Bullying

In secondary school I was bullied. It was the school culture that older kids bullied younger ones who got their turn eventually.

Being bullied was only to be expected. I wasn't the right shape and was always a geek. I talked as if I had swallowed a dictionary. I was good at no known sport.   My proud record was that in 6 years of compulsory cross-country, I ran on not a single occasion. I preferred to evaporate invisibly to the library. My hair was unfashionable and apparently sculpted by a topiarist on drugs. None of my uniform fitted well. The family maxim was: buy large, and grow into it. The tie was a pretty good fit, but that was it. I was, dear reader, a mess.

But peaceable. As a young teenager I was very verbal, but not physically aggressive. 

On one occasion, caught between lessons in some far-flung and forgotten corridor,  an older kid was pushing me around again. He was enjoying it, and a small crowdlet was gathering for the fun. There wasn't much fun at my school.

Unexpectedly, I had suddenly had enough.

I hit him and hit him again. He wasn't expecting it, and neither was I. I can remember feeling out of control. It was frightening. He sank, hands to his face, his nose broken. Blood everywhere.

Some kids pulled me off, while others picked him up.

I can see it in stills in my head even now. 

He was taken to hospital. I was taken to the Headmaster, and, after a few days of investigation, got a telling off and some suitably lofty advice.

But that afternoon was the last time I was ever bullied at school, and also the last time I ever struck anyone in anger.

What to make of this ? Not something to be proud of, violence. Nowadays I think of myself as a pacifist in all circumstances, personal and political. Violence feels like a failure of imagination, an admission of defeat in losing the argument.

However unacceptably, in one instance at least it got the result I needed. But I have always regretted the incident, and becalmed in later life wish I could find the bloke, now in his mid-60s somewhere, and apologise. It still feels like a huge failure, a betrayal of myself.