by Jaycee Bennett
4 September 1948
Dear Lavinia,
I'm now on my way to Georgia Women's College. It'll be very different from the University of the Weald, I imagine! But there's a more pressing subject to write to you about. As I write this, I'm very high up over the Atlantic Ocean, and my heart is racing. There are no men in our part of the aeroplane, but there are two American ladies sitting behind me talking about spanking their daughters!
Not just that - I'm in the aisle seat, and the two daughters of one of the ladies are sitting just across the aisle, in front of their cousin and her mother. The girls can hear everything their mothers are saying, and the mothers are prompting their daughters to fill in the blanks!
As far as I can tell, the mother of the two girls (Marie and Connie) and their cousin (Wendy) have been on holiday together in England for the past fortnight, and Wendy's mother has just joined them in London while on a Continental tour on her own. As they speak, I've been taking dictation in the shorthand we were taught. Since it's in the British style, even if any of the five talking near me knows shorthand, she probably doesn't know the sort we learnt. I'll transcribe some of this and include it in the letter once I get to New York and change planes to my Georgia flight. With luck I'll be able to post it to you from New York as well. I know how much you enjoyed the spanking talk at boarding school - as did I!
Right, I'm in New York having cup of tea at a restaurant whilst writing up my notes. The ladies on the aeroplane were unintentionally providing splendid entertainment by talking quite openly about spanking their daughters. This is the gist of their conversation...
"My Wendy has just turned 18, too. That doesn't mean she doesn't need a sore bottom occasionally. Do you still spank Marie and Connie?"
"I've never spanked them. I'd be too soft and stop as soon as the one getting her bottom warmed shed any tears, and then they'd catch on to that and start weeping as soon as the first spank landed. So early on I devised a system for that... I taught them how to spank, and have them spank each other! Since each is usually holding some sort of grudge against the other, when one of the girls has needed a good blistering, I've asked her sister to give it to her. Spankings without my say-so aren't allowed."
"How ingenious!"
"Oh yes indeed! I'm lucky to have two daughters so each can do the spanking on the other for me! Each one always wants to make the other's bottom the reddest a bottom has ever been, particularly when the spanking is because one has been mean to the other. Don't you, girls? But I only allow the girl giving the spanking to wallop her sister's bottom with her hand, and just for three minutes. I set the oven timer for exactly three minutes, and when it rings, the spanking is over, although if the spanking girl's arm is on its way down when the timer goes off, she's allowed to finish the spank. By the end of the second minute, though, the spanking girl's arm is just about worn out and her palm is stinging, so the spanks she gives are less and less effective."
"Is the spanking carried out over clothes?"
"Well, I leave that matter to the spanking girl's discretion, which in practice means no clothes covering the rear end. Each girl wants to see how much redness she's caused on the other. But there's something we haven't told you yet, dear. Your Wendy got her own bottom spanked while we were in England. I didn't think you'd mind."
"Of course I don't mind! What did Wendy do? I imagine it was something really dreadful."
"Well, Connie got the first of the two warmed bottoms on the holiday. She was very rude to a waitress who spilled a Coca-cola all over the table. What did you say to her, Connie?"
"I shouted at her and called her a stupid clumsy limey bitch," admitted Connie. "But it was justified, Mom! She got my last clean blouse all filthy. I had to wear an unlaundered one the next day."
Oh Lavinia, it was such fun listening in to their spanking antics! Anyway, apparently Wendy got spanked for misbehaving when the party had climbed to the top of St Paul's Cathedral, where the outdoor passageway is very narrow and the barrier is a bit flimsy. Up all that way, Marie and some other girls found they were a bit afraid of heights, particularly when they saw all at once the damage caused by the Blitz. They tried to get back to the stairs to go down again. But it was a weekday and the place was crowded, so going backwards was impossible. Wendy wasn't a bit scared, though. She laughed and pushed Marie into the barrier, making her scream, and disturbing all the others within listening distance.
Wendy was told to stop that immediately and behave herself, but she noticed the other frightened girls' horror of the situation and tried to push them toward the barrier too, making them squeal as well. Wendy was again told to stop, but she wouldn't listen. Eventually Wendy did this one time too many, and was told that she'd get her bottom spanked once she got back to the hotel. She evidently carried through her threat because the naughty Wendy did a lot of squealing of her own as she got a proper roasted bottom over her aunt's lap.
At this point, Wendy's mother said, "Wendy, didn't I promise you before you went on this vacation that if your aunt had to punish you, I'd do it far worse? It's time to make good my word. I haven't seen anyone go into the nearest restroom lately, so I'm sure it's free. Go in there this minute, young lady. Take your skirt off and wait for me there! No, no argument. Now!"
Wendy gave the rest of her extended family a furious look, but did as her mother bade her. After a few seconds of flexing her hand, her aunt went back to the restroom too and closed the door. Once the door was closed, another lady passenger who had been sitting next to Wendy collapsed into giggles. The rest of us nearby, including several other ladies who had been paying close attention (even whilst pretending not to), laughed until we thought we'd need the restroom too! I'd like to say I hope Wendy didn't hear us, but part of me knows we all hoped she did hear!
I've found a postbox here in New York and have bought some stamps from a counter, so I'll seal the envelope and write more later.
Love to all,
Bunty
Miss Lavinia Westcliff-Greene,
The University of the Weald,
8, Euclid Avenue,
Sevenoaks, Kent,
Great Britain
5 September 1948
Dear Mummy,
I arrived safely yesterday. I got a bit of a shock when I arrived and was assigned to a dormitory room - the college doesn't have porters to help girls take their things to their bedrooms. Even the boarding schools I attended had porters who knew their place and would assist us with everything, but several girls kindly helped me get my trunk upstairs.
My flight to New York wasn't so bad since mainly British ladies and upper-class Americans were in first class with me. In the connecting flight to Atlanta my seat was in the main cabin, and the people were ordinary and not particularly impressive - people who either had new money not old, but who enjoyed my accent and called me 'you-all' and 'darlin'. I haven't had the word 'darling' applied to me since Grandpapa gave me a Christmas present about five years ago. You may not remember that - the present itself was a broach and didn't look at all expensive. It actually seemed like something a shop-girl would wear if she wanted to doll herself up. Or tart herself up would perhaps be more appropriate. A few days later I put the broach from Grandpapa in the church jumble sale when no one was looking. You've done the same sort of thing with undesirable presents, haven't you?
But the train from Atlanta to Kennesaw was even worse. It was full of southerners in overalls; there were very few men in suits or women in skirts. And I had my first unfortunate experience of seeing men chewing tobacco and spitting the juice into little brass jars they disgustingly call 'spittoons'. I hope those men don't make anyone else clean the revolting saliva out of them. I'm aware that gentlemen in England take snuff, but most seem much too refined to do so in front of a lady. What I've seen so far of American men tells me most of them are less concerned with propriety.
There are some good things to look forward to here, though. The people here seem surprised that England still has rationing of certain things like sweets and that there's no sign the rationing will end any time soon.
While on the plane I thought I'd forgotten my special heavy Mason Pearson hairbrush, and was a bit concerned. I didn't know you'd put it in my trunk, but there it was on the top, nice and safe. I've cherished it since you gave it to me so many years ago. When I went round to the other girls' rooms in the dormitory to meet them, all seem to have Mason Pearson hairbrushes too. Strange, though - all the girls' brushes occupied very prominent places on each of their dressing-tables. When each girl arrived, either for the first time or from doing other things here like going to the library, she immediately removed her hairbrush from her handbag (here called a 'purse' or 'pocketbook') and placed it on her dressing-table even without a thought of brushing her hair. It seems odd.
I was a bit embarrassed when I moved into my dormitory room. It's on the first floor, although here that's called the second floor. I was transferring my clothes from the trunk to a chest of drawers and a cupboard, and dropped a pair of my clean knickers onto the floor. A nice girl who was in the room chatting with me picked them up and re-folded them before handing them to me. It was as if she handled other girls' intimate underthings everyday. It made me a feel a bit odd. There seems to be little privacy here - each of us will share a room with another girl, and there's no separate dressing area for each of us, as there is in the university halls of residence in Sevenoaks. I haven't met my roommate yet, although I'm told it's a Miss Cantey and that she's from San Francisco.
The dormitory itself has a number of washing machines, but none are in private locations - they're all in a room in the cellar (or as they say here, basement) in which maintenance men constantly appear for various purposes. I'm embarrassed to have any of the other girls see any of my dirty knickers, let alone have any of the men come across them. I'd like to get a woman in the town to do my washing, but haven't found one yet.
I met the matron of my dormitory, a Mrs Lowden, who calls herself the 'dorm mom', of all the very silly things. She's about 40; she attended the college herself as a postgraduate in the late 1920s. She studied literature and was married soon after, but her husband died in the war, like Daddy. Since she doesn't want to teach, being a matron at a ladies' college seems sadly to be her only option until she finds another man.
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