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How to Read Inez of the Upper Fourth
The story of Inez de Vries unfolds through a series of documents—some official, pulled from the prim and unforgiving files of Saint Clare’s School for Girls; others are more intimate, drawn from the journals, letters, and scribbled notes of the girls themselves. Some will appear typed and orderly; others will retain the texture of handwriting, rendered in a cursive-style font. Readers are invited to step into the role of archivist, assembling the story from these traces, and imagining the lives that fill the gaps between pages—the tensions, the alliances, the secrets too dangerous to write down. Not everything will be explained. But Inez is watching. And she remembers.
Note: Comments are read and much appreciated. Much as I like reading them on Twitter and Bluesky, I love getting them here and promise to respond. Moreover your responses and ideas are included in the archives and may shift and change the story’s evolution.
(Writing this section of the story has me missing the ASS/SSS poster and story writer, the late, great Alex Birch 1Alex’s stories are other places on the ‘net, however I’m absolutely sure The Spanking Story Archive had his enthusiastic permission. So try there first.more than I can rightly say.)
Introduction – A Prefatory Word
At Saint Clare’s, it is a truth universally acknowledged (at least by Ronnie Elwood) that any girl seen in Inez de Vries’s company after lights out is more or less doomed. Thus Clarissa Charrington — (a character created by reader JustABoomer) a perfectly decent Lower IV with a genius for self-pity and a Jelly Baby happiness scale— was slippered for nothing more shocking than talking in slippers. And this was before her role in the “The Secret Letters” or with Lady de Vries and Headmaster Lewis had even been revealed.
Trusting his indulgent understanding, Clarissa poured out her grievances to “Papa,” only to find he had abruptly transformed into “Father,” replying with all the ponderous dignity of the House of Commons. Clarissa, meanwhile, revealed a transformation of her own: the once devoted daughter emerged as a haughty, stroppy teenager, indignant at every turn and grandly refusing the hundred lines set for her. What might have remained a minor school punishment swelled into a correspondence campaign. Aunt Gladys, recalled from her Highland idyll with all the grace of a cat yanked from a sun-beam, contributed her tilted-halo irreverence by post, while Lady de Vries, with a deft flick of the foil at the Garden Fête, contrived to elevate the whole business into something resembling a diplomatic incident.
Thus, a few minutes’ chatter after lights out blossomed into an exchange of letters in which Papa became Father, daughter became adversary, and a melodrama about six slipper whacks on the knickers went speeding back and forth across the country by post — culminating in a command summons so imperious it required a telegram and sleeper train.
(Having trouble with the handwriting? Try the simple font version.)
Clarissa Elizabeth Charrington
Saint Clare’s School for Girls
Lower IV Dormitory
22 June 1955
Dearest Papa,
You must prepare yourself — for I have suffered one of the most frightful injustices in the whole history of school.
On Tuesday evening I was caught in the Upper IV common room after lights out. Yes, I own up: I was out of bed in slippers and dressing gown, with Inez. But what were we doing? Only talking. No feasts, no sneaking fags behind the lavs, no plotting to burn the place down — just talking!
The punishment? One Saturday detention and six whacks with the house slipper across our knickers. Papa, it was beastly humiliating. As if I were some dreadful hardened case when my only crime was conversation. I know girls who’ve had nothing more than a ticking-off for worse.
And everyone can see why. It wasn’t what I did — it was who I was with. Because it was Inez, the staff came swooping like hawks, and I was caught in their net. She can’t so much as sneeze without someone making a whole to-do of it. That I should catch it too seems monstrously unfair.
I bore it like a soldier, of course — not a single tear, though the corridor was thick with girls craning their necks to see. Matron tutted and gave me a spoonful of cod-liver oil afterwards (as if that helped!). I can’t help thinking it was all absurdly over the top.
Really, Papa, you must agree it was hardly tyranny beastliness. A detention and a slippering for twelve minutes after lights out? Mamma would have called it petty, I’m sure, and I daresay you might too.
Please do say I’m right to be indignant. It would comfort me to know at least someone thinks talking after lights out is not the moral equivalent of mutiny.
Your bruised but not beaten Darling, Daring Daughter,
Clarissa
P.S. On my Jelly Baby scale: 2½. Pride very sore, bottom less so (thank Heavens).
Rt. Hon. Gerald T Charrington
DSO, OBE, MP
White’s, London
25 June 1955
My Dear Rissie,
It was, of course, with profound dismay that I read your letter of the 22nd. And though I was glad to see your familiar Gummy Baby scale (2.5 — pluck and determination, with a welcome touch of humour), the spirit in which you wrote troubles me deeply.
For what have you confessed? That you were out of bed after lights out, in company you knew to be watched, and were caught. The sanctions imposed — a Saturday detention and a slippering — are exactly what any girl in any house at Saint Clare’s could have expected, and you ought to have known as much. To my mind, they are entirely reasonable.
What troubles me is not your offence so much as your expectation that I would join you in decrying it. I do not expect my daughter to write me about “injustice” when she has quite simply broken rules she knew full well. The real disappointment is that you imagined your father would nod indulgently and agree. I most certainly do not.
As for your suggestion that you are punished more severely for being found in Inez de Vries’s company — I daresay there is truth in it. But you, my clever girl, ought to have known that the staff, once soured on her, would look twice at those who choose her for company. It is precisely because you are quick-witted that I expect you to guard yourself against being caught in another’s shadow.
Before I move on to scolding you further, I want to assure you of something that I trust you know perfectly well, though it may not be front of mind just now. That is simply this: you are my beloved child, the light of my heart, the joy of my days, ever and entirely precious to me. No act you can imagine, let alone any such schoolgirl misdemeanour, can or will ever alter that principle in the least degree. Doubt the sunrise, doubt Newton or Descartes if you must — but never doubt that.
Now, sadly, to business. We have spoken before of the vital importance of guarding yourself against the influence of others, intentional or otherwise. Yet I do not, nor should you, attribute this business to the inveiglement of another. You have known since nursery that you are ineluctably responsible for the blots in your own copybook. No imaginary friends bore the blame then, and no friends of flesh and blood may bear it now. The full responsibility rests with you.
As you know, my very worst enemy could not say of me, “Charrington shirks his duty.” Devotion to duty, fidelity, loyalty: these are the virtues I prize above all. Not to put too fine a point on it, I have never weighed the risk or rigour of a duty before setting out to fulfil it. So, young lady, my paternal duty in this matter is clear. I have promised you since your earliest days that “punished at school means punished at home.” It has been a rare promise to keep, but keep it I must. What exactly it entails we shall see at the end of term. Were you here before me today, I would say it was certain to involve your aunt’s hairbrush, and less certain to involve your knickers. Perhaps time will cool my ire; though I warn you, it may just as likely sharpen it.
Finally, it should not surprise you — rather, you should take it as a mark of my respect — that I will not forbid further intercourse with Miss de Vries. Such prohibitions are in any case unenforceable in a school setting, and I have no wish to be either draconian or foolish. Instead, I leave it to you to learn how best to incorporate Miss de Vries (in particular) and other exceptional persons (in general) into your life. You are a blindingly intelligent girl, capable of learning the most intricate and nuanced lessons. If this episode does not prove instructive, you would not be the daughter I know you to be.
With that, I close, assuring you once more of my love, eager for your return so this matter may be put to rest, and remaining, as I ever will,
Your Devoted Father.
P.S. I note from The Times guest list for the forthcoming Royal Garden Fête at Holyrood House that the de Vrieses will be present, as will I. He is something shadowy in Government, she a great force in her own right. It is likely we shall meet. Interesting, given these events.
P.P.S. As anticipatory dread is punishment enough and a spur to reflection, your next letter must include the following line, written fair 100 times: “I alone chose to be naughty and, in consequence, Papa is going to smack my bottom.” If this feels intolerably schoolgirlish, so much the better.
Clarissa Elizabeth Charrington
Saint Clare’s School for Girls
Lower IV Dormitory
28 June 1955
Dearest Papa,
Your last letter arrived like one of Jupiter’s thunderbolts — full of majesty, inevitability, and altogether too much noise. I had hoped for sympathy; instead I find myself scolded and sentenced a second time, and for the same offence!
You say you are “dismayed” at my spirit in writing to you. I confess I am dismayed in turn that you expected me to take my punishment mutely, like a stone saint in the chapel. Is it so wicked to point out that six whacks for twelve minutes’ conversation seems out of proportion? Especially when I have seen girls kept in only after prayers for matters far more daring than slippers in the corridor.
What wounds me most is that you think I expected you to wink at my breaking rules. I did not. I hoped only that you would see how the staff’s zeal for policing Inez falls unjustly on anyone near her. Surely even you can admit that?
As for your order of one hundred lines — really, Papa! Do you think I have nothing to do but scrawl nursery confessions all day? Between Saturday detention and the endless prep assignments, I am already drowning in ink. To add your lines to Miss Kelley’s essays is cruelty indeed. If you insist on a written admission of guilt, I will provide it once, in my best hand, and let that suffice.
Still, thunderbolts or not, I remain your loving daughter. I would rather you storm at me than fall silent, and if my stubbornness vexes you, take it as proof that I am, at least, still very much myself.
Your affectionate (if indignant),
Clarissa
P.S. If you are serious and truly expect a hundred lines, you shall have to wait until the holidays, where I can at least write them on decent paper and not the horrid lined exercise books we are given here.
Rt. Hon. Gerald T Charrington,
DSO, OBE, MP
White’s, London
2 July 1955
My Dear Clarissa,
I had your last letter in hand less than a day before the Summer Garden Fête. I confess I read it with mingled affection and dismay. Affection, because your spirit shines through every line; dismay, because you thought it proper to defy me outright. I asked of you one hundred lines, written fair, not for my amusement but for your reflection. You chose instead to make a joke of it, to declare yourself too busy with prep and detentions to attend to your father’s command. That was, Rissie, a grave mistake.
Graver still was what followed the very next afternoon. Imagine me, in the tea tent, surrounded by parents and Old Girls, when Lady de Vries herself approached me with polished civility and inquired after my “spirited daughter.” In tones of the utmost delicacy she let fall that you and your Aunt Gladys have been “most obliging” in smoothing along certain mischiefs — by which she meant, as I quickly discerned, clandestine letters and cuttings passed to her by you and your companions under the cover of letters to your aunt.
So there I stood, cooling teacup in hand, hearing of my own daughter’s secret correspondence not from her pen, nor even from her aunt, but from Lady de Vries — one of the sharpest tongues in Europe, and not a woman in whose debt one such as myself would ever wish to stand. I tell you plainly: I felt the humiliation of that moment more keenly than I can easily put to paper.
It is not the mischief itself that undoes me — though as a new student at Saint Clare you show reckless judgement in fastening yourself so closely to Inez de Vries. However, the concealment through the indulgence by Gladys (whom you have compromised), and above all your presumption that you might keep your father in ignorance while another girl’s parent knows more than me about such goings on. I will not be made a fool of by my own child.
You know I prize duty, fidelity, and candour above all. You may think your wit will cover you, or that your Gummy Baby scale will charm me, but they will not. When you return home, we shall speak of this at length. You may expect your aunt’s hairbrush to feature, but far heavier will be the reckoning of conscience when you reflect on how you have played fast and loose with your father’s trust.
I write with love still, for you are my beloved daughter and ever will be the light of my heart. But you must learn this now, before life teaches it more harshly: deception carries a cost no cleverness can pay.
Your affectionate but gravely disappointed,
Father
Rt. Hon. Gerald T Charrington,
DSO, OBE, MP
White’s, London
2 July 1955
My Dear Gladys,
It falls to me to write in terms I would much rather have avoided. At the Garden Fête I was addressed, not by you nor by Clarissa, but by Lady de Vries, who in her polished way contrived to let me know of certain “mischiefs” in which you have been assisting. I need hardly say how it felt to stand, teacup in hand, and hear from her lips what I ought long before to have been told by my own household.
That you, at five-and-twenty, should lend yourself to schoolgirl stratagems — smuggling notes and clippings between my daughter and her companions — is astonishing to me. Clarissa I may forgive as a child of fourteen, impetuous and eager to dramatise. But you, Gladys, are no schoolgirl. You are her aunt. Since Margaret’s death you have had your place under my roof, and with it the trust to guide rather than to indulge. In this you have failed.
Had you written to me frankly, I might have smiled at girlish loyalty, warned you of the dangers, and trusted you to steer Clarissa aright. Instead I find myself humiliated by a de Vries’s concern, and obliged to acknowledge that my daughter’s folly has been abetted not only by her fellow schoolgirls but by her own aunt.
I must therefore ask — indeed, I must require — that you return home directly. I cannot have you flitting about the country while such matters remain unresolved. Your presence is needed here, both to answer for your part and to resume the steadier duties which, as a member of this household, are yours by right and by obligation.
I remain, as ever, your affectionate brother-in-law,
but one gravely disappointed & displeased,
Gerald
Clarissa Elizabeth Charrington
Saint Clare’s School for Girls
4 July 1955
Dearest Papa,
Your last letter was an absolute thunderbolt. I opened it thinking you’d be kind and perhaps even sorry for me, and instead it said I was sly and deceitful! I’ve been in a fearful state about it ever since — one minute cross as anything, the next ready to cry.
Yes, I wouldn’t do the hundred lines. But Papa, it felt so silly — like something for babies, not for me! I thought you’d laugh when I said I had too much prep, and see that it was a joke. Instead you thought I was being horrid. So now, to prove I’m not defiant, I’ve given up my free time the last two days and written all of them after all. A whole, entire hundred, fair and proper, and I’m sending them here along with this letter asking your forgiveness and understanding. They are frightfully dull, and my hand nearly dropped off, but at least you will see I can obey. I never, never never meant to hurt you.
And about Lady de Vries — oh Papa, I could have sunk into the ground when I heard she had spoken to you! I only wanted her to have a letter from Inez in her own hand, the way I know you like hearing from me. I thought it would be loyal, even helpful. I never dreamed she would chatter of it at a fête. I see now it was perfectly stup—silly not to tell you myself. I am truly sorry.
You said I made you a fool. Papa, I promise I never wished such a thing. I only wanted to keep my word to Inez, and to feel, for once, that I wasn’t the baby of everything. If that is guilt, then I am guilty.
Please don’t be too awfully hard when our July holidays come. I know you will punish me — you always keep your word — but I do dread it so. You have so seldom had cause, and I’ve never forgotten those times. Can’t we talk instead? I am older now, even if I still make idiotic mistakes. Remember I am learning how to be wise, and it comes so dreadfully slow.
I am ever so sorry to have disappointed you.
Your loving and penitent,
Clarissa
P.S. Whatever else you must do, lease, please, please do not come down before the end of term — I beg you! Facing you in the Headmaster’s study would be worse than Matron and the slipper put together. And Dear, dear Papa, please don’t say anything to him about the letter to Lady de V— (I mean, about that business). He doesn’t know, and if he did I think I should simply die of shame.
5 July 1955
Dear Gerald,
Well honestly — your letter landed like a great solemn sermon when the whole thing was nothing more than a bit of a lark. I’ve spent this long thinking of how to respond. I thought first of trying to placate your overwrought thunderings, but braced by this invigorating North Sea air and, after a dram or two, I decided instead to tell you what you, my dear brother, most need to hear.
Yes, I helped Clarissa with a note or two, but crikey, what was I supposed to do, rattling about that house with you in London and her off at school? The place is a positive morgue. She wrote so desperately, and I thought, “Why not cheer the poor girl up?” It felt smashing at the time — a bit of fun, that’s all. You make it sound like I was running some cloak-and-dagger racket. Heavens, it wasn’t half as serious as that — more like slipping a comic into the post or sneaking sweets past Matron.
And as for Saint Clare’s — is it a school or a dungeon out of some Gothic scribbler? Imagine, in this modern age, a girl slippered for talking! You may be sure that, had I known how swiftly the old place would reach for horrors out of the Dark Ages, I’d not have been so keen to see Rissie sent there. But perhaps you don’t find it outrageous, since she tells me you’ve promised her a spanking at home. A spanking! Good grief, Gerry — what’s next? Do you mean to have me across your knee as well, if I bow to your kingly summons?
Really, lines and smacked bottoms — it’s all a bit of a giggle until one remembers the girl’s fifteen, not five. Surely even you can see it’s beastly unfair. Rissie’s a good kid, just high-spirited. I only wanted to keep her from going bored stiff. That’s no hanging offence.
As for Lady de Vries — well, that’s her way, isn’t it? Drop a pearl and let everyone scramble. How was I to know she’d bring it up with you? Talk about rotten luck.
And now you want me to cut short my trip just when things are perking up. It’s simply ghastly dull to be hauled back at once. But since you’ve got your knickers in such a twist, of course I’ll come. Go on and play the heavy if you must. No doubt poor Rissie is suitably impressed by the inevitability of yet another smacked bottom. I, however, am a grown woman and less easily overborne. It is still my mind, isn’t it, Your Grace? Your Majesty? If I do come back, you may be sure we will have more words about this authoritarian streak of yours. (Is it the Commons? Or some habit of command left over from the war? Did the MOD ever issue Freud in its field manuals?)
Yours, with a long face and my halo on crooked,
Gladys
P.S. Very well, I shall pack my bags and return in a few days if I can — sooner than I’d like, but not quite at the snap of your fingers, sir. And damme if I’ll strike out or soften a single word of the foregoing, for all of it needed saying. Remember some of us knew you before you became an MP or even OBE.
P.P.S. I haven’t shown any of this to Rissie — I always tell her you’re her father, full stop, and she’s to mind you. But between ourselves, Gerry, I do sometimes wonder if it’s high time for a tiny amendment to that policy. Don’t fret — I shan’t be raising a banner of revolt just yet.
TELEGRAM
6 July 1955
TO: MISS GLADYS WILLIAMS
INVERNESS-SHIRE
SLEEPER TICKET RESERVED FOR 10:15 THURSDAY EXPRESS TO LONDON STOP I SHALL MEET YOU AT KING’S CROSS STOP EXPECT YOU ON THAT TRAIN STOP NO DELAY STOP NO DISCUSSION STOP NO EXCUSES STOP PS YOU HAVE MISAPPLIED FREUD SO STOP
CHARRINGTON
| Post Title | Date Posted |
| Teaser – “Inez of the Upper Fourth” – a Saint Clare Summer Saga | 21 July 2025 |
| Saint Clare School Justifications or A Few Explanations for the Inconsistencies That Are Absolutely Not My Fault) | 22 July 2025 |
| Waiting for Inez – It’s your own time you’re wasting… | 23 July 2025 |
| Start HERE: Inez’s Detention Essay | 24 July 2025 |
| Inez of the Upper IV – Cast of Characters | 25 July 2025 |
| The Real Motto of Saint Clare’s School for Girls | 27 July 2025 |
| The Staffroom Files Part 1: Inez of the Upper Fourth | 29 July 2025 |
| Notations from Matron’s Logbook: Inez of the Upper 4th | 30 July 2025 |
| Staff Meeting Transcript – Inez of the Upper IV | 2 August 2025 |
| Inez’s Diary, 19 June 1955 | 3 August 2025 |
| Clarissa’s Letters Home or The Jelly Baby Files | 11 August 2025 |
| The Elwood Files – Inez of the Upper IV | 17 August 2025 |
| The Lady and the Headmaster | 23 August 2025 |
| The Secret Letters – Part 1 | 5 September 2025 |
| Melodrama by Post: Aunt Gladys, Lady de Vries, and Other Disasters – Plain Text | 9 September 2025 |
Got thoughts on where this is going — maybe King’s Cross? Comment below….
- 1Alex’s stories are other places on the ‘net, however I’m absolutely sure The Spanking Story Archive had his enthusiastic permission. So try there first.