The following probably contains so many spelling errors it isn't true, but I am away from home using my daughter's laptop and can't get the spell checker to work on this thing - bear with me, I'm sure you can work it out. I've just discovered a hell of a lot of the content from the BEYOND THE BARRED WINDOW website didn't make it when I migrated the site to an area of Graham's THE ORIGINAL INSTITUTE site. So this is in a way a bit of an excuse for me to post up some of my fave gymslip pics that some how got lost in the move, although to be honest I was looking for one of 'em when I made this horrifying (because it had taken so long originally and had some pics not available elsewhere) discovery.
So...
I sometimes think we should be greatful for the modern world – from several diferent perspectives. Consider this scenario – stick with me and you'll see it's quite plausable; been there, done that... sort of anyway:
Imagine if you will it is back in the day. You are faced with a recent school leaver, some recalcitrant pouty, yet attractive, teenager determined to make her own way in the world. Ok, she's only recalcitrant up to a point – deep down inside she's a fairly quiet type; if she digs her heels in her objections are fairly easily overcome with a determined jut of the jaw, a stern attitude and sheer power of will. In other words, she's easily intimidated, she's pleasantly maluable - but perhaps not that bright.
Perhaps she left school at the first opertunity not so much because of her defiant individulistic streak, her determination to be independent and a conviction to break away, as to escape bullying, say, or because of an inability to perform well academicaly, despite not being TOTTALY dumb. Perhaps there is some sort of educational deficiency present, perhaps something easily overcome, like yours truly suffers from – dyslexia – or somewhat more difficult to deal with but still manageable, such as mild attention deficit disorder. Perhaps she is somewhat psychologicaly immature for her age, struggles with her own new-found independence, wrestles constantly with decision making, can't make up her own mind. Perhaps deep down in her heart of hearts – though she may not realise it herself – she actualy hankers for dependance, to be told what to do and when to do it.
Again, imagine if you will the decission has been made to wrest control of her life from her, for her own good, to return her to full-time education while there is still time to turn her around, pedagogicaly speaking. Now, it of course goes without saying she is above the legal age below which atendance in some sort of educational establishment or education by an acredited tutor following a state ratified sylabus is mandatory and in the eyes of the law is an adult for all intents and purposes, old enough to marry – as the hackneyed saying goes – but not old enough to know her own mind.
Through a painstaking programe of interviews, background checks and vetting you've found just the tutor you need to reintroduce a home schooling regeime, a thin-lipped young woman with just the right attitude and belief system. A suitable space in the home is easily enough found and put aside for educational purposes – and this is easily enough furnished from highstreet shops; as easily then as now; with no questions asked.Even if it is desired to introduce corporal punishment at some point there is little problem. Bamboo canes can be plucked from the garden – you can leave the roses to fend for themselves for a while; I know I have, in the log distant past – or bamboo canes can be purchased from the local garden centre without the slightest HINT of a raised eyebrow, or you can simply fold over your belt or use your hand. And such has always been the case.
But now the stumbling block: With all going to plan thus far the decision is made to return her to school uniform. Doesn't sound too much of a problem? But imagine she is a little on the plump side; big hips, big bum; and buxom with it. In other words a very mature figure which we're setting out to try and package in a decidedly immature way. But this is where the modern world may actualy come to the rescue. Even without the advent of the internet the uncomfortable fact of the increasing prevalance of obesity in the young has meant even traditional school outfitters, supermarkets and chain stores now stock suitable items ranging up well into adult sizes. There was a time when only a good seamstress was the solution if you wanted to take her much beyond a basic skirt and blouse type of thing. Now summer dresses and even more juvanile styles such as zip-fronted pinafore dresses can be aquired from out in what we might term the main-stream marketplace. Even simple gymslip-like styles can sometimes be secured in sufficiently large sizes from such sources.
OK if you would prefer to see her in something a little more idiosyncratic like the crossover top style of gymslip I prefer to see (see illustation) you might still need it made to meassure. And there is a lot to be said for bespoke tailoring if you can afford it and you are willing to go through the trouble of having her measured and perhaps two or more fitting sessions with alterations where nessesary and so on. But that troublesome aspect might almost be worth the cost in its own right; the opertunities to extend girl's embaressment in such a situation are almost endless and only limited by one's imagination.
In the right hands her blushes will be frequent, deep and long lasting. One only has to revisit 'the fitting session' in a back issue of Janus from back in the 1980s to appreciate the possibilities. In that article it was a bespoke pair of shorts being modeled and fitted but exactly the same considerations and detailing could be applied to something as ordinarily intimate as a pair of knickers, achieving an extrodinarily snug and revealing fit without actualy being tight as such. It is only when one realises that in home schooling, if the wearing of a uniform is required for lessons and so on, the usual considerations need no longer nessesarily apply that one would have to take into account if designing a school uniform for public appearance that the possibilities really begin to present themselves.
Thus – if expense is not an issue – I can envisage two complete sets of uniform being made up. One for when out in public – because why shouldn't she have to retain school uniform on her, rare, escorted trips outdoors? And the crossover-top gymslip with the plain skirt exactly as shown is eminatly suitable Ok if you wanted to make it less unusal and likely to raise comment you could allow the wearing of a buttoned cardigan of a suitably subdued shade over the top, though this should always be V-necked to show the school tie and should incorporate contrasing piping in school colours to make it clear to onlookers that she is in some sort of school uniform – a matching berret with a school badge can make this statement clearer still.
For home wear the modified version would be worn – and this is where the tailored school knickers come into their own. At home the skirt can be made extrodinarily brief. The knickers, high-wasted short-legged bloomer stlye, would terminate with beribboned leg cuffs perhaps a little way below midthigh and fit her bottom like a glossy white second skin of thin acetate or nylon, the backseam tucked away invisibly between two bulging cheeks that rarely go one day to the next without feeling the kiss of thin resiliant bamboo or rattan. The gymslip skirt would fan out like a skater's dress might above glossy sheeved globes more like a pelmet than a skirt, its purpose to draw the eye and frame rather than cover. Similarly the open-sided gymslip bodice extending and angleing outwards to accomadate the bossom serves to exagerate and draw the eye to the prodigious deveopment she is becoming so self-consious over and that, when juxtaposed against the obviously juvanile styling of the outfit as a whole, becomes so bugiling to the viewer.
But when all is said and done regarding bepoke tailoring and the advantages to be gleened therefrom, if you can't – or wont – pay out for made-to-measure, the glorious internet comes to the rescue every time. Even that rarer cross-over bodice gymslip can be aquired, no questions asked, in sizes up to adult (see pic).
But on a different but related subject; it is obvious (though it may take time for the girl herself to come to terms with this) that it is less embarresing for the young lady if she is accepted in public as within the age range she appears to be and is dressed as rather than a much older specimen who should really be attending college who has been put back in school uniform and who is regualy having her rear end warmed (and bottom used for other pleasures one would hope – there is nothing quite like telling a girl to pull up her knickers and sit back down when she has been used in that way; and a jar of vasiline left in plain view on her tutor's desk or her own can be most salitary in reminding her of the continuous need for obediance).
In connection with this is the question of bust minimizing or breast binding, mentioned recently by someone in feedback to this blog via email. I have thought about this a hell of a lot over my years of writing this stuff and am yet to reach a fixed opinion – it changes like the weather.
On the one hand there is the satisfaction to be derived from the sheer level of control it implies. On the other hand there is the increased level of embaressement suffered by the amply-blessed young lady of her obviously grown-up biological mature figure crammed in a childish young girl's outfit.
The latter consideration brings me to sometimes feel the need to think about the diametricaly oposite approach, of deliberatly augmenting the bustline by insisting on corsetry of various forms.
A plump busty young thing with her bustlined raised and thrust out, her waist squeezed to the point of barely being able to breathe, and her bottom thrust out behind her can present a sight indeed or squeezed into a school uniform – especialy with her waist-lengh hair in braids tied of by ribbon bows.
My feeling nowadays, with the benefit of much thought and fantisising, tends towards somewhere in the middle of all this. I like the idea of the mature figure juxtaposed with the childish demeaning dress. But on the other hand I like the idea of closely controling and disciplining her, perhaps through dietary measures, which I would imagine as quite stringent (an idea which is explored in the new book to quite an extreme extent – in both directions).
So my gut feeling right now is that the girl herself should have to take the decission. Almost dying with emabaressment, her plump cheeks like beetroot every time there is a visitor or she is allowed out, she herself should ask to wear a bust reducer or binder, she herself should choose to make herself seem younger than her years by the language she uses, the way she carries herself, her submissiveness in the way she behaves and acts and so on. She should stop complaining at having her hair plaited, learn to do it herself, tie her own ribbons in. She should cease worrying over aplying makeup – banned from day one in any case - and the latest styles in the shops and what is happening in the club scene and submit to what she is becoming, to having the clock turned back, to becoming ever more dependent on her implacably dominant governess-cum-tutor, to having her sexulality re-writen and remoulded to suit and fufil that woman's needs... Oh dear – I've got carried away again, gone all breathlesss.
I stil have no internet at home, by the way. My phone line is STILL completely dead and an engineer can't come 'till Wednessday. So I'm falling further behind with my work for Roger Benson – though at present he is only asking for speech bubbles and I can clear my backlog in around an hour or two, tops.
Mind you, there has been a 'sleep over' in Toyntanen Towers and back home is presently full of sourcepan lids (kids, for you un educated non-believers) and thus I have had to migrate to a pub (again) which I can ill afford unless I can get a book out soon, so I am reduced to scrounging beers off anyon I think owes me one, which luckily is quite a few.
The other techniquie I have seen other drunks use is to move in on the dreggs left behind by others before the bar staff remove the glasses. It never fails to amaze me how often folk get up and calmly leave behind half a pint, or even more! Oh God... Have I tumbled SO far???