I’ve lost count of how many people have tracked me down via facebook and linkedin. A couple of days ago I received an email from Barrie, someone I was at secondary school with. We haven’t communicated in 40 years and it was interesting to hear that we’d had similar interests over the years and that he’d read some of my Atari/Apple columns in Sound On Sound magazine among others.
My connection to Barrie goes back to our common interest in guitar playing. He was always better than me and an inspiration. I learned how to finger pick and play instrumental songs of the day including Classical Gas and Angie as well as most of the Simon and Garfunkel catalogue. A small group of us played most lunchtimes in what would now be the equivalent of yr 10 and yr 11 and that was the pinnacle of my ‘education’. Why? Because I hated secondary school due to the incessant bullying I was subjected to.
I started at Beal Grammar in 1967. I’d been a mouthy kid at Parkhill primary school and carried that attitude into my new school where it really fell flat. In no time, I had a reputation as someone with a mouth and nothing to back it up with. That made me a target – a big kid who couldn’t fight his way out of the proverbial paper bag. Then the bullying started, both physically and psychologically. If I wasn’t being hit between lessons and during the morning, afternoon and lunch breaks there was the perpetual threat of violence. It got to the point where I had to get out of the classroom before the teacher did at the end of a lesson. If I mistimed my escape I was hauled back into the room and beaten up. This went on for the best part of two years.
A number of kids were involved. Some hit me; others just set me up. The rest just stood and watched. It brings to mind the Edmund Burke (mis)quote: The only thing necessary for the triumph [of evil] is for good men to do nothing. This also pertains to the teachers who knew what was going on and did virtually nothing. And I was too ashamed of my inability to fight back in any way, aside from verbally at times, to admit what was going on to my father.
Was this just boys being boys? Possibly. The beatings were never bad enough to break bones or hospitalise me but you can’t imagine the sheer terror of being set upon by a dozen kids day after day, being hit, kicked and crushed, unless you’ve been through it yourself. They always used a routine, a set-up that would lead to the beatings. Sometimes they left me alone. I was absolutely terrified.
It stopped when the classes were rejigged at the start of what would now be yr 10, the beginning of the two-year ‘O’ level courses. My confidence improved and I made two new circles of friends including Barrie. My real salvation was the guitar playing. I’ve been in touch briefly with some of these via friends reunited but have never met any of them since I left Beal in the mid-1970s.
Of those who participated in making my school life a living hell, one has apologised sincerely for his part. We’ve met up and stay in touch and I appreciate the contact. There are others who know where I am and could speak to me but choose not to. Probably better that way. I’d hate for them to have to relive my nightmare.
Has the experience had a long-term effect on me? Certainly. For many years it affected my ability to make friends. And I won’t take shit from anybody which can make me a very awkward person to deal with but someone you’d want on your side in an argument. Kind of ironic given where this behaviour stems from.
I never wanted my son to go through a similar experience so at seven years old, I took him to a karate class. He took to it like a duck to water and 17 years on (and a third dan black belt) he still trains. He’ll probably be shocked to read this blog but it might fill in a gap or two.
If you have kids and they’re being bullied in any way, shape or form, don’t ignore it. Don’t think that it’s character building and that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. It doesn’t. It’s destructive. It scars for life. And I should know.