Published on 12, July, 2020
Just interested if anyone else has met a person in adult life who bullied them at school.
My father ran a small coach business, the yard had an office and occasionally people would book a coach in person. One day I was on my own in the yard, I would have been about 35 then. One of the school bullies turned up to book a coach. He was one of the worst ones, anyway he greeted me like an old friend, it shocked me and I was like a rabbit in the headlights. He really was after ‘mates rates’, I really didn’t know how to deal with him, had he forgotten or thought it was just a bit of fun, I couldn’t work it out, I started to wonder, did the years of abuse actually happen? But they are too vivid, they did happen. Another thought was, he’s pushing me for a cheap price, is he trying to bully me again. I so wanted to ask him why he did it but couldn’t. My father luckily came back to the yard and dealt with his enquiry. Has anything similar happened to anyone else?
At secondary school there was a Charlie Granger in my class. He and his friend Billy Biggs were horrible to me from the very first day to the last. I was called names, laughed at, books stolen, it was a bad time for me.
It would have been about five years ago, I was at the local garden centre with my sister, she was inside and I was sat in the car park as it was too busy for me to go in. I noticed a Ford Capri was parked on the other end of the car park, classic cars are my special interest and hobby, so I got out my phone and went to photograph it - as I was a man walked over to me, he said "She's a beauty isn't she?"
even though it had been years since I was at school I recognised his voice. I looked up and it was Charlie Granger. He looked a little older, hair was thinner, but it was him. He quickly recognised me and there was what I think was an awkward moment.
And then he surprised me. He apologised for how he used to treat me at school. He said he had difficult times at home growing up with a drunk and abusive father, he said he understood if I didn't forgive him but he wanted me to know it wasn't personal and he felt bad about it.
I stood silent. Trying to process everything. A woman walked over with a small girl, his wife and daughter. He introduced them and said I was an old school friend - "friend". He gave me his number, said we should keep in touch and off they went.
My old school bully actually texted me that night, rang me the next day and we've been in touch since then. I've met up with him and his wife. They even visited me when I was sectioned.
I forgave him and now he's my best friend.
This is a true story
I take it that you made those names up to cover the real ones? Because if not, Billy Biggs sounds like he was himself the victim of something adjacent to nominative determinism - his hname sounds perfect for the role.
To be serious though, that's a really heartwarming tale and restores a little faith in humanity
A truly lovely story, thank you for sharing it
That is a heart warming story.
Thank you for sharing it.
That’s really nice to read, I think if someone shows true remorse then we have to forgive them. It sounds as if you now friend feels guilty for what he did to you. My school was a boys school and a very violent place. I bumped into someone from school about a year ago, he was quite a decent person and quite like me, I had facts still stored about him so asked about his twin brother, his twin was one of the bullies. He told me that his brother had died about 4 years ago, he had drank himself to death, he blamed the culture at school. It wasn’t unusual for boys to come into school with bruises, the fathers would drink and then ‘take their belt off’ to the child, it was often I think because they were damaged and so it carried on to the next generation, I wonder if they thought, “ no one is ever going to hurt me again.” The hunted become the hunter.