Under The Lash

Under The Lash, 1st edn dust jacket 

image courtesy of Riveting Books on ebay

 In November 1952, John Barrington, the celebrated British photographer of Male nudes (including Yves Grangeat and Don Avard link pending)  first became acquainted with Basil Clavering, founder of Royale Studio. They met (according to Barrington's biographer, Source 101, paraphrased here) at a cocktail party given by Clavering at his 'impressive Pimilico flat'. Apparently Clavering showed him his collection of military uniforms (boots, helmets, whips and spurs are specifically mentioned!). He suggested Barrington might help him with a pet project he had been working on for some years, a history of corporal punishment in the Army and Navy. The evening ended with Barrington being given a retainer and a salary of £10 a week for the job. 

This account, based on Barrington's recollections (which weren't always reliable) sounds as if it is describing an acquaintanceship and collaboration which would normally have developed over a rather longer period of time than just one cocktail party, but the project is real enough, 'Under The Lash' was published by Torchstream Books in 1954. According to his biographer again, Barrington "worked on it sporadically through 1953" but it isn't explained exactly what he was doing. 

I have commented elsewhere in this blog that, going by his own photographs and the contents of his extensive list of beefcake publications, Barrington doesn't seem to have had a fetish bone in his body, so his qualifications for writing such a book seem extremely limited. The cover image shown above offers a clarification, because the author is given as Scott Claver which is surely a nom de plume for Basil Arthur Scott Clavering. It appears that Barrington's role was to prepare the manuscript for publication, so the words and writing style we can see in the book are probably more Clavering's than Barrington's*. 

There certainly can't be any doubt that the sentiments expressed in the Preface are Clavering's. In it he acknowledges the barbarity and sometimes unfair application of corporal punishments in years gone by (both explored in great depth and gory detail in the text). But he also asserts that there have always been 'types' of men who reject rules and discipline devised for the general good and some amongst them who are impervious to normal forms of enforcement. That some at least are deterred by corporal punishments and that offenders find a short, sharp shock more instructive than, and preferable to, long, debilitating periods of incarceration. 

Clavering had a recent experience to warrant these views. In January 1948, the Westminster and Pimlico News reported that two men were accused of demanding money from him, threatening to break his door down and 'do him in' if he didn't give them £20 (an astonishing £900 today). Apparently Basil summoned the Police by phone (a rich man's option back then) and told the investigating officer: "I have already given the tall one three £1 notes with B.C. on them. You will find them in his pocket". This tale of how Basil outwitted two 'thugs' is amusing and shows his coolness during an extremely unpleasant incident. It appears he reluctantly gave one of the men £3 for some reason but the man returned later with an accomplice and demanded more. Reading between the lines, it's hard to escape the conclusion that the incident had something to do with Clavering's gay lifestyle and that the 'menaces' included threats of exposure. Fortunately Clavering had enough standing in the community to shrug that off and was obviously well capable of directing that charge back at the offenders, true or not. I've not found a record of what happened to the two men but you can understand how Clavering might have wished on them a short sharp shock of corporal punishment.

It doesn't really matter whether we agree with Clavering's views on corporal punishment, his arguments in the Preface contain their own contradictions, but that debate is long over. However, all the characteristics he describes are reflected in the storyettes he devised a few years later when Royale Studio was born. Thus in 'TEDS' we have a Teddy Boy 'type', a would-be mugger who thoroughly deserves the caning he receives, arbitrarily, from a wholesome sailor. Likewise 'The Cheat' who betrays the trust of his Army comrades while gambling. 'Unapproved' recounts how two men sent for military punishment (presumably justified) suffer extreme degradation and rebel, only to be punished even more harshly. Airman Gym Spanking depicts corporal punishment being inflicted as an encouragement to achieve excellence, i.e. for no very good reason. 'The Captive' and 'Shanghai'ed Sailor' show men arbitrarily enslaved, as was the case with press-ganged sailors, and punished to prevent dissent. The Recruit comes close to comparing National Service with the Press Gangs of old, with compliance enforced with the cane. There is much arbitrariness and unfairness here, but Basil's preface to 'Under The Lash' tells us that it would be wrong to assume that he necessarily sympathises with the suffering of all these victims. 

There is much of interest in his book to interest those attracted to the subject of punishments and, as can be seen from the cover above, there are illustrations of some quality. The one shown, 'tied to the halberds' seems to inspire one of Royale's celebrated 'Hussar' punishment in tights images. I plan to review the book and it's images in more depth in a further article.

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*One reviewer has dismissed the book as plagiarism. I'm not qualified to comment on that, but the author does cite 103 sources, including the one specifically cited by the complainant and if you search in google books you will find it included as a reference by many other authors which suggests it is valued as a compendium and easily read account if nothing else.