a blog post from Dave Snowden
I would not normally bring this to you but it struck a chord with me.
Dave starts out by talking of childhood experiences but then branches out into the meat of his post – the bullying that goes on in employment.
A lot of the standard childhood books of my generation dealt with the subject of bullying. I was allowed Jennings and Derbyshire but forbidden Billy Bunter as my mother shared Orwell’s derision of Frank Richard’s writing. During that period the BBC produced a series based on Tom Brown’s School Days where the character of Flashman is in many ways the archetypal bully. That was considered as suitable viewing so we watched that and revealed in the final victory of our hero and the humiliation of the bully. As an aside, in respect of maternal censorhip James Bond and Biggles were absolutely forbidden and had to be covertly smuggled in from the Library or read on visits to cousins subject to less maternal constraint. For those unfamiliar with the genre, Harry Potter draws heavily on the tradition of English School novels, Hogwarts having many features in common with Linbury Court.
In all of these the bully is ultimately shown up as a coward by our plucky hero.
Would that were the case in real life. I still remember issues in both primary and secondary school with members of the North family, the caning of one just making things worse. Bullying remains an issue in schools and one that is intractable in nature but what is really scary is that it carries on in adult life.
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