severe and sustained corporal punishment, and lots of it.
The United Kingdom was provided with a number of curious new institutions. For instance, Neighbourhood Correction Committees were formal groups set up by local bigwigs and other worthies to maintain the strictest standards of discipline amongst the womenfolk of their area. For more serious offences women could be sent to reformatories modelled on a fantasy of English public schools. No matter their age and standing, they would find themselves back in school uniform and subject to corporal punishment of the most personal and demeaning kind.
This is the story of one brave and defiant woman trying to live a free and useful life in the repressive world created by the Brotherhood's invasion; and of her humiliating spankings and canings at the hands of the strict new masters. This is the story of Barbra Watson, the Martyr of the Revolution.
BLEAKDALE GRANGE REGISTER
FORM FOUR (extract)
CLASS B
CARMICHAEL, Katherine
AGE: 20
OFFENCE: Attending an illegal gathering, possession of illegal material on her computer
SENTENCE: Three years
COUGHLAN, Jennifer
AGE: 18
OFFENCE: Criminal damage, persistent unruliness
SENTENCE: Three years
DARVILL, Hannah
AGE: 25
OFFENCE: Membership of a proscribed organization, breach of the peace
SENTENCE: Four and a half years
DAVIES, Charlotte
AGE: 28
OFFENCE: Driving without tax or MOT, possession of illegal material on her computer
SENTENCE: Thirty months
GIBBS, Carole
AGE: 57
OFFENCE: Treason
SENTENCE: Seven years
NGONA, Ruby
AGE: 33
OFFENCE: Subversive writings
SENTENCE: Four years
OSBORNE, Lily
AGE: 19
OFFENCE: Aiding and abetting the commission of a criminal offence, resisting arrest
SENTENCE: Two years
SHAW, Amy
AGE: 23
OFFENCE: Conspiracy to defraud
SENTENCE: Thirty months
SYLVESTER, Grace
AGE: 33
OFFENCE: Distributing illegal literature
SENTENCE: Three years
THOMPSON, Gabrielle
AGE: 28
OFFENCE: Conspiracy to pervert the course of justice
SENTENCE: Four and a half years
WATSON, Barbara
AGE: 44
OFFENCE: Repeated refusal to obey instructions from a legitimate authority, expression of subversive opinions
SENTENCE: Twenty months
"I am not," whispered Gabrielle, "looking forward to today." She and Hannah Darvill were climbing the stairs at the head of the other twenty eight 'girls' of Class 4B. They were briefly out of the view and earshot of any master, talking in the corridors being strictly forbidden.
"Who looks forward to any damn day in this foul place!" replied Hannah quietly in gloomy disgust. Like their classmates, they wore the smart and traditional uniform mandatory at Bleakdale Grange Grade A Correctional Facility for Female Offenders: navy blue blazers with gold piping and the school badge of crossed canes, sable, on a field of female bottoms, gules, and the motto: Punitae paremus (Punished we obey, or, We obey when we have been punished - at least I think that's what it means). Crisp white cotton blouses and neatly-knotted, blue-and-gold-striped ties topped sharply box-pleated navy blue school skirts ending three inches above the knee, white cotton knee socks worn on bare legs with mirror-polished black lace-up shoes. As fourth formers, they were allowed to choose their own underwear from a catalogue. Only cotton was permitted, and there were strict restrictions on how much lace trim was acceptable, but it was still a privilege compared to the plain white or black cotton of second and third formers' knickers, let alone the awful serge navy blue drawers of the first formers.
"Yes, obviously, but we're bound to get Monday's prep (British boarding school jargon for 'homework') back today, and after what happened on Monday..." Gabrielle's voice trailed off. Hannah knew exactly what she meant.
Monday had been a disastrous day for Class 4B. From the very start things had gone wrong. Mr Griffiths had discovered a toothbrush in Chloe Brick's bedclothes, and she had started the day with a slippering and ended it with a visit to the Headmaster. That gave her problems focussing on her homework, or on anything but the caning in assembly she was going to get next morning. Because of the early morning slippering, Chloe was stiff and hopeless in Mr Jones' gym class, and his annoyance with her spilled over onto a whole group of girls to whom he decided to teach a lesson. So Emily Underwood, Amelia Russell, Roberta Gentry, Bryony Skuse, Debbie Crowne, and Sally Palmer were all awarded an hour's extra evening gym. By the time they made it to the Prep Hall, aching in every limb and mostly sore-bottomed to boot, they had little time and less inclination to think about homework properly. Over the course of the day, three 'girls' copped detentions and, after detention, it was hard to concentrate on your homework through the blur of tears.
Mr Carter's Latin lesson had been a difficult experience for some of the class: Jessica Reeves, Ruby Ngona, Grace Sylvester, Olivia Marshall, Cheryl Longhurst and Emma McConachie all got one thousand lines for 'insufficient expressness in carrying out instructions'. Being given lines meant going to the donor after classes to be awarded up to six stripes across each outstretched palm with the tawse, then sitting in the Prep Hall while your classmates were ploughing on with their prep, you laboriously writing out 'I must be quicker and more alert in standing up and sitting down at my teacher's instruction' one thousand times with your blistered hand barely able to hold the pen. And then get straight on with your prep, as fast as possible. They had all got three with the tawse, which could have been a lot worse; but the effects on their ability to concentrate on their homework were much the same. Finally, there had been the great changing room debacle, of which the less said the better, which resulted in almost half of the class, which was not already being disciplined in some way, spending an hour scrubbing the changing room floor on hands and knees before remaining in that position to get a buttock-flaying belting from the groundsman with their skirts turned up. Such a catalogue of mishaps, though not perhaps that unusual, was certainly rare in falling upon the heads - and on other portions of the anatomy - of almost the whole of one class.
"I know my essay on Crashaw was lousy for a start. I just couldn't concentrate, what with those stripes across my bum and then every other person seeming to be sniffling into their hankies all around me. Old Prentice is going to have my guts for garters. Crashaw! Jesus."
"And we had French vocab to revise as well," sighed Hannah. "I bet we get a class test this afternoon."
"Why can't they at least make allowances for us when we've not been able to spend the full two and a half hours in the Prep Hall because of punishments and stuff!" muttered Gabrielle fiercely. "And lines!"
"You know bloody well why, Gaby. They're just a load of..."
"Shhhh! Be quiet you two!" Behind them Barbara Watson hissed them to silence. They were about to emerge into Corridor Seven, where masters in long black gowns would be swishing to and fro on their way to their classrooms. Almost as soon as she had arrived in Bleakdale, Barbara had begun to assume a position of leadership and trust with the majority of her classmates, and beyond. Her long experience as a head teacher, and familiarity with authority (plus her ingrained knowledge that she was always right) could not fail to impress her personality on other 'schoolgirl' prisoners. It was her mission now to try as far as she could to keep up morale in this terrible place, to maintain disciplined solidarity among the oppressed, and to do what she could to protect the younger women in particular from unnecessary punishments. She liked both Hannah and Gaby very much, but goodness me girls could be silly!
Corridor Seven had six classrooms opening out from it, and so there was a loud clatter of shoes from the almost two hundred school-women coming up the two flights of stairs from the Assembly Hall, one each end of the corridor, and making their way to their form rooms. Everyone was hurrying, but most had learned quickly not to rush, or push, or cause an obstruction. There were no masters in view, but three tall monitors in black waistcoats and narrow black trousers were keeping a close eye on proceedings, with leather paddles in their hands.
Form 4B assumed an appropriately heads-down and studious expression as they filed along the echoing corridor to their own form room. For Barbara this was just another day to get through, four months into her twenty month sentence. She didn't feel quite the same as some of her new friends, however. Most of her adult life had been spent inside schools and, loath though she was to admit it, there was something about the routines, the structure, even the uniform, that spoke to something deep inside her. Also the first lesson was English Literature and, despite his teaching methods, Barbara recognised in Mr Prentice a fellow enthusiast. She knew very well that he did not regard her in the same light. As well as being an enthusiast for seventeenth century poetry, the man ruled his class of thirty school-women with an iron hand.
Also, unlike some of her fellow 'pupils', who simply looked ludicrous in school uniform, Barbara looked the part. Even at forty four her youthful appearance and aureole of honey blonde hair gave her the appearance of a fresh-faced and innocent sixth form schoolgirl in her navy blue blazer, skirt and white socks. Only closer observation would have revealed the lines of care on her forehead and around her determined mouth, lines that had only deepened during the four months since she had first arrived, freshly birched, to serve her time.
The classroom was large and windowless, the walls blazoned with charts and maps and a copy of the periodic table. By the end of the school day it felt like being inside the head of someone with migraine. Six rows of five wooden desks with attached seats occupied the centre of the room, while at the front before the main blackboard stood a desk-table and chairs, a lectern, and another freestanding blackboard. From this board hung two canes, one longer and thicker, one shorter and slimmer. One for bottoms, and one for hands. Across the wall above the main board was stencilled the slogan: All Praise To The Brotherhood! On the wall opposite to the door they were reminded that a girl spared the rod was a girl spoiled, and that they should Multum Ediscite, Multum Parete Et Compungete Quam Plurimum.
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