Inspired by a Strict Governess: Janus (mid-1980s)

This will probably be my last post for a week or so as I'm off to Spain in a couple of days (I should have been in Hastings today but I've put that trip off until tomorrow, but when I return I will be pretty much flying straight out)...Now down to business:

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In the mid 1980s Janus (probably the most well known of the British spanking magazines) published a 'photo-story which, accompanied as it was by scant, if any, explanation as to the protagonists' relationship, was left largely open to interpretation. To my mind the uniform worn by the elder of the two women indicated that she was likely governess to the younger. Even at that time that was my preferred interpretation, although as I recall (and my memory may be playing tricks on me here), the suggestion in the text was more complex and involved the younger woman visiting the elder, perhaps as part of some role playing game (Games? we're not playing games here! A truly horrid suggestion!!!).

This, then is, in actuality, more an example of Janus so nearly hitting the right spot and then going on to miss the point entirely. Nevertheless it was formative to the ideas and fantasies building in my head at that point in time - and that would later inspire me to write my own stuff.

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Here, in my interpretation, was an exceedingly dominant and strict woman hired by the girl's stepparent or guardian to "take her in hand". This theme is something of an undercurrent running throughout volume 1 of INSTITUTIONALISED and reemerging towards the conclusion of the upcoming volume 2, but that will really come into its own in volume 3 (wherein we will see what a governess, albeit one possessed of a rather specialised skill-set, can really achieve if given a free hand!).

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At the time I could see (or fancied I could) in the girl's eyes what I would describe as the efficacy of her governess' approach in gaining control over what is, after all, clearly an independent adult woman - some of that independence has already been leeched away. Even then, though, I was disappointed by the girl's dress ; already I had in my mind that the young lady, too, should have been in some type of uniform - something befitting one occupying a more subservient station and thus balancing the equation so to speak.

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In my imagination I could excuse the rather sophisticated dress she wore by invoking the assumption that ordinarily, prior to her governess' intervention in her life, she would have been customarily garbed in jeans and tee-shirt (perhaps even something of a tomboy). Perhaps, then, this was just a first step; the uniform would come later, perhaps much later - the various elements introduced stepwise, each stealing away a little more of her adult identity. I would delight in imagining how the governess, having won the first battle or battles and her charge now to be habitually found in some rudimentary form of uniform, would press on to win the war. Rules and regulations would be tightened up over time, new dress stipulations would be gradually introduced and refined and all with the same criteria in mind - to exert control through discipline and humiliation in equal measure.

This, then, pretty much goes to illustrate the credo of the INSTITUTIONALISED series as regards the character's dress, particularly within the institutional settings: Uniforms may evoke authority and bestow the right of authority upon the wearer - others may by their design, whether deliberate or otherwise, rob the wearer of status and identity, undermine confidence and eat away at self esteem and any sense of independence she might still possess.

A Random Dwelling Thought & A Girl And Her Governess - Part 2

I am very short of time this morning; I have to get out from home, off to the gym before heading off to Camden Town for a bit of a drink up with some old school chums, so I only had a few minutes to spare but I thought I'd share a few thoughts with you all before posting up the concluding two parts of A Girl And Her Governess (I am still unable to ascertain from which magazine I scanned these pages - I have been looking through my collection though and am still looking).

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This has absolutely nothing to do with the scanned pages presented here (click to enlarge and read) but I had to answer an email this morning and it got me to thinking: I always love anything dealing with a reformatory scenario, particularly when described as totally isolated from the outside world. In the latter context any description of high walls, strict security and the Gothic surroundings gets me going - it is that feeling of hopelessness and helplessness that such surroundings are likely to engender in the inmates that I go for. If you've ever read any of my stuff you will have realised that I tend to allow my characters some hope, usually by initially stating relatively short terms of incarceration, and then gradually withdrawing that hope as for one reason or another those terms become extended or indeed repeated (perhaps over and over, who knows).

I read a story once, I can't recall its title nor who it was by, that was set in the Victorian period and wherein a young girl is picked up for some very minor offence and dispatched to the local reformatory - without ever having had the chance to explain the situation or communicate with friends or family (basically as far the outside world is concerned she has just disappeared).

She is sentenced within a closed court by a judge (all perfectly legal, a real judge etc etc) to, I think, two years in the reformatory. It is mentioned in the story that under certain circumstances, repeated offences whilst inside or unacceptable behaviour over the period of the sentence etc, that the miscreant might be re-sentenced on release, possibly to having to endure the entire term all over again from scratch. It then becomes clear that the judge has already signed the necessary documents for her sentence to be repeated in its entirety from the beginning once she has completed her two years. She is not to be told of this of course until the day of, what otherwise would be, her release.

The reason for all of this unfair treatment is simplicity itself: It is in reality merely that she happens to be extremely attractive - the judge and a couple of his acquaintances will be visiting to witness her various punishments from time to time.

I prefer to imagine her being taken as far as the gates on her final day, perhaps even being allowed to change into her day-to-day clothing, before being told of her re-sentencing and being turned back through the various gates and security measures and being put back in the drab reformatory uniform - perhaps as a final gesture her fine day dress and other belongings being cut up before her (I can be so cruel).

A Girl and Her Governess - Part 1

A Girl and Her Governess

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So here is the first part of the scanned magazine story I spoke of in the last post. Unfortunately I really can't recall from which magazine I scanned it from and I've mislaid the records somehow - silly me! (As always; click to enlarge and read)

An Anonymous Contribution and a Reply

Some time ago I posted some story ideas under the title of; Some story ideas: An original inspiration (Click to view). An anonymous visitor has left an interesting comment on this post; one I thought inspiring enough to reproduce here - particularly as I am about to post in a serialised form (in two parts) a governess-and-her-charge orientated story scanned from a spanking magazine of the period the writer speaks of.

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I recall from the 1970s one of the "spanking" mags had a feature called "Diary of a Victorian Young Lady". The young lady's parents went abroad leaving her in the charge of a governess, who introduced her - never before so much as spanked - to he "delights" of the cane, the birch, and the heavy tawse.

I could probably recall some more detail of the story, if it be of interest. What I perhaps remember best is the reader's letter castigating the governess on her leniency.

- In case she takes it into her head to attempt to run away again, she should be taken to the blacksmith to have a chain permanently shackled to her ankles. This will prevent her wearing any drawers, but there is no need for such a garment - absence makes her person more readily available for discipline. She should not be allowed to idle away her time in the schoolroom, but should be helping the maidservants to scrub the floors, and they should be permitted to discipline her should her efforts slack. Finally the application of soothing creams should be totally forbidden, instead she should be birched every bedtime with stinging nettles. This is not only an effective punishment, but would help her skin to heal and be once more available for discipline on the morrow. Anon.

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I for one would love to hear more details from this story; it is not one I recall coming across and it sounds promising to say the least. Equally inspiring are the details from the reader's letter that our anonymous contributor quotes, particularly the part about the shackling of her ankles - an absconding charge is always a worry under such circumstances.

But there are more than one kind of shackles and not all bonds are visible nor, indeed, even tangible. Self-confidence can be fragile, self-doubt quite debilitating and, similarly, agoraphobia can be quite immobilising.

Whether the germ of the idea be introduced through manipulative suggestion or a mild propensity be amplified in severity through a similar means, the increased sense of dependency on her governess, sure to result, would serve to tether the girl every bit as well as steel or iron.

Although certain of the protagonists inhabiting the pages of INSTITUTIONALISED volume 2 will undoubtedly encounter individual physical restraint and those of volume 1, once actually ensconced within the walls of the institution, find themselves languishing behind steel security grilles, it is the more psychological approach, broached above, that has guided two such young ladies into their new lives and that threatens to curtail their freedom. In volume 2 we will see the power of such a non-physical technique lovingly as wielded by a particularly strict governess to control and bind her charges to her. Corporal punishment is of course introduced, with cane, tawse and martinet as is a suitably humiliating uniform for her girls, but the discipline applied and enforced within that invisible framework of restraint.

Strict Governesses, Uniforms, Canes and Gymslips

Some uniforms look so much better with cane in hand (Click here to see the article with the original of the blue dress - look at the bottom of the page when you get there)

Others appear as if designed to invite the sting of swishy rattan - below - it seems the natural order of things, at least to my mind

(and those that inhabit the INSTITUTIONALISED universe of course).

Fine Ales, The Spaniards Inn & Black Beauty: An Oddly Inspiring Mix

As I have so often said before, inspiration comes in many eclectic and often decidedly odd guises. I was sitting yesterday evening in the historic Spaniards Inn (Hampstead, London) imbibing a fine ale or two when I happened upon someone I had once known at school and hadn't seen since that time. Somehow my mind flicked back to that period and settled on a recollection of a particular TV show; one that, now thinking about it, probably marked one of the most pivotal moments in the formation of my predilections and thus the direction of my writing.

As incredible as it may seem it was an episode of the children's television series; The Adventures of Black Beauty. Originally shown between 1972 and 1974, in the London area at least, and based on the well-known children's classic by Anna Sewell. I don't think I've ever seen it since that period but it has stuck in my mind ever since.

The episode in question (and I've no idea of its title - I have seen it only once I don't think it's ever been repeated) had the two children that usually featured in a series coming across a large country house that to their knowledge hadn't been occupied for some years but that now housed some recent arrivals to their area. Curiosity aroused they go to check out these new people and come across a strangely quiet teenage girl sitting in the garden who is oddly reluctant to speak and hurries them a way. The girl is called indoors by a very stern looking older woman and in a later scene she is being instructed to write a series of letters to far-flung relatives say in how well she has been treated - that is obviously far from the truth as she is being shouted at continuously by the man of the house. An inheritance is mentioned at one point and also something about the girl coming-of-age and her signature then being required on various documents (cheques etc one imagines) from that time on.

The girl is referred to continuously as ‘stupid girl’ and in a still later scene the male figure (and as I recall one is never certain exactly of his relationship to the girl) says to the woman, (in response to her voiced concern as to “what will happen about the money once the girl comes of age”) that the girl needs a governess and suggests that the woman's sister (who remains unnamed and unseen) would be ideal in the role, saying; “…a few years of your sister’s discipline and the silly little idiot will sign anything she’s told to”… an entire garden of fantasies and possibilities flowered in my head seeded by that one single line… and still do to this day. It is the archetypal Victorian heiress, stepmother, governess melodrama - and to find it buried in a simple children's TV series, incredible.

Anyway, I would be very interested to know if anyone else out there can recall seeing that particular episode; as I say, I've seen it only once and I don't think it's ever been repeated, or if it has been I've missed it - perhaps someone at the television company woke up, smelt the coffee and had second thoughts about it, who knows?

Forced Haircutting Again Raises its Beauteous Head

Forced Haircuts

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Yesterday I did indeed, as planned, spend pretty much the whole day in various houses of public refreshment in the Turnpike Lane / Hornsey area of north London. to be honest I didn't get as much writing done as as I would have liked to have but I did manage to progress some part of a particularly twisted little chapter that I have been working on for some time now - I can't say much about the plotline about giving it all a way but it is probably the most diabolical piece of nastiness I have come up with to date and I have only been lavishing the love care and attention on it that it deserves, even if the effort is hopelessly disproportionate to the space it will likely finally come to occupy in the book.

Also yesterday I related how the day before I had swapped comics with an old schoolfriend in a public in Hampstead (The heath, North London). Anyway, he 'phoned me yesterday to give me the wonderful news that he had lost my entire (nearly complete) collection of Viva vendetta comics (graphic novels as I prefer to term them)... the...'ing wanker!!! ... I hope he doesn't read this - and besides, there is nothing wrong with wanking now and then - just don't make the pages sticky. What's most irritating is not so much all the lovely dosh ( money, or drink vouchers if you must) that somebody on Ebay would undoubtably have paid out for them but rather that I had intended to scan in and post up the delicious little scene in which the heroine has all her lovely hair cut off, and in a wonderfully institutionalised scenario too.

The forced haircuting scene is something I been investigating recently; although it features in two or three places in INSTITUTIONALISED volume 1 (and forced hair-dying, too). I intend the subject to play a more central role as volumes 2 and 3 develop (along with one or two more unusual ideas such as the fitting of teeth braces, as a form of humiliation rather than for any true orthodontic purpose). With the loss of my books I have been forced to hunt around on the web for the relevant pictures... and I have come up with these, taken from the film that was made of the V for Vendetta series a few years back.

I just love the institutional background and the sheer horror on the young woman's face. I have to rush out today but at a later date I'll be putting up links to the sources of these pictures and others like them that I've come across.