When I left school in 1966 I wanted to be a baker ! I could only see myself making loads of bread products and maybe doing a little bit of cake decorating as a profitable hobby. I began a job in a bakery on the Monday after I left school, my mother needed me to be earning a wage and putting money into the house. There wasn’t much in the way of government money to help us through some very difficult years after my dads death. My weekly wage of £4:16 shillings was to be a great boost to our lives. The added bonus was going to be the ‘damaged’ bread loaf I could bring home about twice each week.
If I had known before what my ‘initiation’ into the bakery world was going to be, I wonder if I would still have been so keen on my chosen career ? One early start morning (around 4:30am) one of the men I worked with asked me to get one of the plastic scrapers and clean out bits of bread dough that had hardened in the bottom of the huge mixing bowls (they each held a maximum of 25 stone of bread dough when full !) Innocently, and completely without any logical thoughts at all, I climbed into that vast metal hollow. I did, for a moment wonder if I ought to have removed my shoes? but it was a very brief moment. No sooner had I got into the bowl than suddenly 4 or 5 females appeared and began spinning the bowl ! I fell right down to the centre and began to loose any idea of where I was facing, the bowl began to spin ever faster and the laughing faces looking over me were just one continuous blur. I then realised that as 3 men heaved me from my spinning prison my head was still spinning ! They lifted me out and laid me on a table, then all I saw were laughing females all around me, I was helpless and at their mercy !
I could feel that my trousers were being removed, I felt several hands around my groins and genitalia, the raucous laughs that filled my ears told me that they (at least) were going to have fun. Then I was aware of a sloppy wet mess was being applied to my genitals, I managed very briefly to look downwards, though my head & my mind were still spinning, a few hands were applying hands full of Jam to my balls & semi erect penis. Then I saw a big jug of cream being poured onto massaged places. When I was eventually able to get up, all the women vanished ! there were a couple of men laughing at the jam & cream clotted around me and dropping an sloppy lumps into my trousers which were still on my legs. I stood there coming back to reality when two of the men acme forward, they reached down and then pulled up my trousers and fastened them in place, the soggy mess between my legs squelched as I moved, it was sliding down each leg slowly.
Looking back now to that time, over 54 years ago, I still laugh at my innocence and my reactions, I recall walking back to my work area with a really wet and squelching mess filling my pants. If that were to happen in this year 2020 I guess maybe a call of physical (if not sexual) assault could happen? I could tell you what happened to young females joining our ranks, but just to say that I enjoyed 3 or 4 of their ‘initiations’ . I will leave this topic alone now, probably.
It could have been worst…When I attended College the dorm initiation was to be taken down by four upper classmen and your genitals liberally bathed in Atomic Balm (more powerful than Ben Gay) I, like you, was unaware of the hazing until it happened, thought that I would never father children.