Bullying

[Scully]

Sat in the pub earlier tonight and reminiscing about school, and various names were bandied about and one in particular struck a chord. 
To be honest I’m quite friendly with most of those who bullied me at school ( even one bloke who held me underwater in the pool to the extent I thought ‘this was it’…literally ) but nowadays bygones are bygones; we were kids after all, but one in particular sticks in my craw. 
As I grew through school I learned to look after myself, and I was eventually given a wide berth, but this particular lad still annoys me ( probably because I never caught up ) to this day. 
I knew him well, and he me ( small market town ) and we tolerated each other, and like I say, it was in the past. 
At school he was never brave enough to confront me on a personal basis, and equally as an adult he obviously never felt the need, it but he was always there on the periphery in the playground,  ready to have a sly kick if someone got  me down. 
He was killed in a motorcycle accident of his own fault, many moons ago, over which I shed absolutely no tears at all, but whenever his name crops up in conversation I still have a seriously burning regret that I didn’t let him know that I hadn’t forgotten or that he’d ‘got away with it ‘. 
This can’t be normal. 
I once approached a bloke at a bar after a gap of about 30 years and asked him ‘Do you remember me ( I knew he did due to his sheepish reaction on seeing me approach him ) from school?’ He apologised profusely and offered to buy me a drink; I refused and instead bought him one, and we had good craic, but the name of the bloke in question just annoys the hell out of me, because I just want to give him a really really good kicking! The blokes dead; you would think that would be enough wouldn’t you? But it isn’t! 🤷‍♂️

Fortunately ( for the bullies 😀) neither of my kids were bullied at school as I heard teachers had a better grip on such things, but to this day ( I’m 64 next month ) bullying sends me into a frenzy of anger. 
Anyone bullied at school, or elsewhere? 

[Stephen-H]

I can relate many years on a lad tried it on with every lad within are year set he was a typical football player lad " billy big ******** " but like you said above one to one his **** soon fell out . Thought he was gods gift with the women as well had terrible acne skin as well looked like a hand grenade went off in his face.

Terrible human hopefully life has since humbled him. 

[Rob85]

Was builied through primary school for 1-being working class, and 2- having nasal issues which had me a constant runny nose. It came to a head one day when I lost the run of myself and faces got smacked.

In high school I was picked on by the "big fella" in my class, that stopped one day after french class when I offered him outside and stood up to him and said he best make his punch count as he wouldn't get a second... no punches thrown, by default in my head I won because I stood up and he wouldn't rise to the occasion. I did accidentally cop a punch that spread my nose across my face from another guy but I just happened to be standing behind the intended victim who dodged the ham sized fist flying at him 🤣

I do believe in forgiveness due to my Christian faith but at the same time that only counts if someone comes seeking it and genuinely has changed. I don't really think much about the bullying now because some of the perpetrators have come out a lot worse than me in life....similar to your story one of them who tried to mess me about died in a road accident of his own doing, I even went to his funeral. 

I share your sentiment about the anger that boils up when you encounter bullying, most bully's deep down must have some real issues if they feel they have to run other people down.

Apart from the whole firearms licence issues around fighting, I am pretty slow to get a rise out of these days, but I do think fighting is the last resort and if it comes to throwing hands you have to be all in.

 

[chrisjpainter]

Yeah I was reasonably badly (thrown on tables and laughed at, corridor tripping names, notes, the usual). The only last effect it's had is I'm more attuned to the subtler evidences when seeing it at college now with the pupils I teach. But it's never in the classes I have with students who have severe learning difficulties. They're almost always so kind to each other and if anything kicks off, it's never personal, it's spur of the moment frustrations.

It's the students who are of a normal intellectual standard that are the cruellest to each other. 

[GingerCat]

Caught up with mine one way or the other and those that have tried soon realise its their mistake since about 11 years old. Once had a chap from school stop me in the street and say sorry he was such an ***. I couldn't remember his name.  Do you know where his grave is? 

[ditchman]

i only got bullied by one person in my life...the headmasters youngest son..(never got even with him)...........everyone else has always steered well clear of me as i was consided to be "different"

[Arley]

I can also relate to this

When i started at secondary school i went to a school about 5 miles from home and only knew 1 other lad from my primary school, i had been taught by Dad how to box when I was about 8 years old and i continued to box until late teens however Dad had always taught me to walk away from a fight and not to use my boxing skills, one day we were walking to the bus stop after school and a lad in my sister year so he would have been 4 years older than he tripped me up as i walked past him and his mates, as i picked up my PE bag he rabbit punched me, i didnt know at the time but he was a very handy boxer himself and he knew what he was doing, its a very dangerous punch and can cause some damage. I did not react, i just picked up my bag and went home.

It would have been a month or so later and i was coming out the school dinner hall when he tried to once again trip me up, i saw what was coming and side stepped him, before i knew it all the kids in the dinner hall had jumped up and the bully was squaring up to me, i still remember to this day never feeling such anger in my life, then literally from know were i had Mr James the PE teacher **** my collar and before i knew ti was escorted to the heads teachers office. I was put on report from memory. But the feeling of anger that came over me i still remember to this day

Not sure why but the bully never acknowledged me again, i presume it was the fact that i stood up to him, then  it would have been about 9 years later i ran the doors on several clubs and pubs and we were asked to provide door men for a social event at a miners club, I went with several lads and it had been a night with no trouble when i saw the lad who had tripped me and punched at school walking towards the bar,  i got to be honest i saw red and went straight over, i tapped him on the shoulder and it was clear he was off his face, i asked him if he knew me and he clearly had not got a clue who i was, i actually wanted him to react but he offered to buy me a drink.

I then saw him again about 3 years later, i was out on my stag night and once again he was off his face, to this day i wished he had reacted but then again it might be for the best that he didnt but like you Scully it still eats away at me nearly 40 years later that he hit me with that rabbit punch!!

 

[discobob]

I had a speech impediment when I was younger - caused by not speaking until I was 4 - I was OK at school until we moved out of area into Knowseley, Liverpool and my life became hell. I was bunking off school regularly because of it and was actually sent to a child psychologist for it. My step-dad got sick of it when I started Seniors and told me just hit them - turned out I was quite good at that. I sent one lad to hospital when I bounced a can of coke of his head in retaliation for the year or so of bullying and then others soon learnt. There was one guy - Connie - who attacked me when I was on a warning that I could be expelled - I didn't hit back - just tried to cover my face then went in and saw the head of year. He called this Connie in who blatantly lied about it and he took his word. My dad ended up nearly having altercations with him. Funny enough, I heard he had died - but I was mates in Cadets with his brother....

Another lad who I used to set to with last I heard, was in the SBS, I bumped into him at Lime Street when I was going back off leave - he was under escort after going AWOL and serving in the French Foreign Legion. He waved to me, I went over and showed my ID and we had a good catch up. SBS was after this.

[oowee]

It must be pretty deep if these things stay with you and eat away at your insides. I was a bully to some and bullied by others but never gave any of it a thought until reading this. It's all so long past. 

I do remember force feeding loadybogs (an Italian kid) sand. Why? I simply can't remember.

[team tractor]

I was heavily bullied at school because of my walking . 
I had one bully stood next to me 15 years later in the chippy and he came up and apologised 😮. I’m 6’1” and he’s small . He’s tiny to me but I said thank you and don’t worry as we were kids.

A year or so later I was at a 30th birthday when I spotted a real bad egg that my sister knew . We chatted and I’d explained my sister had died . He’d become a staff sergeant and turned out he’d been Afghan and Iraq etc . I asked him for a lift home as he was stopping at his parents locally . 
As I got out the car I said it’s been a pleasure and you’re a really nice bloke . We shook hands and left . I was telling my mate a month later and he informed me he’d been killed 😢. A bloke punched him on a night out and he’d died as a result leaving 2 small kids . 

The one that sticks is a bloke that used to chase me home was in the pub . He came up and said are you gonna get me a drink then ? I told him after the years of bullying he can sod off . His mates laughed at him 😂😂😂

[team tractor]

My sons 14 and recently was punched in the back of the head . I told the school and hoped it was over . He kicked my son in the face a month later . 
I found out his name 😂. It’s my mates grandson . Well 😂he’s rang his daughter ( the mum ) and she rang the school to report her own son 😮. Grounded him for a month and removed his phone . 
my mate said I’m so sorry about the little b 😂. 
in between this my ex knows the lads dad too. The kid must of wondered who he’d started on 😂

[sutty2006]

I was short and fat at school. I got bullied for it throughout the years. One lad a middle school, a typical council estate lout who bullied everyone was prone for it. His face was blown off a few years after we left school, some went into further education, some got jobs, this lad put set fire to an aerosol can and lobbed it into a washing machine …… BOOM. I class it as natural selection. I had my growth spurt at middle school, I shot up to 6”2 and all the regular bullies laid off a bit. Apart from one lad in the year below. He started one day (obviously looking for the biggest target in the yard) and I pinned him up against the wall by his neck with his feet off the ground. From that day forward, after everyone had seen it, it was much better. 
 

high school was different. Some of the bullies just did it to make themselves look good in front of their mates. One lad was killed in a car accident on his way to work a few years after school, he was a bully to me. All the reports in the paper said he was a lovely lad. I begged to differ. Natural selection again. 

[Keith 66]

It happened to a lot of us, At times i hated school. Many years later i worked in a college as a technician & later in a secondary school as a D&T technician. Teachers may have more awareness of it or they may not as bullying has changed. Now it is more subtle as its online via the poison of social media.

About 5 years ago our head of department did a safeguarding training course including social media, Now she was 32 at the time & used fb & instagram herself. She was amazed to find that kids dont use fb, at the time it was snapchat, bebo & others i cant remember, also that kids social media trends moved platforms with bewildering speed with new ones popping up regularly.  Now it will be others you & i will never have heard of. The universal useage of the smartphone in schools gives bullies a myriad ways to get at other kids & they do, Sometimes & i kid you not parents help the bullies do it. The results are often very hard to spot until its too late, It results in eating disorders, self harming & other mental issues.

I remember one case where an indian lad in our D&T class was bullied, he was very very smart & had a physical disability (juvenile arthritis). This lad was popular & a credit to his parents. Yet some of the scumbags thought it funny to bully him, He was a hindu & had slices of ham thrown at him & hidden in his bag, all low level but it was really nasty.            We knew who was doing it & reported it but senior management didnt deal with it, there were many cases where they wouldnt deal with bullying & other stuff. I would simply have expelled the perps end of story. Im glad i retired & got out as a friend who still works there tells me it is ten times worse today.

[Nublue 22]

This subject is sadly one of the least spoken about, most bullies are or have been abused buy others older me thinks, there only way out is to try and prove there not weak and pick on the weakest they can find. Saying that at our junior school the teachers, one in particular would grab a child buy the hand and drag them around shouting and going in to a rage, smacking the back of the hand so hard it was red and it left finger prints on the back of your hand. He would shout you can blame him for that one and continue until he'd calmed down. The child he smacked was just the closest to him when he lost it. Remember we were only about 8 years old. The secondary school did not get much better, a certain PE teacher again was nothing more than a violent thug, oh did I mention the one that was all most certainly a paedophile, accusations were made and he was suspended, I recalled he committed suicide. Fortunately he all ways took a liking to the smaller boys and would stand at  the exit to the showers sending them back in, I can hear him now shouting  you wash your self like this.  This particular school must attract them as I read there head teacher was jailed for engaging in a sexual activity with a young boy in 2014. Sadly I can't ever see any end to it, some how we've got to open up earlier and hope the powers that be take appropriate action, it's taken me over 40 years to tell, any way this has changed Saturday for me. 

[Mungler]

Interesting to see the theme that a lot of the bullies end up in significant misfortune in later life - damage leads to damage.

The bottom line is that we are pack animals. As I went through school it was visible that the kids that took up martial arts and stuck on muscle mass in puberty got left alone - bullies are just so very less likely to pick on someone who stands a chance of breaking their nose, regardless of actual fight outcome - they will find someone else and you just hope that someone else isn’t your kid. 

There was a small lad in our year (clear foot under everyone) who got picked on left right and centre but he turned into a to a total mental scrapper - he would just go berserk and windmill. He got left alone.

Aware of this I was keen my 3 boys all learnt how to throw punch (they’re all black belts in kick boxing) and understood how expensive dental work was (with being able to see trouble before it starts and or to run away as perhaps the most sensible solution). 

I saw lots of parents get bored of dropping / collecting from karate or whatever, meaning most turn up to get one belt and jack it in. Sticking something through and showing commitment is a strong marker to me on a CV - I’d put gold Duke of Edinburgh and a black belt in any martial arts above most standard qualifications. I digress.  

Anyway, one of the kids who gave me a hard time and a swollen lip at school, I saw his profile pop up on Facebook. Divorced, rubbish dead end job, objectionable and unfriendly approach to life in every one of his posts and clearly very unhappy. I even started smiling as I typed that lot out. Your own  successes in life are the best form of any revenge or retribution. 
.

 

Edited June 10, 2023 by Mungler

[Agriv8]

Yep youngest in the year a July baby and as reported above runny nose and single out for being working class in an upper class schools. A few of of us all had links to beating, game keepers farmers sons One of the games masters got done for poaching- I am sure you can work out the rest ! 
 

the bully that made my life hell once squared up to me in the pub as I got served before him ‘in my local boozer’ I was sober and now 6’6 he was 5 foot and ****** as a ****. I offered to take it outside but 3 minutes of chatting he realised who I was and apologised and left the pub ! He died of a drug overdose about 3 years later !

bullying is heavily reduced in schools.but part of being bullied has made me the tough old boot i am today because the bully is now often the boss at work !?!

Agriv8

[islandgun]

The only bullies that had any significance for me at school, were the teachers

[countryman]

I must of been about 14 at the time, there was 4 of us in our little group that would meet up at break times, 4 misfits we were , getting in trouble generally a nuisance, one kid for some reason wanted to be part of our little group and would hang around with us, I am ashamed to say I gave this boy some regular verbal Mike taking, much to the amusement of the other 3 misfits, looking back I think he had all ways had a rough time at school and thought maybe we were the less evil for him if he could join us , I left school at 15 and and at 16 I was made to go on one of those £25 a week schemes for 6 months at a garage, boy did I get some stick from those lads there, every joke invented must have been played on me. I often wonder what happened to that kid at school and I bitterly regret what I did then.

[welsh1]

My youngest had a kid who picked on him in junior school, this kid was tiny compared to the rest of that year group,we saw the headteacher who said she could only monitor the situation and in effect did nothing, so one day when my youngest came home with a thick lip I popped to this bullys house, I told his Dad who was a local gob almighty chav that every time his son hit my son I would put the father in hospital,he never got picked on again.

I enrolled my son's in Judo classes, which the eldest enjoyed the youngest not so much, but years later and my youngest is living in Liverpool, someone tried to jump him on his way home one evening and all that repetitive practice automatically kicked in taking his attacker to the floor and giving him time to do the sensible thing and run like the wind to safety lol.

[GingerCat]

A lad at shool was an uber nerd. He used to hang about with us and that was fine. I suspect he's a leading mathematical genius currently but in reality I don't know. Anyways he was also very good at some martial art. The school bully used to call him Bruce (also chinese) and offered him out by throwing a punch, brucie caught the punch and said in his super nerdy way "ill fight you after school" and simply went into lesson. 

We all schemed ways for him to avoid this fight as it wouldn't have gone well and implored him to simply not show up. True to his work brucie turned up as did the bully with his hangers on. One perfect roundhouse kick later and bully was semi conscious on the floor with a bleeding mouth and nose. Brucie simply picked up his massive school bag rammed with books and hurried off to his mums waiting car. It was magnificent.

From that day we called him Bruce as he had earnt it. The bully did various stretches inside and I have a feeling died in his 20's. 

[Shadowchaser]

At High School there was a lad in the year above who used to torment me on the bus home.  No idea why. He also had his PE lessons at the same time as my class which meant being in the changing room with him. 

He would randomly punch me in the arm or leg (he was much bigger than me).  I never stood up to him, used to try and avoid him or laugh it off, but some of the punches hurt like hell. 

I was glad when he finished. 

I saw him several years ago in Matalan I think. I looked at him and he looked at me, no words or even a nod were exchanged.  

Not sure I should say this as a responsible and sensible gun owner, but I would like to give him a good hiding. I'd probably have to use to bat or something as he's still going to be bigger and stronger than me. 

I don't think fantasizing about revenge is a bad thing, as long as it doesn't consume you. 

[harrycatcat1]

It's quite sad reading these experiences,  being brought up on a rough council estate we quickly learnt how to look after ourselves. 

[JKD]

Following the theme, I was also bullied at school (and intimidated throughout my whole life, for being quiet and keeping to myself 🤗🙃). At school I was pushed about a bit and had my lunch nicked from me occasionally. I saw one of these bullies, in the pub at age about 18 (the theme continues). He was as polite as anyone could be to me, like a church mouse TBH 😂 He had a quick half and was gone, never to be seen again. This was in 1978 😆

My elder brother was also bullied at school,,,, but not after he knocked one of the bullies out with a single punch !!! Hahaaaaa 🤭🤣

[Imperfection]

Yes i was bullied at secondary school. One of the bullies died of a heroin overdose about 15 years ago and other is in prison for robbing an elderly lady (sounds like i grew up in a nice place!).

I dont think about them (until now) and nor do i hate them. Im older now and i wont give them that pleasure. I dont want hate to evolve into something more sinister.

[Shadowchaser]

I wonder why there are those of us that get bullied?  

It can't be that I was quiet because I knew plenty of quiet lads who never got bullied.  

The main thing I put it down to is my body type.  I'm an ectomorph. Tall and skinny. I have no degree of physicality. In fact I used to wear a bulky coat to school to try and make myself look bigger (broader).  My arms are like twigs.  

In fact even to this day I often feel under gunned if that makes sense.