Back at Sturford for the remainder of my Summer holidays, I was sent to work in the woods for a fortnight: a fate to which I was now quite habituated. But I stress the fact that this kept me away from home throughout the daylight hours, so it can hardly be suggested that I had the time to do anything at all which might have been upsetting Henry. The fact is I believe, that Chris and Val (who were not yet old enough to work in the woods) had been doing much to irritate him, although their deeds were far too trivial for me to remember. But it seems that Henry had come to a decision that his sons would benefit in character if he subjected them to the same kind of discipline that got meted out to them at school. In other words, he was going to start beating us with a cane if we misbehaved.

Things were not going very well for him in his marriage, and he may have felt that his authority was slipping as far as his control of the household was concerned. I suspect that the decision had been taken to beat me some good while before I furnished him with any manner of a pretext. It was judged that I never thought of anyone but myself, but that this could be changed. The beatings that I had received at Eton had done me the world of good. So he was going to make a start on myself. As far as the children were concerned, I represented the greatest challenge to his authority. Once he'd taken me in hand, it would be seen by the others that he meant business. That just about summarises the situation at Sturford, when I had completed the first of my two weeks' work in the woods.

I committed the offence of washing my dog, Charlotte, spilling quite a lot of water on the linoleum-covered floor during the process of doing so. But it was my own bathroom, and it was by no means unusual for water to get spilt on the floor, even when I took a bath myself. The household had been primed however, over these last few weeks, to be on the look-out for any fault that I might commit; and Mrs Sims was a constant trouble-maker. When she heard me washing my dog, she looked in at the door and started to create one hell of a fuss. "Look at all this work you're creating for me!..... It's not as if you ever clear up your own messes!....." She had a way of shouting while she was moaning, so that her complaints drifted all over the house. I was in fact in the process of assisting her to mop up the puddles of water when my father's head appeared around the door. "When you've got the place clean, come and see me in my study!" he barked.

In point of fact it was the softest beating that I'd ever received. But it was the humiliation, and the destruction of our relationship which truly hurt. And I was outraged that he should judge that I had done anything that deserved a beating. In any case he knew nothing at all about these matters. It wasn't a form of discipline which he'd even tasted when he himself was a schoolboy. And as far as Etonians were concerned, I was now regarded as being marginally too old for such retribution. I had passed my fifteenth birthday, and I had just become a member of the Upper School. It was only the Lower boys who got beaten up. But here I was receiving that punishment from the hands of my own father. There was a rank injustice about the whole business which truly disgusted me.

It also involved such a gross loss of face within the household at large. Never at Eton had I shed tears after getting beaten up. In fact I'd never ever been a blubber, even at my preparatory school. But after receiving this beating from Henry, I hurried to my bedroom and started crying my eyes out. Then I had Christopher sticking his head round the door of my room, to investigate if it was really true that I was blubbing. I screamed at him to get out. But I knew how he'd now be reporting to everyone what he'd seen.

These events had taken place on the Saturday morning. So there was still the family lunch to contend with; and the Sunday lunch too. Daphne and Caroline were both at home, and were fully conversant with all that had taken place. Although I could read from their expressions that they were concerned about the effect that a beating might have upon me, neither of them felt that it was their business to take my side more openly. It had always been an unwritten rule that the upbringing of the sons was Henry's concern. Any open criticism of his actions would have been out of place.

Against that background, it was difficult for me to establish any logical basis for my own sense of outrage. It was evident to me that I came from a cultural background which condoned such behaviour. There was nobody to whom I could screech my protest. I might have salvaged my self-esteem if I had run away from home. But to what address could I be running? And what could I say when I got there? If I had been trained for such independence, I might have roughed it in the woods for a while; or even in some city. But I'd never been taught how to take care of myself. I knew my own limitations. If I ran away, I'd merely get picked up by some kindly policeman, and returned to the bosom of what they supposed was a loving family. I could see no solution for myself that didn't end in a humiliating acceptance of what he'd done to me.

But there was no way that I was going to accept what he had done to me. He had chosen to fling our entire past relationship in the garbage can, and I wanted him to see and feel that he had done this. In my impotence however, I had no other option than to sulk. Sulking is the only effective action for anyone to take under such conditions. I let him feel by my sour expression, and by my lack of verbal communication with him, just how dead I now regarded our relationship to be.

I'm not quite clear about what may have been going on in his mind at this juncture. He was subdued, and not unkindly, in his endeavours to include me in the family's conversation. I actually supposed that he might be trying to say that he was sorry for what he had done. And when I came back from work at the beginning of the following week, he brought me my sheath-knife, saying that he'd spent some time sharpening it for me on a carborundum. The signals did seem to be reading that others had persuaded him that he'd committed a foul, and must make amends. So I began to relent upon my policy of sulking.

By the time I'd completed my second week of work in the woods however, I discovered that I'd been misreading his signals. I learnt that little Valentine had now been beaten up in precisely the same manner as myself. So he didn't regard such methods of discipline to be a mistake. On the contrary, he was letting me see that he could be just as ruthless to his other sons, as he'd been to myself: trying to reassure me perhaps, that there was no favouritism, and that he was a man of fair play. Well this simply wasn't good enough! I even felt that the role fell to myself to educate him - seeing that neither Daphne nor Caroline apparently regarded the matter as something which they should champion on the family's behalf. So my tactic of sulking was now resumed in earnest - until Henry felt that it was time to counterattack.

Maybe I'd been sulking for two weeks. I can't really remember. But matters came to a head one lunchtime when Daphne was goading my father's conscience perhaps, on the way that he'd been treating me by inferring there might be a parallel between the way our good friend Mr Hammond (the Yorkshire mill owner who had built up the local textile industry at Trowbridge and who had always been most kindly and generous to us children), had worshipped the memory of his eldest son, after he'd lost him as a casualty during the war - but never during his life time. In fact Roger, the wretched younger son, was now seldom permitted to use anything which his elder brother had owned, and was always criticised by his father for not being worthy of his footsteps. Suddenly Henry exploded, saying: "Oh yes, I can see what you're trying to tell me! You're saying that if I don't treat Alexander any better, then I'm going to have regrets about it if he gets killed! Just look at the way he's sitting there with his eyes all cast down!..... Sulking, and I'm sick to death of it!....."

Henry had always displayed an unpleasant tendency to strike below the belt when angered. He would not feel the need to discern whom might be the appropriate person to attack, nor the appropriate punch to throw. When under pressure, he was merely concerned to wound. This was such an instance. It wasn't as if I'd even been participating within the conversation, and quite involuntarily it seemed that the focus had been drawn upon myself. Someone of a fairer disposition might have seen fit to make a cutting retort to Daphne. He should never have lashed out against myself, in retaliation against something that she had said. Precarious in my emotions as I'd been feeling of late, my face suddenly crumpled and I fled from the dining- room, once again so shamefully and so publicly reduced to tears.

I felt really low: dejected in spirit. With a man like this as my father, it seemed quite impossible for me ever to do the right thing. And it was incomprehensible to me how I could really be so awful: so much the object of his criticisms. I had been much liked by the Headmaster at Ludgrove, and was even now well liked by my Housemaster at Eton. These were filial relationships of a kind, so if they could find something in me to admire, how was it that I seemed to fare so badly in my real father's sight? Having reached the sanctuary of my room, I was just sobbing uncontrollably. But I had that recent memory of Chris poking his head round the door to observe me in my state of weakness. Even within my sanctuary, I was still wanting to hide. So I cringed beneath the wash basin, which was in a corner of the room partially concealed by a cupboard.

Then after some five minutes or so, the door did open, and Henry was there - in his most gentle mood at last. He was calling me `Old Cock' - his greatest term of endearment for sons - and he picked me up from the floor and sat me on my bed, with himself alongside. In my weakened condition, it was impossible to continue with the sulk. I merely concentrated upon the task of getting my breathing under regular control. And the words he was telling me roughly spelt out the following message.

He wanted me to understand the situation from his point of view. He'd been under a lot of pressure of late, and my brothers had been getting on his nerves a bit - while I'd been away working in the woods. He wanted me to comprehend just how much of a sense of release it had given him to take me to task upon all my past misdemeanours. And there were many ways in which my attitude did need to be amended. I never really stopped to think about anyone but myself. I had driven him to the point of fury. But he'd got it all out of his system now. He felt really good inside himself once again, and it was time for a new start in the relationship between ourselves. He didn't quite understand why I'd started to sulk again - after he'd sharpened my jack-knife. In fact he'd persuaded himself for a while that the rift might have been mended between the two of us. But we could forget about all that now. It was time for us to be friends again.

All sense of resistance had by now ebbed out from me. There was no way that I was going to win. No way that I was going to get him to perceive my sense of grievance. I'd been licked! A sense of futile combat. I could only accept the terms of surrender that he was offering me. Humiliating terms. Complete capitulation. But I had total disrespect for myself in complying to his will. What of the sense of grievance which still remained in my heart? The unanswered questions on whether a father has the right to beat a son? And if so, on what provocation? The mealy-mouthed appeal for me to understand his own problems in life; but what of my own? Could he not perceive that life in general was putting me under just as much stress as himself? So why did his solutions need to be furnished by augmenting my own load? He accused me of thinking of no one but myself, but could not the accusation be more appropriately fired in his own direction? But above all, I still felt the injustice of the whole business. And if he felt like this now, then what hope might there be for any firm foundations within our future relationship?

Initially however, I was genuinely attempting to comply with Henry's terms for surrender. I was striving not to appear so selfish in his eyes, and to conduct myself in the manner that he expected of me. But the wound remained deep within me, if concealed, as to how I had been treated at this juncture in my life.

You beat me with your crop for washing my dog, and spilling
my fill of water on the lino matting of my own
home bathroom floor, roaring a paternal
summons to bend my bum in your stupid study.
The dud thuds did little to bruise my body,
blooded often at Eton, where the cane was used,
(abuse for the Lower school which I'd left behind,)
but blinded now were my eyes with tears of rage.
Your kindly patting of a punished pet, vaguely
paging an explanation of release from the throne
of your own private tension, ultimately gave
way to a plaintive rebuke for my calculated sulk.
I'll pick the pieces from the littered floor,
in hopes to make a man of me - or more.

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