Volume 26 – Café Woodys - The Woody Back to School Unit

7House Captain to repair to her study to participate ina six o’clock swishing. An RSVP was requested.According to Claire six o’clock swishing’s soonbecame a regular feature on her social calendar. Sheproudly confided with the audience that she emergedfrom her educational career as the second mostcaned school pupil in history, just slightly behind DebsMorton.However, she claimed gleefully, she did hold arecord of her own. She had been caught in acompromising position with a stable boy discussingUgandan affairs and was hauled before the Board ofGovernors.At the insistence of Baroness Fielding, whom itwould later be revealed is the younger sister ofMelissa Forsham-Smythe, an ancient and defunctprotocol was invoked. Claire was sentenced to behorsed and birched.According to the records of the Ministry ofEducation between the beginning and end of thegreat European wars of the twentieth century horsingand birching became quite the vogue amongst thestrictest girl’s boarding schools. Nonetheless, thepunishment was considered so ghastly that ministerialapproval was required. Only ninety five applicationswere ever approved out of almost five hundred thatwere submitted.The last officially endorsed horsing andbirching was delivered to the hind-quarters of AnneStanthorpe, Duchess of Lambourne, for lewd anddrunken behavior. The approval was dated in thewinter of 1945. The Duchess would later become a