I was raised by my Grandparents in the country after my Father left my Mother and my Mother couldn't cope. She packed me off to her parents at five with a warning about how strict they were. They treated me like their own kid. In Public: The sweetest old couple you'd ever want to meet. At Home: Tyrants, Bossy, Super strict - they had an awful feather duster with a cane end and they well applied it to me. Good manners, good behaviour, be a very good boy - or else one of them - usually my Grampa dragged me to his room, took the feather duster down from above his closet and flogged my bum good and hard across his knee. This went on to about 12. But in retrospective I was a Straight A student and grew up alright after that. - Timothy, Ballarat