Dear Editor,

During recent months many letters have been published in 'Relate', 'Search', and other magazines concerning female domination and petticoat discipline of the male, and as this is a situation which I fully endorse and practise, I would like to add my comments upon the subject.

Even before our marriage eight years ago, my husband displayed obvious signs that he was desirous of domination by me, a situation that I was only too happy to encourage for my own satisfaction and fulfilment, because basically I am a strongly built and dominating type of woman, although until then it had never been brought to the surface. It was not very long before I was dominating and humiliating him in a wide variety of ways, and now he is so conditioned and trained that he has no option other than to accept all that I desire of him. Nevertheless, without a shadow of doubt, he obtains a great degree of pleasure, and sexual satisfaction, from the situation as of course I do - indeed as other letter writers have indicated, I am proud of, and have a sense of fulfilment in, my power to make him do as I wish, without question or hesitation.

Fortunately the set-up of our union is such that the odds are stacked on my side, in as much that having inherited a small but successful business, the greater portion of our comfortable income is provided by me, and so I have ensured that I can look after myself independently.

My main interests are nursery discipline and baby-like treatment for him, this no doubt arises from the fact we are unable to have children, well at least we have not managed to do so yet, although an examination at a clinic revealed no defects in either of us. However we are well able to have normal sexual intercourse, which he is permitted to have at widely spaced intervals at my discretion, when he has been a particularly good baby for a considerable period of time. When I permit love making he is very, very satisfactory indeed; far more so, I think, than if I allowed him sexual freedom more often. However, I achieve ample stimulation and complete fulfilment by means of the situations that I require him to be in, and of course attending to his baby needs.

He does go to work, having an occupation with easy 'nine to four' hours, which leaves him ample time to perform his set household duties (mostly tasks which I dislike doing), however, most weekends from Friday evening to early Monday morning, and also at certain other times, he is confined to the nursery, and Samuel becomes 'Baby Sandra'. He has to wear bonnets with ribbons and other trimmings, big thick nappies, rubber baby pants, and other infant clothing.

 Sandra also has to have a dummy - I prefer the real thing, and she is fed baby foods and baby formula from a feeding bottle. The cot is a full size hospital type safety bed, with high sides and end rails, but as all babies are unpredictable. 'Sandra' is always very securely restrained or harnessed to the cot, either with a strong leather harness set complete with under straps, or with a canvas and webbing restraint vest fitted with six-point anchor straps to fasten under the cot, together with wrist and ankle restraints so that my 'baby' does not kick the covers off, or to stop any undesirable hand activities - I do not allow Sandra to play with herself, remove her 'dum dum', or touch the straps.

Sandra always lies upon a thick rubber protective sheet, and when wearing a nappy, has a similar sheet over her to protect the top covers - I have hospital red colour sheets, as I believe these produce a far greater degree of humiliation than white or pastel shades. Sandra does not like all this protective equipment, but Mother knows best. Bottle feeding is maintained throughout the weekends, and I insist that four full bottles of baby milk are consumed, particularly, at night, one of which will contain something that Sandra does not like, such as licorice compound or syrup of figs to keep 'Baby' regular, and now, having read of a wife adding a few drops of cascara to her 'baby's' bottle, I intend to try this. Also, I rather like the idea of coating her dummy and bottle teats with that foul tasting liquid - bitter aloes is it? - which is used to stop children biting their nails.

Babies naturally need a lot of spanking to make them behave as Mother requires, especially when they become too excited without their mummy's permission. Sandra being no exception, so the palm of my hand, and the leather spanking strap, both work wonders upon a bottom and thighs which are already smarting a little from being in wet nappies.

Unlike some correspondents, I could not bring myself to show Sandra off to my friends, much preferring to keep the pleasures babying to myself, however one Friday, evening about three months ago I had almost finished settling Sandra down in the nursery
( a spare bedroom), when the front door bell rang, surprising me rather, as I did not expect any callers. The ringing was repeated at once and appeared to be urgent, so in my anxious state I quickly removed my nursery apron and rubber gloves and went down to open the door, forgetting to shut the nursery door. Opening the front door I found that the visitor was a young woman friend of mine, Joan, a twenty year oId unmarried lass whom I had known for a long time, and her first words were an urgent request to visit the bathroom. As Joan mounted the stairs I realised with a wave of horror that I had not closed the nursery door and heard her footsteps halt for what seemed to be an age before continuing to the bathroom, and I knew that she had seen everything and that it was futile to close the door now.

In a state of near panic I waited for Joan to come down, and heard her pause again in the upper hall before descending to the kitchen where I waited to hear the outburst that I expected, but with a bright gleam in her eyes, and a smile on her face, Joan said:
'Why did you not tell me that you have a lovely baby?'

And so during the next hour or more, I discovered her secret desires and feelings, many closely following my own, and my relief is impossible to describe because I had imagined ridicule following, instead we discussed all sorts of things, and Joan made various suggestions to increase my own satisfaction by adding to Samuel's humiliation. I asked her if she would like to see the 'baby' again, to which she said yes, so we both went upstairs to the nursery where I pointed out in greater detail some of the things that we had discussed, and I am certain that it excited her as much as it did me watching Sandra lie there squirming helpless with humiliation strapped down in his baby harness, and quite unable to hide his secret pleasure at being seen by such a young woman. Joan did not help when she said that she would love to be Sandra's baby sitter, or better still her 'nanny'. Since then I have toyed with the idea, but have taken it no further.

Samuel has often told me that he dislikes the nappies etc, and after Joan's visit told me that the  experience was the most humiliating experience of all, and that he is constantly reminded of it whenever Joan visits us or we meet elsewhere, which I think is all to my advantage.

Soon it may be that I shall increase my total domination of him, as the elderly manageress of my business is retiring in October, and I plan to take over the day to day running of it, and replace the young girl assistant with Samuel, teaching him the few skills that are required. The business is a retail travel goods, handbags, and accessories shop - no footwear repairs, but we do repair of other leather items and make special harness sets - I have made several sets for use with children's wheelchairs etc, and of course Sandra's straps and cot restraints, when the staff were off duty. I have not as yet told Samuel of my plans, but I know there will be no problems there.

Various correspondents have written about putting 'Baby' into a highchair, and out in the 'pram', either with the hood up or down, for the purpose of increased humiliation, and while I can visualise a suitable high chair, I cannot think of a suitable 'pram'. Joan suggests that an adult invalid chair fitted with a hood and cover would make a passable substitute, however I would be most interested to hear of other ideas for 'prams'.

As I said my husband really loves being controlled by me, and we both are very much better for it, and share a love that is but a dream to most.
Yours sincerely,

P.W. (Eltham).

I know there are a number of women who would like to obtain a proper pram, navy blue, with cream satin lining and a prettily flounced hood, in which Baby could be strapped in, lying on a couple of frilly pillows and protected by a a lambswool baby blanket and a coverlet. His favourite teddy or doll could be tucked in beside him.

The most beatiful prams ever made were those manufactured by the English company Silver Cross, and Silver Cross really were 'the Rolls Royce of prams'. This famous description was no idle boast - not only was their styling magnificent in its beauty, but each pram was traditionally hand-made, and perfectly balanced and sprung, in the fashion of the famous British car. The company started in 1877, and when anyone thinks of an old-fashioned British nanny pushing a pram through Hyde Park, and chatting with other nannies employed by wealthy or aristocratic couples, then it is a Silver Cross pram that they are visualising.

Silver Cross even made doll's prams to the same hand-built standards of excellence as their normal baby prams, and still do. Sadly, in the summer of 1999, it seemed likely that the company would go out of business, the fate of so many of the finest British firms in the last forty years, but it was bought out by a new group of investors, who promised to introduce 'a new range of innovative products'. Obviously this meant that the quality and elegant lines of the Silver Cross pram would probably vanish - I think we all now know what to expect whenever a venerable and famous business is overtaken by 'new management'. And the word 'innovative' inevitably means ugly and quickly passe, in contrast to the genuinely timeless beauty that Silver Cross prams once possessed (they were passed down from generation to generation like family heirlooms; like the Rolls Royce cars with which they were justly compared, each was built to last forever).

The new management have, in all fairness, managed to retain the beauty in some of their models. The Marlborough is a classic pram in the great Silver Cross tradition: 

...That is the kind styling that made Silver Cross world recognised for over a century as the very pinnacle of pram design and  English elegance (and click on the other buttons too; I am sure all my babies who read this magazine would simply adore the Durham, with its picture of Mother Goose on the side).

For information about how much care goes into the manufacture of these prams, the page below  tells you something of the loving, hand-crafted detail involved in the construction of every Silver Cross vehicle. 

And to see their doll's prams (and DON''T look at the prices!): 

Note the commonplace ugliness of the newer 'innovations', with a shopping basket underneath (!) which entirely lack the special Silver Cross 'look'. Only the 'Windsor' retains the stylish grace, and lovely lines, of the classic Silver Cross prams.

Funnily enough, until the takeover, I think you could have obtained a pram for a big baby from Silver Cross. They were one of those quiet, exquisitely mannered old British firms that simply listened to their customers' requirements, and then fulfilled them to the letter. It would have cost a pretty penny of course, but at least it would have been obtainable. 'New management' numbskulls wouldn't understand what you were talking about.
Susan