I drank and smoked and had an anger inside me that was far beyond the usual teenage angst. I kept it bottled up, though, most of the time. The face I presented to the outside world was one of indifference and I think most people just thought I was odd and disaffected – and perhaps that’s what made me an easy target for the school bullies. And once the bullying starts, it becomes a vicious circle: the more I was bullied, the angrier I became; and the angrier I was, the more oddly I behaved; so then I was bullied even more … On one occasion, I was thrown over a wall by a couple of girls. I was skinny and small for my age, and they just picked me up bodily and tossed me over it. I was bruised and cut, but otherwise not badly hurt, physically at least. Another time my head was pushed down into the bowl of a toilet, which was then flushed repeatedly, until I thought I really was going to drown. And one day some girls held me down while another one cut the hair off on one side of my head.
