For When She's Put to Work

Having one's charge committed to an institution or kept ensconced under strict scholastic discipline or otherwise incarcerated is all well and good - and we have discussed regimes and the provision of a suitable uniform under such circumstances, But what if she is to be placed in service? Well, what do you think?

What suddenly got me around to this line of thinking was coming across this pic just now while researching something entirely different - as is so often the case - and the dress struck me as a great jumping off point to exercise one's imagination along those lines. It is good to see something of the good old fashioned work dress persisting in this day and age but I'd have to make changes - long sleeves with tight buttoned cuffs to keep her mind on her appearance as she works, having to take care not to mark or dirty those cuffs, and perhaps a rounded collar butting at the throat rather than the open neck. What are your thoughts?

By the way I have just added two more blogs to the blog list (right hand sidebar): Spankee Finder.org.uk which claims to be “The UK's No1 spanking contact website” and The blog of one Leia-Ann Woods, a “submissive spanking enthusiast”. Just click either title to be transported straight there or check out my blog listing. I hope to see you a little later today with something about the new book - then I am off to Spain, flying early tomorrow morning. Bye!

Weight Gain and the Recalcitrant Teenager: Encouraged Rather Than Forced - Discuss

Hi folks Back on the 15th of March I posted up a piece I called 'Happy Birthday Polly' (click to read or scroll down the page) which in one way or another lead to a minor discussion (see the appended comments) as to how one might deal with the overweight teenager or - on the other hand - the over-vain self-conscious opinionated stick insect forever preening in the mirror and full of overblown aspirations and ambitions. In connection with the latter 'Orage' wrote "How to deal with the perfectly slim young thing...": quite simple since you've already dealt with that in 'Institutionalised 2': by giving her a girlish uniform, a fattening diet and having her hair messily trimmed." well to be honest this was an aspect that I only touched upon in that volume - and of course as I suggested there, under the right circumstances, and particularly within an institutional setting, it would be quite possible to manipulate the calorific content of the girl's meals to match one's aim without her being unduly alerted (other than for the effects of course, but they would take time to develop and might be camouflaged to some degree).

In fact manipulating the nutritional content of meals and keeping all else the same, the appearance, the consistency etc, is quite common in the annals of dietetic research literature. This is all well and good up to a point but eventually the fact remains that the young lady concerned would likely spot the changes being wrought and tend to try to counteract them - perhaps even subconsciously, resulting in reduced appetite. She might choose to eat more or less as appropriate and there is a limit it to how far one can increase or decrease the calorific content of a meal without it becoming something very strange indeed and the intervention being laid bare.

Obviously in an institutional setting wherein the girl's freedom has been curtailed and strict discipline is the order of the day, the overweight girl can be dealt with simply by withholding food and restricting portion size. Her hunger then also becomes a lever that can be used to further reinforced the institution's control over her through the coupling of behavioural modification techniques with food treats (but only within limits commensurate with the institution's aim). It is true, too, that under such circumstances disciplinary techniques can be invoked to bring about the changes required in the exercise and diet obsessed girl thought overly concerned about her figure, for example by insistence that she clear her plate under threat of the cane or the strap. But all this breeds resentment and that is something one might wish to avoid if in the domestic environment of perhaps even within some forms of institution under certain circumstances.

What if our young lady could be manipulated psychologically in some way to change her behaviour? Perhaps subtly, being encouraged step-by-step along the way with a loving arm around her shoulders so to speak. Food treats used as a form of reinforcement in behaviour modification might under the right circumstances and with the right encouragement become a source of comfort, perhaps to such a degree that the obsessively dieting would be catwalk model or dancer in effect becomes a compulsive eater. Driven by a subconscious compulsion that she can't possibly comprehend a point might be reached when, despite her burgeoning figure that stares back at her from the mirror, she no longer sees the point in all those punishing exercise routines she used to put herself through - and yet the choice to give up would almost seem as if her own. In that way I imagine her gradually slipping further and further under her carer's power. Mind you, one would want to control all those excess pounds and a girdle would seem the way forward (see top of page) - fine and ideal under a nylon work dress (see right) and apron if set to work scrubbing the floor, but I wonder what would work under a school uniform. And one would definitely want to 'apply the brakes' once she'd reach one's ideal, but that in itself opens up yet more avenues for discipline.

Anyway my mind was brought back to this way of thinking having been working on a certain sections of the new book but also having come across, fairly recently, this lovely little illustration (above left) by the most talented Lynn Paula Russell (Paula Meadows as was). True it doesn't exactly tell such a tale but then again there seems little on the 'Web' that deals with either of the above approaches, other than a few short tales of 'fat camps' and husbands punishing their wives over the lack of weight loss. A quick search with the relevent search terms mostly brought up my own blog!

Institutional Punishment Illustrated

Hi there: Sorry you have not heard from me for a while out there but I have been a little indisposed. For one the foot / knee thing is still giving me a little trouble but in addition there has been a beer festival going on spread across the various branches of my favorite pub chain, Wetherspoons, and that has coincided with some unseasonably warm sunny weather here in London. Ordinarily I would have posted an update or two from one of the various pubs on my rounds but for whatever reason I seem to be encountering all sorts of difficulties with finding working WiFi hotspots of late and in addition, as I have said before; creating blog updates while out at large can be loaded with difficulties due to the propensity of the average pub-goer to peer over one's shoulder. This is not so problematic as regards text and text editing but any pictorial content has the potential to raise eyebrows - as can sight of the blog page itself of course. Fear not, though, chums because despite my periods of depression and overindulgence, I have been hard at it proof reading quite a lot of the time (aided in no little extent by my ever-vigilant chum over there in the US of A - you know who you are; thanks!). There are perhaps another five chapters to proofread and some reorganisation to work through but most of the writing is done (at least I can't think of much else to write) other than for a few words of explanation here and there to orientate the new reader and to link the various scenes. Saying that: It is with some heaviness of heart that I am going to have to edit out one or two incomplete scenes and perhaps consign almost an entire thread to a separate volume - should it ever get written. Part of the reason is simply the amount of time already invested verses the likely returns and the fact that I can no longer really afford to indulge my little hobby - in short I am going to have to get a job! The other part is due to the unwieldy file size / page number should I publish everything I have written in a single work (not to mention the complexity of the storyline). Now: I am due to fly to Spain on the 19th of this month (staying just outside Marbella - ca 12km) for an Easter break staying in the 'other half''s' father's time-share (nice-'n'-cheap!) and my plan is to get some sort of version out by then on Lulu - perhaps with a temporary cover, that sort of thing, just as did with volume 2. I am still not too sure of a title so that may be temporary also; but at least it will be out. Later I can deal with the niceties, perhaps an improved cover design and later still an illustrated version in collaboration with another chum in the 'States while I sort myself out and look for work. Talking of the latter, I thought you would like a few examples of what the aforementioned illustrator has been playing with of late, though not directly linked with the new book - thanks 'Snooze' I'll be in touch soon! Next time I'll definitely have a short snippet of the new book for you. See you in a couple of days. Best wishes, Garth.

Nurse Spanks While My Foot Throbs and the Economy Drops - Or Something Like That!

Once again I am stuck for the weekend at my girlfriends house and thus restricted in time and to using my netbook – or rather I will be a little later. Right now I am sitting in a pub situated in Turnpike Lane, North London nursing a pint and a suspected Lisfranc mid-foot fracture / dislocation of the right foot (for the more medically minded among you). We have a term for that in English... Fu*%ed-foot. Prognosis? Well, we have a word for that too: crap! Depressing, but nothing that a few pints can't make look better – and there is a real ale festival on, spread across the various Wetherspoons branches! Mind you, the chancellor has just put up the duty on a pint of beer by 4 pence (which seems to equate to a increase of 10 pence per pint somehow – I wish I understood economics). This is nothing to do with the United Kingdom's deficit, however (we aint got a king and what's 'united' about it) but rather is supposed to 'save' people like moi from ourselves. Talking of budgets and deficits (which we do a lot over here – when we're not spending our hard-earned cash on bombing the shit out of someone with those nice shiny expensive cruise missiles of ours – good to know they work though!) can any one tell me how practically the whole world can have huge deficits all at the same time? It seems to me that everyone owes everything to everyone else! Are we all in debt to each other or am I missing something? Unless someone, somewhere is trading with an alien planet how the *$%£ can we all be in debt unless someone is raking it in someplace – do the Chinese own the whole planet? I find it just as mystifying as the concept of this constant 'economic growth' we are all supposed to be striving for and that will save us all – apparently. How can every economy grow at the same time in a closed system which - in the absence of the aforementioned little green economy - the 'global economy' is (I presume – but perhaps I have had too much beer).

Talking of nursing (which I did – sort of – above) I found this intriguing little tableau on one of the French language blogs I featured last time. Any one know where they originated and what is going on. The blog author seemed convinced they originated from New Zealand TV – but that is based on a Google French-English translation. Now, I pride myself on always replying to emails sent by those who have read my 'stuff' or blundered across my blog. Well, fairly recently I replied to an emailed comment only to have the email bounce back with the error message; “Delivery to the following recipient failed permanently: message rejected by the recipient domain” or something similar (no I don't know what it means either – some sort of robot talk). Anyway, I hate the idea of someone out there becoming convinced that their opinion has been overlooked or worse, ignored, and left feeling slighted. So to ever it was (it was signed but I can't betray the confidence in case the writer wished anonymity) I thought it prudent to post my reply as a sort of open letter, along with the original email in the hope that the sender might recognize his or her missive and be reassured that his / her comments have indeed been read (see below).

Dear Sir. I have read INSTITUTIONALISED with considerable interests. I find both the premise and many aspect of the execution outstanding. I was especially impressed with the subtle psychological manipulations involved in the process to make a great read. My one [reservation] is that while many of the individual episodes worked really well the flow of the story seemed to be somewhat disjointed. Once you have completed your trilogy you might consider a revision making the tale more chronological and perhaps elimination a few repetitive passages. I can’t help feeling the material would have been even better used in several smaller stories. Of course the story doesn’t exactly hit the sweet spot of my personal kink – seems a shame to keep such attractive young women in deliberately ugly and unflattering uniforms to my way of thinking. I understand the psychological control and humiliation aspect (and like it too) but I still think a captured young woman looks best in (preferably locked) heels and corset. Be that is it may I have one suggestion that might make sense in the context of your story: Induced dyslexia. I’m talking about ensuring complete illiteracy by appropriate treatment. It seems to me illiteracy would be a great way to foster helplessness and dependency in a modern setting while restricting unwanted access to information. Not critical while the girl in question is properly institutionalized obviously but it would have a number of obvious advantages but when it comes guarding against excessive independence “in the wild” and. If discreetly introduced in the initial stages of the relationship to a young women targeted for recruitment may serve as a basis for establishing and tightening control. After all you describe quite an extensive operation requiring considerable resources and expertise to run. There must be a considerable [customer] base availing themselves of the services on offer in the field of women-control.

Thanks for a good read...

I Answer

Sorry it has taken so long to get back to you but I have been away from home for the weekend and although I managed a blog entry I had prepared it beforehand and managed to do very little beyond that.

I thank you for your kind comments regarding my book / books. It is particularly gladdening that you found the basic premise behind the story exciting and appreciated the psychological aspects I attempted to weave in. If you have read the earlier entries on my blog your know that from the outset my primary aim when I set out to write was to create a corporal punishment orientated story that stepped outside of the usual margins and limitations of the genre in terms of story and character development and the rest. I also set out to build some sort of at least semi-plausible premise under which to explore explain why the various characters should behave and develop in the way that they do , ie, to come up with circumstances under which a teenage girl in today's world might be expected to submit to the imposition of strict discipline, uniforms, corporal punishment and so on. And in this to some extent, hopefully, I have been successful.

To some extent in striving for this latter aspect of plausibility I made a rod for my own back in that it would have been relatively easy to have set the story in the late Victorian era or at the turn of that century and invoked all sorts of sinister figures such as strict governesses and corrupt church officials running homes for 'wayward girls' and just about anything would have seemed possible or even probable without much in the way of further exploration. Setting such a story in the modern world instantly creates all sorts of problems revolving around 'believability'. The other aim I had in mind, one that only really developed momentum once I started working, was to tie in as many different and yet related fetishes that might fit within such a storyline. Quite a few of these fetishes are not particularly of interest to myself or even to my taste and so in this aspect I'm not sure that I've been quite so successful.

I do understand what you say about the somewhat disjointed overall flow of the tale. Partly I set out to explore the modern trend for novels to chop and change between scenes and involve both flash-forward and flashback - a tendency seen in recent years in such TV series as 'Lost' if you have seen it over there. The real reason though, if I'm to be honest, is that I never actually set out to create a book at all to begin with but rather I started out to write for my own amusement the sort of thing that I couldn't find in other peoples writing or that was missing to some degree or other even in those books I had read that came close yet never quite 'got there'. My very earliest attempts were not even complete vignettes but rather more resembled a story framework or sometimes even consisted of little more than just a list of ideas that I would have liked to have come across incorporated in some story or novel somewhere; these were thrown together and put up on various suitable newsgroups in the hope of stimulating someone somewhere to write the sort of thing that I'd love to read. As time went by and so few of these ideas and bare bones story frameworks were taken up and expanded upon by others as I'd hoped, if any, I more and more became interested in writing pieces for my own amusement that was close as I could get to the sort of thing that side fantasised about stumbling upon on the net or in various bookshops that I've frequented over the years.

Before I knew it I had built up quite a body of work and the basic framework - as the principal of plausibility was and is as important in my imagination is on paper - developed quite naturally after having read various pieces on old psychology experiments such as the so-called 'Stanford experiment' aluded to in the subtitle of the first book. The latter though did demand some reworking of my original ideas as just like so many others I started off myself weaving ideas and fantasies around the Victorian era through to the 1930s and tying in all the usual stereotyped scenarios such as corrupt privately run reform schools, insane asylums and the rest.

It was only much later and having discovered self publishing by such print on demand companies as Lulu that I decided to try to develop what I had into some sort of book form - but even then as much as anything it was for my own entertainment but also in the hope that it might stimulate other far better writers to extend their imaginations beyond the usual envelope. If I had my time over again and assuming that from the start I'd set out to write a book, I'd not have published to this point in time right now and as you suggest I would have put together the story in a simpler more chronologicaly ordered manner. Indeed, in such a form - with the traditional beginning middle and end - the task of writing I am at present wrapped up in would be much simplified and my work made far easier. Once again, you see, I have created a rod for my own back.

The present book mostly focuses on events that happened before one of the characters comes to the institution but also picks up at the point in the second volume when two of the three main characters leave and the life of the third goes on behind bars (I have been a little sketchy there just in case you have not read the second volume) and we watch as she becomes helplessly more more entangled in the clutches of the institution. The trouble is that having set out along the path that I have with the first two volumes I am stuck with a similar approach to the new book with all the complexities of writing that produces - for example some of the writing I have integrated in the new volume dates back well before starting the first book, being based around short sections I originally wrote way back in 2005. Besides anything else my style has matured beyond all recognition since that date requiring extensive rewriting.

I have considered, once the new book (or books - I'm still considering splitting it in two) is published later on reworking the entire tale and shuffling the various chapters from all the books into some sort of chronological order telling the story in the simpler more conventional beginning middle and end form. This is complicated by the fact that many people will of by that point read the first couple of volumes if not the whole lot. A second complication is that the first two volumes are also published as e-books via a publisher with whom I have a relatively long-term contract. None of this precludes me later publishing a revision of the whole story in Lulu in print on demand from, though. There is also work going on behind the scenes on an illustrated version and this might well end up being rejigged to incorporate elements from the whole series in a sort of abridged form.

I love the idea you have about the induction of illiteracy, presumably through psychological mechanisms, and how it would induce dependency in a young lady even in a modern setting. Believe it or not this is an area I have been exploring in fantasy for some time and a certain aspect of it has been included in the new book and has been aluded to - fairly vaguely admittedly - here and there in the first two volumes. I don't want to give too much away but there was an interesting series of behavioral psychology experiments carried out in the 1930s into the genesis of stammering popularly known in the literature as 'The Monster Experiment' which has turned out to be a rich vein of ideas. Primarily they set out to understand the development of stammering by deliberately attempting to induce the condition in their hapless subjects. I'm sure you get the idea.

A New French Language Blog Link Section Added

I am stuck for the weekend at a friends house and so restricted to using my netbook. The problem with that is the netbook runs Linux and I use Open Office for word processing tasks on it. Although compatible enough with MS Word for most tasks, Open Office is not 100% compatible when it comes to page numbering and certain forms of document formatting. I know from bitter experience that were I to open the the main body of work, that part that has been formatted in book form, on this machine it would completely mess up all the careful work I have done. At this stage the vast majority of work revolves around editing, rearranging and proofreading / rewriting tasks, so rather than suffer a completely lost couple of days I decided to make a couple of changes to the blog and carry out a little 'house cleaning' so that the upcoming week may be devoted in its entirety to the completion of the book.

New French Language Blog Link Section Added

Now, recently, for one reason or another I have come across a number of French language spanking and spanking-orientated blogs. As I already hosted a couple of links to such sites in my blog list, rather than list here the new ones I have added I decided to lump them all together – the pre-existing links with the new ones I have uncovered – in their own section of the sidebar. Called imaginatively 'French Language Blogs' this list can be located below the main blog list and just above the 'Thumblogger' list in the right hand side bar.

Other News and Views

I have removed the blog entitled 'Výprasky, prísna výchova a disciplína' as it no longer seems to function. I have added the blog; 'Heart and Soul, (click on the girl on scale pic above to visit) and 'A Libertine's Spanking'. The latter is the blog of a “Libertine” and “feminist” who says she “love[s] to be spanked.” Well, I never! There I came across a great illustration of a girl in a wondrously tight chastity belt drawn by Kami Tora who seems just begging to be spanked (click on the artwork above right to visit Libertine's blog – highly recommended). The latter drawing brings me to mention 'Agonizing Abstinence' (click to visit) a still-evolving home for all things chastity and dealing with orgasm denial – while not help it grow with a little imaginative input of your own while visiting. Lastly (but not at all least), I have added a link to 'A Creative Spanko Wench' (click to visit or as with the others mentioned look for the blog list in the right hand sidebar).

Ever had difficulty looking for a particular scene, picture, idea, drawing or photo? I know I have. Try DevilFinder.com, an “experimental browser [that] only displays images”. You can find a link in the 'useful Resources' list located in the sidebar (under 'D' for devilfinder – silly). This brings me back to the discussion featured in my last offering last Tuesday regarding suitable outfits in which to dress the recalcitrant teenager, as a little rummage around the aforementioned search engine (actually looking for something else entirely) produced this intriguing illustration – any thoughts? (yes I know it originated on some 'tranny' site someplace, but they seem to have all the most imaginative ideas!) Bye Y'all.

Happy Birthday Poly

Happy Birthday Poly? Now, what can that be about? I hear you ask. Well, apparently it is the 70th anniversary of the production of polyester, along with nylon the mainstay of women's uniforms and workwear design throughout the 60s and 70s and even 80s (and still today in one form or another, usually as a mixed fibre -but is not the same, is it?). I know this because I had the BBC on the radio yesterday in the morning and it was a whole feature on Radio Four here in the UK extolling the virtues of polyester in those shiny houseboats, overalls and uniforms I am sure many here can remember. Imagine my amazement on hearing a woman on the radio going on about the 'sensual feel' (if slightly sweaty and static ridden) and sound of polyester and how many housecoat and so on from that golden era she owns - it was almost fetishistic.

Now as you may have guessed, I have been focusing my energies mainly on getting the book finished - presently hovering around the 450 page mark and with a little more to finish and go in, I really now do envisage it being released into parts in some manner, the first of which may be ready as early as the week after next. The trouble is that now, along with my dodgy knee and my rather painful foot - that as you may remember some idiot ran over in his car - I now have a touch of severe man-flu (i.e. what my other half describes as a mild cold - but I know different). I have recruited a kind soul (or rather he has offered his help) who is presently aiding me with editing and proofreading some sections (as well as contributing some fresh ideas).

Despite these various pressures I have been able to put aside a little time to play with the blog. Last night, following on from the aforementioned radio show I lavished a considerable time chasing links to stuff about polyester in the hope of dredging up suitable imagery for today's blog entry. Strangely it all got sidetracked and although I found precious little suitable on polyester I did somehow stumble upon a series of French language blogs and a couple of other resources which I thought about showcasing today. But first of all I set out to tackle a couple of comments that had been appended during the past week to the last posting I made why back last Sunday. It all got a little carried away so I thought I'd include my ramblings here... so...

Referring back to the comments left on my last post: I think 'Anonymous' has hit the nail on the head when he (or she - I've learned my lesson, ha ha) says "a uniform has to be something that stands out as being shameful to wear" and that "the 'girl' should look childish, silly and not have a thread of modesty" - although I would personally substitute 'self-esteem' or 'self-confidence' for the word 'modestly'. 'Orage' also has a point when she reiterates that "females regard the most bizarre outfits as normal". If this were the 1950s or 60s or perhaps even the 1970s then this subject would not be quite so problematic and fraught with complication. It is instructive to note that many of the writers I admire and that work in the genre I'm interested in tend to set their tales in the Victorian era, turn-of-the-century (19th /20th) or the 1930s. Indeed when I first set out I myself was tempted to set the scene in the 1930s and 1950s.
One only has to read this edited extract (below) taken from 'The Family Doctor' 1898 (apparently) to grasp the problem.

“Sir, I had long intended to bring to your notice just how the system of keeping girls in short frocks as long as possible is an excellent one. There is no particular hurry needful in the dressing of girls as women and I'm sure that the mere fact of wearing a short frock and with having her hair kept unsophisticatedly coiffured is enough to keep the silly thoughts and inclinations of many girls of sixteen or so in check. There is something about the delicate combination of the dress of a young girl of thirteen or fourteen with the rather slender yet womanly figure and confined waist of a young lady of perhaps seventeen or eighteen - a woman in her own right - or even one approaching her early twenties that makes for a rare and rather lovely picture. I would argue that one can have no hesitation in punishing a girl dressed in this manner by means of the rod or whip, while I would suggest that one would hesitate in caning a young lady if her true age was clear and her appearance appropriately adult.
Two girls of my acquaintance are much marked upon on account of their short frocks and young appearance. Should it be desired to retain some extra element of modestly, then silk knickerbockers of a suitable colour may be worn reaching almost to the knee but the frock should be kept short enough to allow the trimming of the drawers to peep out. The latter perhaps might be decorated around the cuffs with ribbon bows so as to soften the severity of the costume while retaining the necessary formality so important in instilling good discipline. Despite the childish brevity of the skirt, there is no reason why a girl's neck and arms should be left to the ravages of the sun and the frock should therefore be high in the neck, long in the sleeves and may be quite constricting in both the thus discouraging any unladylike extravagance of movement and instead encouraging passivity and a sweet, submissive demeanour.
Although of nearly seventeen summers their stepmother is very careful of their looks in spite of their schoolroom dress. They are fair, each possessing a splendid mass of light brown hair falling over their shoulders and are generally dressed in blue, their skirts reaching two or three inches above their knees, displaying legs encased in black stockings. Their figures are invariably enclosed in regular rather closely-laced corsets which as many people used to say gives the promise of very slim tightly laced figures. Their hands and complexions are always carefully protected from injury from the sun or air”.

I don't doubt taking such an approach would have been efficacious at the time - but in the present era? But then the other 'Anonymous' (or is it the same one - that's the problem with being anonymous!) Talks about "old fashion school clothing like gym slips worn with a boater" and a whole new world opens up. Even if we satisfy ourselves with such styling as it actually would have appeared at the time there is much mileage to be had - even though a young lady dressed in that manner no matter her age, up to appoint at least, would not have raised an eyebrow in the relevant era. If we start playing with that concept a little, however - stretching the boundaries between what would have been expected in what would have seemed unusual even then, perhaps playing with different and perhaps inappropriate fabrics, incorporating unusual colours or extreme details of styling - then the scope becomes wide indeed. For example, if we're talking about developing a school uniform suitable for the intractable late teen continuing her education at home, under the tutelage of a strict governess or some other suitable personage, we have no need to limit ourselves to the usual muted school colours. 'Ware_simon' suggested in connection with the dress depicted in my last blog entry that it might benefit from being "in [a] pink candystripe", he also suggests the style be modified to allow for buttoning down the back (which of course with a little thought can be made most awkward the young lady concerned) and the addition of "a white satin sash tied at the back in a bow". And why not? (Thanks for the kind comment regarding the site by the way, Simon). I can imagine pillaging from a whole swathe of school uniform designs, perhaps even spread a couple of decades or so, cribbing from the best, or rather the most restrictive, oppressive and, yes, eye-catching, the most outstanding or unusual features - from a disciplinary standpoint.

And we don't even have to restrict our palate to school uniforms as such inspiration, for example if one takes the traditional school blazer then why not substitute it with a short cape based on the style that nurses used to wear but restricted to waist length - along with a short pleated skirt, white cotton gloves, a boater on the head, hair in pigtails and ribbons and her long coltish legs bare down to the little white ankle socks, their frilled turnover-tops threaded through with ribbon of a suitable colour and tied in a bow, it makes for a pretty picture of contrite shy embarrassment. Now factor in the discomfort of traditional full-bodied cotton interlock school knickers but manufactured with a layer of latex or PVC sandwiched between the inner and outer cotton (or why not nylon or polyester) layers, a tightly buttoned high stiff Eton style collar that barely lets her lower her chin tied around by a firmly knotted diagonally striped school tie, rubberised girdle and high-cupped longline bra or stiff longline corsellete. Perhaps underneath it all one might choose instead to put her in the traditional liberty bodice suspenders and black lisle stockings, a flat fronted candy striped school shirt blouse worn under a particularly shapeless gymslip and her breasts suitably restrained and flattened so that she doesn't even have the allure of her developing adult silhouette to fall back on, perhaps braces fitted on her teeth with or not she needs them. Then we have the possibilities inherent in the tightly belted gabardine school raincoat of old.

Then we have those "school dresses featured in the Australian soaps" mentioned by 'Cloudelover'. I'm sure that if the guardian or governess given control over a recalcitrant young Miss were to trace back the evolution of that styling a few decades or so he or she would come up trumps, with a little thought and imagination. Incidentally, thanks for the link, 'Cloudlover' - for those interested several entire galleries of examples of Australian soap opera school uniform dresses can be found in the Yahoo groups: Neighbours Uniform Babes 1 and Neighbours Uniform Babes 2. Although there hasn't been much activity for a couple of years on these two groups I think the galleries are still intact and perhaps a few of you out there might consider contributing a few pics of your own as I don't think either is limited to soap opera content necessary and a little activity might just get the ball rolling again on what at one point appeared to be a promising pair of groups (just click group titles or the picture top left or go to the Yahoo group listing on the right-hand sidebar). And all this brings me back to polyester again. Surely 100% polyester is the most obvious fabric choice for a practical, functional and hard wearing school summer dress such as might be envisaged.

By the way, anyone know of the magazine a couple of whose covers appear above. I came across them on one of the french blogs I mentioned but can't remember which - I'll get it sorted before next time. Translating from the French (or rather, having Google do it for me) it seems the author found them in a box in his house someplace and they date back to the 1970s / 80s (there are other examples on the blog) - but I thought I'd pretty much seen every spanking mag there is and has been and I have never seen or heard of that one!

To end: I feel I can safely say that all our thoughts go out to all those out there in Japan at the moment who are suffering. It has been one hell of a shock watching the news pictures over the weekend and a humbling experience for all of us, even those of us safely watching on TV, the way that nature can wipe entire towns off the face of the map in little more than a blink of an eye, despite all of mankind's much-vaunted technology and I wish them well.

That Old School Summer Dress

Just came across the blog 'Discipline Her' being "Tiffany Scarlet's spanking musings" on Wordpress.co (click to visit or check out the blog link list in the right hand sidebar). And I am jolly glad that I did, too as one of the first entries I happened to blunder upon – not necessarily the latest – featured this brace of charming shots taken from Blushes (I think it was – certainly one of that stable; though it might just be from Roue I suppose) that I did have in my collection at one time but that seems to been mislaid over the years; I have been looking for a replacement for some time in fact. The photo set this is taken from dates back to the mid to late 1980s though the room setting might almost suggest the 1970s.

.....

The dress design itself possibly dates from the late 1960s. Why I think this is that I once uncovered an old woman's magazine dating back to that period featuring a pattern for a near identical dress while taking up some lino in a house I was involved in renovating. It is the modest high collar that I think makes the thing work and though not perfect I still think it goes a long way towards forming the design basis for a school uniform summer-dress suitable for the older teen being educated at home or indeed held in a strict privately run institution.

.....

Any thoughts or suggestions? What improvements /changes might you make, if any?