Kenneth Gunnell

This tale concerns the remedial schooling of John, an unruly young man, at a Cornish private school for boys in which the teaching staff are all completely female, young, and strong on discipline. It is set in the mini-skirted 1960s, and provocative clothing plays an important part in the latter ethos. His assigned teacher, Diana Hooper, fulfils her caning duties exceptionally frequently and with great enthusiasm, showing no favouritism for John, even though a bond between them starts to develop from the start. He is an orphan, and Miss Hooper becomes his governess in the long vacation, during which his schooling (and discipline) are significantly and painfully intensified. When his surviving relative dies, Miss Hooper attains a position of some power, and the story then becomes reminiscent of the classic novel ‘The English Governess’. The book is a powerful exposition of female domination in a scholastic environment, well larded with intrigue and a few surprise elements. Well above the average for the genre.… (mer)

Although this book has a provocative title, reinforced by a somewhat titillating cover picture and a provenance, from Luxor, one of the racier imprints of the early 1970s, this book is far more a novel with rather erotic overtones, rather than an example of erotically relaxed literature such as became commonplace in the decades that followed. A young author, with an easy-going approach to intimate relationships, accepts a temporary teaching assignment at a Scottish Girls’ School which is run by an ageing alcoholic lady with a loosening grasp on reality and staffed by characters with their own distinctly quirky agendas. Corporal punishment with the usual Scottish flavour is employed, although the exposure we have to such activity is minimal. It fact, the opening scene, involving a girlfriend who enjoys applying the whip, and a later scene, in which our author is befriended by a girl who enjoys feeling the sting of the bamboo, appear almost as bookends to the central story. However, this story has some entertaining twists, and is full of tension, even if this is rarely resolved. A good yarn, but not quite what it might seem at the outset.… (mer)