Bullies should not Thrive

There are a number of subjects that remain rather taboo, they all have in common that they can isolate people and destroy lives. One of these is bullying.

Now, I think I can speak with some authority on this because I have experienced it from both sides… I’ve been bullied and yes, I have been a bully. I don’t say that for bravado or to glorify myself, it is the one thing in life I am ashamed of… but I say it because I need to be honest..  without that I can’t write this piece.

Looking back, I had one term at school, spring term in 1964, I was 13 going on 14 at the time, I was insecure, had no self confidence or self respect, and was, I think, rather lonely at times at school. I did have three friends, lads similar to myself, we saw others as the “big cheeses” in the class, the cool kids, though we probably didn’t call them that at that time… we were just the other kids, the misfits. None of this is an excuse for what I did… far from it, but it may show a type of person… and I what I and my friends did was not acceptable in any society.

I don’t know why it happened, why it started, but we started to pick on one lad, a pleasant innocuous lad, and enjoyed nothing more than to wait his return from lunch and taunt him, eventually building up to jostling him, hitting him, counting how long it took us to make him cry… and of course eventually we were caught and punished. School were very gentle with us, too gentle, I think because apart from this appalling behaviour, we had always kept our noses clean, we weren’t effective enough to get intro trouble!!!

As I type this the memories are flooding back to me, sort of series of stills… and I am finding them disturbing. Bullying is about exercising power… and as we had no power in ourselves, all we could do was to group together and persecute this lad. Yes, I do recall his name, his face, and the tears… I will not however name him… or my co-bullies of the time.

However, interestingly, the following school year both the lad and myself were downgraded to a lower stream, and, maybe it was the fact we were both secretly embarrassed by being relegated, we became good friends, indeed I recall the first concert I went to without my mum was actually to see the Animals with this lad.

I had also been bullied, never to this degree, but I have been bullied for most of my first 20 years of life. They aggressors would say I brought it on myself… I was fat, a lone child from a broken home so I was different… this was the 1950’s and 1960’s.

The worst instance of being bullied was at the hands of a swarthy class “hard case” who saw me as a swot, he couldn’t deal with a fat insecure kid being a swot and gradually turning into a teachers pet. I was frequently cuffed or punched by this person, forever taunted by him. One day in the science lab, all of us sitting on high stools, the teacher out of the room he turned to me and punched me in the genitals… so hard, the pain was intense… I fainted and fell from the stool. As a result of that a couple of the other lads came in on my side, protected me… I think that protection was the start of my rehabilitation.. although it was not immediate… like many lessons, it took a while to sink in

I was regularly called awful names which I will not repeat here… was pushed, jostled, insulted, was always last to be picked for sports, constantly laughed at for one reason or another, even by teachers, I was taunted for my weight, lack of stamina, for being a lone child… in those days most children had siblings… and a father… if not, well, you were different and a target.

I was a pretty horrible child and youth to be honest… I had a chip on my shoulder and was frightened of relationships, especially with girls. Whether this was all because I had no father figure, because I was bullied and insulted or simply because I was a horrid person I don’t know.

I changed… once in work I started to go out a bit, and discovered alcohol… boy did I discover alcohol… and later other stimulants. During this period the chip fell from my shoulder and the bitter lonely boy blossomed into a friendly outgoing, albeit frequently drunken, man with many friends.

It was at this time that the true horrors of my past started to really impact on my life, I never made a conscious decision about this but I suddenly found I was always supporting the underdog, if I saw someone being left out, I would go and try to befriend them, if I saw someone being tormented I would join in on their side. 

I was lucky, so lucky, that I was able to change. I now number among my friends many that have undergone bullying, and the effects linger, years later, they are often introverted, reluctant to stand out from a crowd. Others were less lucky, others have been so scarred that they have attempted to take their own lives, some tragically have succeeded.

I have learned the lesson… If you are a bully…. Please consider the implications of what you do on your victim.

Nowadays bullying can take many forms…physical bullying seems to have the same root causes as ever, the person that is different… the fat kid, the lad with the uncool trainers, with last years football strip… the youngster who doesn’t join in with the slightly dangerous activities, who goes home from college instead of hanging out. These people are looked on as a lion sees the weak or sick zebra and singled out to show how tough the inadequate assailants are.

Don’t however be fooled into thinking it is only rife among children… it is equally common amongst adults, and for the same reasons of differences.

However, bullying can take on a wide range of different aspects in adult life, the boss who demands too much of a weak staff member who daren’t say no, the shopkeeper who backs down to a boorish customer.

Now we have the spectre of cyber bullying, where people are ganged up by countless individuals who don’t even know the victim… they just sense a weakness and pick on it… and keep picking until something happens to stop them.

There are so many forms of bullying, we can’t look at them all, the two factors that are consistent throughout is that the perpetrators have some inadequacies, they need to try to show their strength, and do it to humiliate or damage an innocent person, and the victims are permanently scarred, it does affect their lives for far longer than even they sometimes realise.

This doesn’t even start to look at bullying based on race, religion, creed, nationality, sexuality and the other classifications that single individuals out for special treatment. However, the behaviour is equally toxic and the results equally destructive

For instance, whilst at school, two teachers bullied me.. whether deliberately or not I will never know… I was often ridiculed by these two men.. and there were two incidents that live with me forever.

I was late to a class because I had been to the dentist. I checked in with the teacher at the front and walked to my desk… as I walked away from him he started laughing, more and more ostentatiously. Anyone who knows me now will know I don’t like to walk away from someone I don’t know well.

The other one was a music teacher, now I know I can’t sing, never claimed to, but after a deal of ridicule he told me publicly and loudly not to sing in assembly because I could not hold a note… I know that, but since then I haven’t been able to join in community singing, even on football terraces.

Two minor instances of bullying that have left a mark, imagine what impact some of the more violent or outrageous form of bullying can have.

We need to drag this subject out of the dark corner it is in, learn to understand it… that lad we mentioned, leaves school and goes home? Maybe he has to go to look after a sick parent… he doesn’t need this extra pressure…

The lad with the uncool trainers? Maybe his parents are out of work, maybe they have had to give up work because of illness.. he doesn’t need this extra pressure.

The lad with the out of date football strip…. Why? Perhaps he is not into football, no problem with that surely? Perhaps he would love the latest, but his parents are drinking the money instead… not his fault, he has enough pressure without this bullying.

Is it any wonder that people take their lives to escape the bully? Bullying may just be the final straw in an already unbearably stressful life, the straw that breaks the camels back.

We have to build a society where victims trust enough to be able to tell someone about their situation, without feeling shame or embarrassment, the rest of us, we need to be aware… if we see it, we need to act upon it.

Only if we all respond, as a society, will we come close to eliminating this foul behaviour that blights our society.

As I said earlier, I was lucky and had the strength to turn my back on bullying, to admit it, and to do something about it, I was also inspired to always support the underdog.. we can do it in football… everyone loves to see a Blythe Spartans beat a Manchester United… but in life we always follow the ascendant, never the downtrodden victims