When the bullying first started I told my family. My father worked long hours and couldn’t really take time off work to do anything about it. He did go to my primary school to see my headmaster once, but I can’t remember anything really changing and the bullying continued.
When I was in the second year of secondary school, I was so afraid of going to school that my mother went to see my headmaster. He told me to tell him who the culprits were and I chose the four people who I thought had bullied me the most. To be honest, I could easily have chosen most of my class because nearly all of them were responsible for bullying me, but I think the headmaster would have thought I was mad or making things up.
I must add that my teachers were not approachable at all. A couple of them were really nasty, maybe because of all my absences. I felt really alone, as if the torture would never end, wishing my parents could have done more to deal with the bullying.
This all happened between 40 and 50 years ago. Maybe some things have changed and schools deal with these things differently today. Many schools have anti-bullying policies and do their best to tackle school bullying. However, I know from listening to current news stories that bullying still goes on in schools and in workplaces all over the country.
Get involved with Anti-Bullying Week on social media using these hashtags:
Related: Anti-Bullying Week