Christmas is a time for reflection and for remembering things past. This one was no different. At various times over the period I remembered the Christmases we had in the past. The mountains of presents; shopping for the veg on Christmas Eve at “Wiggy’s” shop in Kington; having the open fire to sit around; and the people with whom we have shared our Christmases, including my sister (one time, I think).

However, it was also time to think of deeper things; things more hidden or, rather, not previously analysed.

This year, presents were short on the ground. Not only because of the money situation either. But it sharply focused my mind on the excesses of the past. How the number of presents were the over-riding factor.

And, that got me to thinking of the current situation. And for this, I must recount something from my childhood. Only a few people knew about this (and not even in this detail) before but now you will know too. I am NOT looking for sympathy since, in the overall scheme of things, much worse thing have happened to many, many other people. It is purely the backdrop to the thoughts of the situation and will, I hope, enable me to clarify my true feelings and future.

My parents, reasonably well-to-do, middle class people did all they could to ensure their children’s “happiness”. This included sending them to “good” (for that, read “fee-paying”) schools.

So I went to a preparatory school followed by the secondary school with the same name which was a few hundred yards up the street.

Not a huge move at 11 but, emotionally, it might as well have been the other side of the world. And the ramifications of the things that happened there follow me to this day.

For it was here that I learnt the art of bullying. And I learnt ways to stop it. And, much later, I learnt that the ways were false.

I’m afraid that the details are a little blurred in my mind. Did it happen over a couple of months; a year; or more? For me it was a whole lifetime. I’ve even forgotten most of the things that were done.

It proceeded quite quickly. Within one or two terms I had gone from being top in the class in nearly all subjects to being bottom or near bottom. And it was all due to this. It was one of the most valuable (?) lessons of my life.

1. Do NOT stand out from the crowd.

And it started simply. Apparently I have “full” lips. I guess, as a child, they were more noticeable. At this school we were called by our last names and, as there were three of us sharing the same name, our initial were tagged on to differentiate us. Maybe this was why they gave me a nickname? Anyway, I became known as “wog”. At first, I didn’t understand it having been brought up in a protected household. When I learnt what it meant, it hurt. It hurt more when it became the class nickname.

At the same time, or just afterwards, the kids who had coined the nickname started bullying me. >Besides name-calling, this also involved as many physical attacks of various kinds. I only remember one of them but, in my recollections, he was, more or less, the leader of the “gang”; and he was big for a kid of 11. He was also ugly with a protruding bottom jaw and quite podgy. His name was Grossman.

I was, I now understand, a pretty child. Maybe, looking back, it was that which galled him the most. That and the fact that I was quite brainy

Anyway, he started with the nickname and progressed to the physical stuff with his gang of perhaps 5 or 6.

Within a few months it seemed that the whole class were against me, taking every opportunity to attack me verbally or physically. I was so miserable (what fool came up with the idea that your school days are the best days of your life). I used to hate going into school; hated my lessons; but, more especially; hated the time when there wasn’t a lesson – break times, walking between classrooms, waiting for the teacher to arrive in class, etc.

After several months of this, I found the courage to tell my parents – or, maybe, they got the school report and the dramatic and sudden fall in my marks, I can’t remember. My father, who was a reasonably strong man, told me to fight back. He even showed me how to box. Me, being your real 7-stone weakling found that I just could not do it when surround by about 10 people all waiting to get the boot in in the playground.

I didn’t go back to my parents to explain this problem. I had wanted them to save me. Another lesson learned.

2. You’re on your own in this life. (Which is why I’m always so pleasantly surprised when someone does something to help)

However, I was resourceful. It was about this time I discovered smoking. This let me get an “in” to at least a crowd of some sort. But I also learnt another way. Armed with pockets full of sweets, I could interest other kids in what I had to give them. This gave me the main “false” lesson number 3.

3. Buying people things makes them like you.

Now there was one small problem. I didn’t have a regular income. I mean we had some pocket money, sometimes. So, how to get the money to purchase the sweets which would become gifts and make the bullies like me?

Located off my bedroom were some cupboards in which my parents kept jars of coppers. I can’t remember why. Anyway, these became useful spending money. In addition, my mother always left her purse around. Amazingly I never got caught – but surely they knew.

Anyway, before I left that school (I was only there 2 years) I had made “friends” with everyone although the nickname stuck which is, maybe, why I have not kept in touch with any of them. I still hate it to this day.

I’m not sure at which point the bullying actually stopped or even, if it really did. But then we moved and I left that school.

My father’s teaching of how to box was used by me once. Another boy, Christopher, was like me in terms of build. One of the “wet” kids. He was, sort of, one of my friends (and not the “bought” ones, I think) One day he annoyed me and we got into a fight. He was weaker than me. It was in the Maths classroom, I remember.

Anyway, remembering my father’s techniques, I started punching him in the face. And it worked! He sported at least one black eye for days after and there was a lot of blood.

I felt so bad about it afterwards that, after that, I never hit anyone again. In my head it would be the last time I would resort to physical violence. And, so it has remained. So, sorry Christopher.

And, since it was the nickname that had caused all this and how bad I felt about the violence thing, it gave me another invaluable lesson from that time.

4. Words have a more lasting effect than physical actions.

At some point, I also found that, by being a bully myself, I became one of the bully-gang members and that also helped to stop them bullying me. So, although I don’t remember it well, I also bullied others. This also led to another valuable but false lesson in life.

5. Copy what the others do and you will be fine.

Of course, I’ve spent the last 40 years trying NOT to bully people. Well, perhaps not 40 but, certainly, the last 30. I’m not always successful but I do try and am always watchful.

That summer, whilst my family were moving home, I was sent to the Boy’s Brigade camp on Guernsey. Here, given my coming out of the year or so of bullying, I learnt some more valuable lessons but those are for another time.

And the relevance now? Well, it is in regard to lesson number 3. At some point in the years following, I realised that this lesson was a false lesson. People are your friends because they like you.

But, just like going from first and second place to thirtieth or thirty-first in class, my reaction was dramatically in the other direction. I would only buy presents and spend money on those people that I really liked. But, for people I really liked I would spend my last penny on giving them gifts. If the person wasn’t my real friend they would get nothing.

Unfortunately, perhaps far too late, I realise that, in fact, even that was an extension of the “buying friends” thing. And, even when, over the years, the giving didn’t have the desired effect I would put the issue down to other things. Now, this Christmas, I realise that these physical gifts did not have any real affect; not that they were meaningless; not that I didn’t enjoy giving them. No, more that it really IS the thought that counts or, rather, it SHOULD BE the thought that counts and that, far too often, for me, it was not.