'My boarding school bully has started working with me – and pretends she didn't make my life hell'
telegraph.co.uk– BulliedWe are not going to tell you what you should feel. But the one thing you shouldn’t feel is ridiculous. Childhood bullies hold a special place in all of our hearts.
It is formative stuff with huge resonance: much of our adult behaviour is informed by these kinds of experiences.Boarding school then was not boarding school now.
It was, for some, isolating and often cruel. No emails or mobiles. Letters censored, telephone calls banned. Dislocating small children from their home, making them build a carapace around their feelings and vulnerabilities.A friend of Emilie’s described how on his first night in his dorm, he heard the boy in the neighbouring bed begging Matron for a hug.
All he remembers thinking is, ‘Thank God I’m not the one saying that,’ realising, even at the age of seven, that the other boy was exposing himself in a way that left him wide open.Thirty years ago, it was sink or swim.
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