Halcyon Days? Better keep your head down.

 

Were you ever bullied at school? I've been victim and perpetrator, both are inextricably linked. 

It's winter, 1969. A skinny twelve-year-old high school girl – let’s call her Judith - paces along the footpath next to the tram tracks. She's on her way to the bus stop around the corner; on that particular day, a very long block away. She and a quiet companion, Jill, in grey school tunics and blazers, are just ahead of a hunting pack of vixens from their class. Jill, stares ahead, solemn-faced, despite knowing she isn’t their target. The pack taunts and brays at Judith. 'Whaddarya? Cow! Think you're too good? Not so tough now!" Judith's hunched shoulders and white face betray her fear as she hurries along, hefting the weight of her enormous grey vinyl school bag.

The day before, their form 2 teacher had needed to leave the classroom. Before going, she’d handed a pupil, Laureen, one of Judith’s primary school friends, a piece of chalk instructing her to write on the board the name of anyone who talked while she, the teacher, was out of the room.

The class erupted into chatter once the teacher was out of earshot. Laureen joined in the fun, daring with her powerful chalk, cheekily writing names to peels of laughter and protest, then quickly dusting them off. It was fun. Unfortunately, Laureen hadn’t removed one name quickly enough. The teacher returned and on seeing it reprimanded the whole class and gave them detention the following afternoon.

As they left the classroom that day, Judith gave Laureen a harmless push. Well, Judith had been ‘going with’ Greg, whose name was left on the board and who’d been singled out for a vicious, undeserved telling off. As his girlfriend at the time, it was her duty to stick up for him. The detention meant they’d miss the dedicated school bus, have to walk a couple of blocks to the bus stop and get home an hour later than usual. So unfair!

Judith, twelve, oblivious, had poked a bear.

Next day, a miasma of menace swirled through the classrooms and the B block corridor where they had their lockers. It snaked around her. Now, Middlemarch, not Laureen, was the unwitting offender. How dare she have pushed Laureen who’d only been having fun? Who did Middlemarch think she was? She should be taught a lesson. “Hey, no one talk to Middlemarch, that’ll teach her; that’ll teach that smartarse bitch. Hey, let’s get her after school. Yeah!”

After the detention on her way to the bus stop, Judith knows she’s in for it. There’s no escape; no rescue. Jill is keeping out of it and daren’t draw attention. She’s brave even walking next to Judith. Judith is defenceless.

The pack was straining to give Middlemarch what she had coming.

One of the pack broke ranks and overtook Judith on the footpath. Brenda, with her sharpie swagger and hitched up school tunic, seemed to be walking ahead. Suddenly she turned. Smiling, she sashayed back and slapped Judith hard across the face with an open hand. Judith felt the sting on her teeth and her eyes filled with treacherous tears. Jill said nothing. Stunned, only faltering slightly, they continued their determined march towards the corner bus stop. Once there, Judith, heart racing, knees shaking, was backed up against the shop window. surrounded by vicious, slavering teen-girl delinquents.

“Throw down your bag and fight! Whaddarya? Chicken! Fight! Bitch!”

Clutching her bag, trying to look unfazed, Judith held her ground despite her trembling legs. She dared not move, waiting for the pack to attack and rip her hair out. Fortunately, sticks and stones didn’t break her bones but the words left permanent bruises. Eventually the bus arrived and Judith scrambled on, sitting at the front near the driver to avoid the scowling mob who’d sauntered to their usual back seat. With snarled threats and insults, one by one teen girls alighted at their respective stops. Judith’s was last and she was home free.

The threat passed and within a few weeks the pack, the curiously attractive rough girls, had another victim lined up in their sights. Anne hadn’t done anything, but she’d unconsciously entered no man's land merely by being in that school corridor at that age – twelve, thirteen - and somehow being noticed. Parting her hair ‘wrong’, wearing her school uniform wrong, being quiet, being loud, being dumb, being clever, looking at something? “Whatcha lookin at?” Who knew? Getting above herself, not quite understanding the vagaries of pubescent etiquette, Anne, too, needed to be knocked down. Judith, subdued, had watched from a safe distance across B Block locker bay as a mob formed, hoping for an impromptu bash-up before third period. Judith didn’t step in to help her primary school friend, Anne, whose blonde hair framed a face drained of colour while Sharon stood over her, berating her, wanting to fight. Judith was simply relieved it wasn’t her.

So here I sit, 54 years on, wondering why I’m attending the 50-year reunion of that high school where I formed those hellish memories.