It shouldn’t matter, she knew it shouldn’t, but it was wrong. She felt sick just thinking about it. What was the world coming to? Even as the phrase ran through Susan’s mind, she realised that it could have come straight from her father’s mouth.

“What is the world coming to?” He had yelled as he brandished the newspaper in her face.

That had been 25 years ago when she was just 19.

It had been the summer of 1967 and a few weeks earlier, she had met Katie in the Broad Street Café. That is how it had begun.

“Easy money,” Katie had said. “It’s just like the Bunny Club in London, except without the daft costumes. Nothing mucky.”

The police hadn’t thought so. There had been a raid and the local newspaper had been on hand to take pictures of the girls as they left the club.

In those days Susan, Susie as she was then, had been particularly photogenic. She had made the front page.

“I’ll bloody kill her. She can pack her bags and…”

“Oh father calm down you can’t make her leave.” Mum’s defence of her was short-lived. As she walked sheepishly into the kitchen her mother had gone for her. “I’ll bleeding kill you.”

That is when he had said it.

“What is the world coming to?”

“Sorry Dad.” She had mumbled. “But I’m 19 and I can do what I like.”

Her father had blustered with rage. There might have been actual feather spitting involved.

After all these years Susan almost laughed at the thought, then she looked down at the magazine. There was her little Tracy definitely flouting to the world that she was nobody’s child.

“Hello Mum.” Susan had no idea how long Tracy had been standing there with her big sad brown eyes.

“Oh how could you?” Susan threw the so-called glamour magazine down and turned away lest her daughter see her crying.

“It’s the 1990s Mum, no one cares about that sort of thing anymore.”

“I care.” Susan raged.

“I’ve come to get my things. That is what you want isn’t it?”

“Where will you go?” Susan’s voice sounded dead.

Behind her, Tracy shrugged.

“Will that fancy boyfriend of yours take you in? That photographer?”

“No. He… well he is not around anymore.”

“No they never are. I don’t know what your Dad will say?”

“Oh Mum you don’t have to tell him… I mean…”

“I thought you said it was alright these days, that nobody cared.”

“Dad will won’t he?”

“Yes.” Susan heaved a sigh.

“Oh Mum it was just some fun shots I…” Tracy swallowed her own tears.

“Well you made your bed…” Susan hated the words even as they escaped her mouth, another one of her father’s expressions.

“Oh Mum.” Tracy wiped a tear from her eye and picked up her bag.

Susan could not bear it.

“I should be able to forgive you but I…”

“I know.”

“When I was your age I went to work in a ‘gentlemen’s club’.”

Tracy was startled by this revelation.

“True.” Susan nodded and even smiled. “When your grandfather found out… well they nearly threw me out.”

“Nearly?”

Susan remembered.

“What is the world coming to?” Her father had raged. Then he had said, “right my girl, I am going to tan your arse for you.”

“Now Dad…” Susie had run round the sofa. Mum had been no help. She had just stood back with an iron expression and her lips and arms steeled against her.

Her father had caught her and dragged her over his lap as he sat on the Mary Quant Orange Dream settee. Her skirt had not needed raising, in those days it barely came an inch below her bottom.

His hand had swatted her bottom with a crisp spank that hurt more than she had thought. It wasn’t the first time she had been spanked, although usually it was Mum who did the honours, especially since she had left school.

She hadn’t got more than a dozen swats when he mother had finally intervened. Susan had looked up gratefully with tears in her eyes, but instead of help mum reached out and tugged her knickers down to her knees right in front of dad. She had gasped and her ears had melted.

Then to make matters worse Mum had handed Dad her slipper, the one she always used.

“You’re not to old to go across my knee young lady.” Had been her usual battle cry, and she hadn’t minded who was in earshot either.

On this occasion Dad had taken full advantage. The slipper and stung her now bare bottom as he furiously went to work. Susie had set to crying at once.

“Is everything alright?” Mrs Barnes, the noisy neighbour from hell decided to make an entrance.

In those days no one locked the doors so the neighbours were always just walking in.

“Oh I see… good job. You tan her bottom for her, I saw the paper, you naughty girl.”

Susan blushed at the memory, she could have died, and to make matters worse Dad had sent her to the corner still bare-bottomed like he had when he used to still spank her regularly. Mrs Barnes stayed for tea.

“Oh isn’t she red? You naughty girl.”

Tracy was laughing, “you never told me any of that before.”

Susan was horrified as she realised she had just said all this aloud. Then she too found a smile.

“Pity we can’t handle things like that.” Susan let out a deep sigh. Then added wearily. “Go and unpack your bag.”

Tracy stood in the middle of the floor eyeing her mother nervously.

“Are you going to spank me instead?”

“No I…” Then Susan stopped and regarded her daughter with new eyes. “So you think you are a big girl do you, think you can embarrass me and yourself with this filth. You know I think I am going to spank you.”

Tracy made a short dash for the door, more for forms sake, she could have escaped easily but somehow her mother caught her. Thank god there are no nosy neighbours these days, she thought.

Tracy soon found herself over her mother’s knee having her white jeans and g-string pulled all the way to her ankles.

“Now I am going to show you something else that used to happen when I got to big for my boots.”

Tracy risked a glance backwards and was horrified to see that her mother had grabbed the hall brush at some point in the chase. She had imagined that a spanking was more embarrassing than painful, but she was about to learn differently.

From the outset, Susan went mental on Tracy’s bottom, indulging herself for full cathartic effect. Then once Tracy was wailing out her distress and Susan was panting hard she eased up.

The girl’s bottom was decent red and the tears were more than just token.

“Are you ever going to indulge in this filth again?” Susan growled.

“No Mum. Ow. No never please.”

“Now that you are contrite I am going to spank you properly.”

The spanking was a long one and Tracy was sobbing hard and convinced that she would never sit down again by the time it was over.

“Now you can stand in the corner my girl until I tell you to go to your room. You’re grounded.”

“You can’t be serious.” Tracy stood open-mouthed grasping her swollen bottom and doing a little hop.

“I am deadly serious, you get in that corner before I start over.” Susan snapped pointing to the corner with the brush.

A stunned Tracy hid her face blushing as she stood in the corner gaping in shock. She hadn’t been grounded since had been 14 and hadn’t had a time out since she was 10 and never with a bare bottom after just having been spanked. She didn’t know what the world was coming to. Instead of arguing she said: “sorry mum.”

“I know, although heaven knows what I am going to tell your father. You’ll be lucky if he doesn’t spank you too.”

Ends