Robert and the Junior Prefects

This story follows on from two earlier stories ‘A Visit to the School Outfitters’, which can be found here and ‘Robert and the Summer Haircut’, which can be found here. The ‘Robert’ of the ‘P.E. Club’ stories was not intended to be the same ‘Robert’ who features in these stories. I wrote the earlier ‘Robert’ stories a while ago and the character was aged about fourteen/fifteen. When I came to write the P.E. Club I’d totally forgotten I’d used the name Robert before (lack of imagination on my part), but, given that ‘Robert’ of the P.E Club is nineteen, they could, I suppose, be regarded as being one in the same character. Dear reader, I leave it up to you.


My fifteenth birthday had come and gone and there was still no sign of my being allowed to wear my longs. My heart was set on gaining this privilege and I would often drift off to sleep with the fanciful notion that when I awoke in the morning I would find that mum had put out my long trousers for me to wear to school.

But after mum had bought me the hideous short trouser suit, I’d sort of resigned myself to being required to wear short trousers for church and formal occasions, also for visiting family friends and relations. I also knew there would be little chance of wearing anything other than my short trouser suit for outings, such as to concerts, art galleries and museums. However, being kept dressed in short trousers for school, now that I was fifteen years old, was something I knew I’d never get used to. All through the preceding year in the Third Form I’d looked forward to the special feeling of pride that comes from wearing your first pair of long trousers. I yearned to feel the material of my long trousers as it brushed against the whole length of my legs. But most of all I longed to be dressed like my fellow Fourth Form schoolboys, sent to school wearing proper long trousers..

I’m sure… no, I’m certain it was my stupidity over what I now thought of as ‘the affair of the summer haircut’ that had put paid to the appearance of long trousers on school mornings. When I cast my mind back to my visit with mum to the school outfitter, her words come back to me just as if she was standing right next to me: “As a special present for my son’s fifteenth birthday Robert has been given his first pair of long trousers which he will be permitted to wear to school provided he behaves himself…”

Mum proved she was nothing if not a woman of her word and, of course, I should have known better than to be so foolish about my summer haircut.

Two days before the first term of the new school year I was taken to Mr Fenner, the barber, for my ‘back-to-school’ haircut. Mum wasn’t going to trust me to go to Mr Fenner’s on my own any more, so I had to stand in the shop while she gave her instructions as to her exact requirements. This term it seemed as if my school haircut was to be shorter than ever. Needless to say mum and I were not alone in the barber’s and I couldn’t help squirming with embarrassment while a couple junior boys (wearing long trousers of course!) poked fun at me behind mum’s back. I wasn’t sure, but these two boys looked familiar and when they started whispering to each other and I heard words such as ‘girlylegs’ and ‘shorty-shorts’, I was sure these were the same two boys who had witnessed my excruciating humiliation on the day of my summer haircut.

Mum then said she had some shopping to do, but that I was to stay with Mr Fenner until her return as she ‘didn’t want a repeat of the summer haircut episode’. She then told me, in front of the two junior boys, that I was to behave myself and not make a fuss or it would be early bedtimes again. And then she said something that made me cringe with embarrassment… why did she have to say it in front of Mr Fenner and the junior boys?

“I do hope I’m not going to have to put your special mittens on you before bedtime again, Robert…”

I gulped, more red-faced than ever. I couldn’t be sure, but I didn’t think the two fresh-faced junior boys knew what special mittens were for, but I was certain Mr Fenner did.

“No, mummy…” I managed to reply.

It was just the sort of hideously embarrassing remark mum would come out with at the most inappropriate times.

Then, with a cheery few words to Mr Fenner, telling him not to put up with any nonsense from me and that she’d be back to collect me later, she went off to do her shopping.

Thankfully for me the junior boys were given their haircuts while I waited. I sat down, my thighs bare to the very tops of my legs (I was wearing full school uniform even through school hadn’t started) and picked up one of Mr Fenner’s dog-eared magazines from the pile on the table next to the wooden bench upon which I sat. I didn’t make any effort to read ‘Practical Car Mechanics’, or whatever the magazine was, as I was more interested to see what sort of haircut these two junior boys were going to get.

Neither boy was in Mr Fenner’s chair for more than a couple of minutes... well that’s what it seemed to me. My mouth fell open when, after a most cursory use of his scissors and comb to snip off any loose ends of the boy’s hair, the boy was actually asked if he’d like a dollop of the foul smelling preparation that Mr Fenner always slathered on my head after finishing my short-back-and-sides haircut as a matter of course… I never got asked!

“Not today, Mr Fenner, thank you.” The first boy replied, his hair looking tidier, but to my mind not much different from when he first sat down in the barber’s chair.

And that was another thing… both boys actually sat on the seat of Mr Fenner’s chair! Not for them the humiliation of the wooden board placed across the chair arms. Not for them the indignity of being treated like a little child. They were junior boys at least two years younger than I was, but when my turn came, Mr Fenner reached for the child’s seat without a second thought and I was made to sit on the hard wooden plank like a six year old.

No prizes for guessing why. It was because I was still in short trousers. The junior boys both wore longs and therefore had privileges that I didn’t. It was another example of the distinction between boys who wore longs and those, like me, who were kept in short trousers. Is it any wonder that I dreamt of the day when I’d be allowed to wear longs?

I need hardly add that in spite of my already short hair, I was kept on Mr Fenner’s wooden plank for a long time, a considerably longer time than the whole time both junior boys were sat in the chair, while Mr Fenner worked away diligently with his clippers, comb and scissors to make sure that no hair on my head was out of place.

With my hair even shorter than before I was brushed down by Mr Fenner as he removed the apron. The brush tickled the nape of my neck which was totally bereft of hair and I was given permission to stand up. A few more loose hairs were brushed from my shoulders and front of my blazer.

“Back to school in short trousers again eh, Robert?” Mr Fenner said as he looked down at my bare legs.

“Yes, sir… Mr Fenner,” I replied and when he enquired I told him I’d be in the Fourth Form when I went back to school.

“There can’t be many boys in the Fourth Form who wear short trousers to school these days,” Mr Fenner observed.

“No, Mr Fenner,” I replied, “I think I’ll be the only one.”

Just then mum came back laden with the fruits of her shopping expedition. To her enquiry Mr Fenner assured her that I’d been a good boy and behaved myself. I felt like I was ten years old again.



My mother was singular in her belief that ‘standards’ were slipping. Everywhere she saw shoddy clothes and shoddy behavior. No trip to the shops could be undertaken without her seeing ‘the thin end of the wedge’ or the ‘end of civilisation’ evinced in the sight of sloppily dressed youths involved in ‘disgraceful’ behavior such as smoking or, heaven forbid, snogging in public.

I say this so you will understand how mother had decided that I, her fifteen year old son, would be presented to the world as a standard-bearer, an exemplar of correct dress, in the vanguard of her fight against all that she found so abhorrent in the modern world. In other words there was little hope that I would be returning to school in September wearing anything but my short school trousers.

Boys were allowed to wear long trousers to school when they entered the Third Form. Longs were optional and could only be worn with the written consent of one of the boy’s parents or a guardian. In practice a simple pro-forma letter was sent to the parents of pupils during the summer holiday requesting a straightforward yes or no answer as to whether the boy was permitted to wear long trousers. This of course ensured that any boy such as myself who had been kept in short trousers could not cheat and change into longs on the way to school.

The beginning of my Third Year found a few boys like myself dressed in short trousers, but when we returned after the Christmas holiday there were just two other boys in short trousers. Even before the Easter holidays one and then the other boy came to school proudly sporting their brand new longs. There was only one boy in the class left wearing short trousers to school… me.

So there I was, due to enter the Fourth Form in September and, as I explained, it had come as no surprise to find myself sent to school still wearing short trousers. However, matters were made worse due to the fact that a pair of my hard-wearing school shorts, which had seen service since the beginning of Second Form when I was twelve, had been put out for me to wear while two pairs of newly purchased short school trousers had been sent for ‘alterations’.

“I’m having some alterations done to your school trousers,” mum would say periodically.

She hardly ever called them ‘school shorts’, or even bothered to tell me the ‘alterations’ meant they were to be shortened. Mum liked my short trousers to be just that, short. Again, she hardly ever referred to my short trousers as being anything other than ‘healthy’ or ‘smart’. Maybe it was by the use of such descriptions she was able to justify sending me to school, or taking me on outings, dressed in such eye-wateringly brief short trousers that the lower curves of my bottom were often visible. It may have been healthy to have my legs bare from ankle to the very top of my thighs, but it was deeply embarrassing for me, a situation not helped by my smooth, unblemished, hairless legs.

So when I found I was to wear school shorts that had been bought for me the best part of three whole years ago, I nearly fainted. Wearing these shorts I knew I’d be in for taunts, jeers, insults and catcalls from boys of all years, to say nothing of what I might expect to hear on my journeys to and from school on public transport. But these were minor concerns compared to what I was up against at the hands of the Junior Prefects.

Junior Prefects were boys who’d been selected from the Second Form to keep order among First and Second Form boys. To acknowledge their authority and to act as a visible sign of this, Junior Prefects wore long trousers unlike other boys in the First and Second Years who of course all wore short trousers. One of the main roles of these prefects was to look after new boys and to make sure they knew the various important school rules and regulations together with the school jargon as well as making sure new boys knew their way around.

This system also had the added benefit of teaching boys chosen to be Junior Prefects the character-building attributes of self-confidence and self- reliance. In practice this meant that a lot of day-to-day matters considered trivial by the school authorities were delegated to the Junior Prefects.

Although the Junior Prefects’ remit concerned boys aged between eleven and twelve in the first two forms of the school, there were exceptions and one of those exceptions concerned me.

Junior Prefects responsibilities included ensuring boys were complying with school uniform regulations, in particular those regulations which were concerned with short school trousers. Woe betide the First or Second Former caught wearing long trousers! However, there were a number of uniform regulations that applied specifically to short trousers such as the maximum permitted leg length and, depending upon the time of year, the type of material from which they were made, or whether the short trousers were lined or not. Regulations even extended to the type of underpants which were permitted to be worn with each type of short trouser.

I can remember as if it were yesterday when the headmaster addressed us, as he did with each new intake of boy, on the subject of our school uniform: “These rules and regulations regarding your new uniform may seem daunting. Some of you may think these rules to be irrelevant and outdated… antiquated even, but I can assure you they are not. These rules are in place for a single, simple purpose, a purpose that all of you will come to acknowledge… pride… pride in your work… pride in your achievements… and pride in your school uniform…”

“There are a number of boys I see before me today who are no doubt wondering why they are back in short trousers… yes, I can see the pale, white legs of boys who have been used to wearing long trousers… indeed, so dazzling white are their legs that I regret leaving home without my sunglasses!” This ‘joke’ of the headmaster’s, which he told every year, always caused giggles and laughter among the new boys sat cross-legged on the floor of the assembly hall. The laughter was always followed by the turning of heads to see who had the whitest legs… they usually belonged to the boy with the reddest face...

“In your new school,” the headmaster would continue, “the wearing of long trousers is a privilege, a privilege that will only be granted to each of you when you enter the Third Form, two years from now. That may seem a long time to wait for you pale-legged boys, but if you knuckle down and get on with your schoolwork, do your best in the classroom and on the sports field, keep a smile on your face and keep out of trouble those months will soon fly by and before you know it you’ll have the privilege of wearing long trousers to school.”

What the headmaster failed to mention was the privilege of long trousers was contingent on parental approval and that until this approval was gained the unfortunate boy kept in short trousers, whatever his age, was subject to the authority of the Junior Prefects. It was something I was to find out to my cost in the fullness of time as I progressed through the school.

The authority invested in the Junior Prefects with regard to all schoolboys wearing short trousers was absolute. There was no appeal. It didn’t matter what age the boy was. If he was sent to school in short trousers he could find himself hauled up in front of long trouser-wearing twelve year old Junior Prefects for the most trivial of uniform violations.

Thus, I found myself at the mercy of these Junior Prefects who enjoyed nothing more than ticking off and humiliating short trouser-wearing boys like me. At fourteen it had been bad enough to be the subject of their whims, but it soon became unbearable as I entered the Fourth Form as I was now the only boy in the class still in short trousers.

Finding the smallest fault with my uniform was considered to be something of a sport among the Junior Prefects. I’m sure they would egg each other on to see who among them could find new ways to humiliate me by their discerning analysis of the school’s byzantine uniform regulations. This forced upon me an almost pathological fear of being dressed incorrectly, but however much I tried, the Junior Prefects would always find some excuse to have their fun.

When I dressed for school in the morning my heart would be thumping. I was a nervous wreck as I checked to see whether I’d forgotten anything; were my socks pulled up correctly; should I be wearing long socks or ankle socks; was it better for me to wear sandals; was my school cap on straight; did my shorts pass the ‘finger-tip test’? Was my tie knotted correctly and my shirt buttons all properly done up? This was not done through any sense of pride in my school uniform you understand, but rather to avoid falling foul of the scrupulous attention of a Junior Prefect.

Nevertheless, Junior Prefects could be relied upon to find fault with my uniform at every opportunity and I would regularly find myself having to report for a formal ‘dressing-down’ in the Junior Prefects’ Common Room. It was humiliating enough for me, aged fourteen, wearing my extremely short school trousers that exposed the lower curves of my bottom, to be made to stand in front of Junior Prefects, boys two years younger than I and all of them wearing proper long trousers, to be told off because of some minor infraction of the school’s uniform regulations. By the time I was fifteen, at least a foot taller than all of the boys in the room and still going to school in absurdly brief short trousers, the humiliation of these ‘interviews’ with the Junior Prefects was just about intolerable.

Standing at attention, often with my hands clasped behind my head, I was ticked off by boys three years my junior and whose voices were still pitched high in the distinctive treble of barely pubescent boyhood. I was told of how I was bringing the school uniform into disrepute by my slovenly behaviour... I had allowed my socks to slip down by half an inch! I was told off because a lose hair had been seen by an eagle-eyed twelve year old Junior Prefect to be poking out from the back of my school cap. Obviously I couldn’t see this loose hair, but this was no excuse, I was told by the young boy wearing long trousers… long trousers that I should by then have been wearing. He went on and told me to smarten myself up and that it was about time I got myself a haircut! Yes, amazingly a twelve year old boy was fully authorised and entitled to order any boy wearing short school trousers to get a haircut. I was given a piece of paper, a chitty, signed by the Junior Prefect in question which I was to hand to the school’s approved barber (Mr Fenner, of course!) for him to sign once I’d received a haircut, which I was to pay for out of my pocket-money. I then had two days before I was to return to the Junior Prefects Common Room for a haircut inspection and to hand in the form duly signed by the barber.

One Junior Prefect in particular by the name of Wilson went out of his way to find fault with my school uniform. He would take great delight in pointing out the extreme shortness of my grey school shorts, which were always far shorter than the school’s regulations required. Wilson was guaranteed an audience of his fellow Junior Prefects particularly when he decided to quiz me on the exact length of my short trousers, as he so often did. Wilson would insist upon measuring them himself and I would be forced to stand with my legs apart and my hands locked behind my head while Wilson took a school ruler and measured the inside leg of my school shorts. (I should perhaps explain that the school uniform regulations specified a maximum inside leg length of two inches for short trousers worn by a boy irrespective of his age. My short trousers were of course always well within the uniform regulation specifications… usually between half an inch and one inch, although I was to find out that short trousers can be tailored to be shorter still). Wilson would take his time making sure the ruler tickled the inside of my smooth bare thigh. He would slide the ruler up inside the little leg of my school shorts to prod my balls. If I jerked, moved, or complained Wilson would tell me off and threaten to report me for disobedience (a sanction to be avoided at all costs as it involved a trip to the headmaster’s study).

Needless to say I was surrounded by giggling and laughing twelve year old Junior Prefects who encouraged Wilson to poke and prod my balls as he carried out his measurements. He would then ask me tell him the precise leg length of my short trousers. It didn’t matter that I had already carefully carried out the measurement before I set off for school that morning just in case. If I wasn’t within an eighth of an inch of the ‘correct’ measurement, Wilson would stand up waving his ruler menacingly. At his full height the top of Wilson’s head only just reached my shoulders, but he would lean back so that he could look me in the face and berate me on my stupidity.

“You don’t even know if your short trousers meet school uniform regulations!” he said as I looked down at him meekly.

“But… but I was sure they were half an inch… I measured them… honest I did, Wilson,” I protested, “Half an inch is okay, isn’t it?”

“But the inside leg measurement of your short trousers is not half an inch,” Wilson said and to emphasise this point he walked to my left side. I knew what was coming and gripped my hands tighter to the back of my head.

“So that you remember, you are to repeat after me ‘the inside leg measurement of my short trousers is not half an inch it is three eighths of an inch…’”

As Wilson said these words he thwipped the back of my bare left thigh, right at the top, with the ruler, one smack of the ruler for each word spoken. Twenty smacks and they stung like blazes. But that wasn’t all. As I choked out the words to be repeated, Wilson applied twenty more with the school ruler on my right thigh. My eyes were watering.

Wilson’s fellow Junior prefects loved it and were full of praise for his prowess with the ruler. They admired the blistering red marks and each had a good feel to see how hot my legs were.

Of course Junior Prefects had no right to indulge in this sort of behaviour and administering corporal punishment was not something they were allowed to carry out… officially, that is. If I even considered complaining I knew it would make matters worse and my life at school would become even more unbearable than it already was. I certainly knew I would receive no support from my mother, who would consider anything the Junior Prefects did to me well deserved, since I must obviously have been in ‘in the wrong’. Besides, smacking a boy on his bare thighs could hardly be considered corporal punishment, could it?

“It seems to me that you are being deliberately unhelpful…” Wilson said as he moved round to my right side.

“No… please, Wilson… I’m not… honestly…” The shame I felt as I stood there, towering over the long trousered twelve year old Junior Perfect as he lorded it over a fifteen year old Fourth Former wearing thigh-baring short school trousers, was intense. I was surely physically strong enough to stop Wilson from his next move, but it was my upbringing that told me not to. Despite the age difference, even knowing Wilson was three years younger than I was and much smaller, I had been taught that a boy in short trousers, such as myself, had always to respect and defer to those wearing long trousers whatever their age.

I begged shamelessly, thus further lowering my status, becoming a sniveling little boy who deserves all he gets. Wilson told one of his acolytes to pull up the front right leg of my short trousers. The boy, another twelve year old Junior Prefect, gleefully pushed his hand into the leg of my school shorts and yanked it upwards. I could feel the boy’s knuckle as it pressed against me somewhere near to the leg elastic of my underpants. I could barely stop myself shaking.

“Please, Wilson… I’ll do whatever you want… please, don’t,” I couldn’t help but demean myself in front of all the sniggering Junior Prefects who were now urging Wilson to smack the front of my bare thighs with his school ruler.

“Go on, Wilson… make his legs nice and red for him… get them really hot!”

“Please… I’m begging you, Wilson… NO! PLEASE!... OW!!” I shrieked as the school ruler thwacked the front of my right thigh.

“It’s for your own good,” Wilson told me, beginning to sound like one of the teachers, “School uniform regulations are there for a purpose… you should learn to take pride in your school uniform...”

Each time he paused Wilson smacked my reddening thigh. With unfailing accuracy he hit the exact same spot on my leg causing immense, unbearable pain. I could feel my eyes watering as I heard the boy who was holding up the leg of my school shorts exclaim:

“Gosh, Wilson… they’re real stingers! You could fry an egg on his leg… ha-ha! Do you want me to pull up the other leg?” he asked.

That was a daft question. Of course Wilson was going to redden the front of my left thigh as well. He was going to give me a ‘back-to-front-and-all-the-way-round’ tour with his school ruler. And even before he commenced the last ‘leg’ of his tour, the tears began to trickle down my face bringing hoots of derisive laughter from the assembled Junior Prefects.

By squeezing my lips together I hoped to prevent myself from sobbing in front of boys three year my junior, but I couldn’t. It was impossible for me, the sting of Wilson’s well aimed school ruler was too fiery and I blurted and blubbed and cried, all pretence of stoicism destroyed. By the time Wilson had finished his work with the ruler the tops of my thighs were deep red, hot and throbbing… all for my being, in Wilson’s words, ‘deliberately unhelpful’.

Proud of his work, Wilson invited his fellow Junior Prefects to feel the results of the thigh-smacking he had just administered and I was now subjected to the further painful indignity of having my burning legs squeezed and felt by a dozen hands or more. This caused much merriment among the young boys as I twisted and gasped. Some hands felt more than the deep red blotches on my thighs. Small fingers were pushed up the legs of my school shorts and boys laughed at my discomfort as I was forced up onto tip-toes by their exploring hands.

When I was finally allowed to leave the Junior Prefects Common Room my upper thighs were of course still shockingly red, as was my face. Turning a corner my path crossed one of our teachers. He looked down at my bare legs.

“Hmm… you’ve had an interview with the Junior Prefects I see.”

This was said with an amused smile, as if my half hour of abject purgatory was no more than light-hearted horseplay or tomfoolery. I nodded and managed to confirm that I had. “Well run along… you don’t want to be late for your next class…”

With my thighs burning I did just that. The last thing I needed was to be hauled out in front of the class for lateness. As it was I got to the classroom before our teacher’s arrival, but when my classmates saw my bright red legs that positively glowed like an advert for Ready Brek, they hooted with laughter. Some of the boys rummaged about, asking if anyone had seen their sunglasses, to which another wit pointed out that he would need to borrow an arc-welder’s visor my legs were so bright. Other boys put their hands near to my thighs, but quickly pulled them away shaking their palms and blowing on them as if the heat given off from my legs was too much for them to bear.

The fun at my expense finally stopped when our teacher arrived and I made my way to my desk. Our desks were the old wooden type connected by a steel rail on each side of the desk to a fold-down seat which consisted of nothing more than a flat piece of timber, polished over the years by the posteriors of hundreds, if not thousands, of schoolboys.

I stood at my desk and, when the teacher gave us permission to sit, pulled down the wooden seat from the back-rest. As usual it squeaked, but that was as nothing to the noise I made as the backs of my red thighs made contact with with the hard wooden seat. Wilson, with an accuracy one wouldn’t have expected from a boy of twelve, had made sure to smack my thighs where I would feel it most when I sat down. But that wasn’t all. If you recall, Wilson asked one of the other Junior Prefects to yank up the front of my school short trousers before he commenced to smack the front of my thighs. As I sat down and my short trousers rode up and tightened, the front hem of the legs of my short trousers bit into the reddest part of my thighs and almost brought fresh tears to my eyes. God, how it stung!

Boys around me were giggling at my discomfort, whispering and telling me that it was about time I got some long trousers. They weren’t at all convinced when I told them how I preferred to wear short trousers. I writhed and squirmed on the hard wooden seat throughout the lesson.