IT BEGAN with one of those phone calls all editors come to dread.

"I am sure we can settle out of court," announced Councillor Pat Todd, Lord Mayor of Canterbury.

He was complaining that I had allowed his wife Barbara to be renamed Sheila in the pages of this mighty organ.

He was insistent I should pay a penance.

And so it came to pass that I received an "invitation" to the opening of the Herne Bay Festival on Saturday.

"This will be the first public flogging in Herne Bay for years," boasted the mayor as he clamped me into a pair of custom-made stocks.

Luckily I had turned up, to his amusement, in a plastic Pak-a-mac and shower cap borrowed from Mrs Nurden.

Then sponges came thick and fast as the Toddmeister and mayoress let fly.

Members of the public were also allowed to have a go, to raise funds for the Mayoress's Charity, until local band The Four Cajonees led by DJ Russ Lowe offered a tenner to tip the entire bucket of water over me.

The mayor came up afterwards, shook my drenched hand which was still trapped in the stocks, and whispered: "Your penance has now been served..."

In hindsight, I think I might have preferred a solicitor's letter!