Plug

He'd decided I owed him some cigarettes, I don't know why, but he had, and every time he saw me he'd demand them. It was usually done in a jokey way, and I wasn't too worried about it. Every time he shouted, “Where's my fags?” at me, I'd respond with the same answer, “I'm twelve, where am I going to get cigarettes?”. It felt like it was just maybe a running joke.

Our dorm was just sitting about chatting one evening when somebody suddenly said that Benny Hill was on TV and we should go watch it. There was 7 or 8 of us, running down the front stairs to the cellar common room where the TV was. At the bottom of the front stairs, on the ground floor, there was a hall, where the payphone you could call home from was, there was a radiator either side of the hall and kids would often be hanging about there. T, and some other kids from his year were there, and as I ran past, the familiar shout rang out, “Oy, Robinson, where's my fags you owe me?”

I stopped, gave my usual response, “How am I going to buy fags? I'm 12.”

Usually this would be the end of it, he'd shout “You owe me 30 fags,” and I'd carry on, but this time he responded, “Come here..”

I went over to him, he was much taller than me, being 3 years above me at school, he was skinny, buck toothed and trophy eared. His peers called him Plug because of his resemblance to the character from the Bash Street Kids in The Beano. He was staring down at me, half smiling, half angry.

“You owe me 30 fags, why haven't you got me them yet?”

“Why do I owe you fags?”

“You just do, where are they?”

“I don't smoke..”

“Where are my fags?”

“How am I supposed to get them? I don't have any money and anyway I'm too young to buy them.”

The back and forth went on for a while, with a couple of dead arms and stomach punches thrown in for good measure, then it was time for the actual torture to start.

He put me in a variety of stress positions, I guess he'd learned them from older kids or from scouts or cadets, they were all fairly regular things to happen, I'd been put in them before. First there was 'Ninety-degree wall-sitting' where you lean against a wall in the position you would be in if you were sitting on a chair, the pain kicks in quite quickly and soon becomes unbearable, you would start to wobble uncontrollably and eventually fall. Every time I fell, I would receive a few kicks and then be put back in position, all the time it was happening he was verbally abusing me too.

Next he put a dot on the wall that I had to keep the tip of my nose on, to do this I had to stand on the furthest reach of tip toes, if I moved, a punch to the kidneys, a slap across the back of the head so my nose smacked into the wall. All the while he was snarling in my ear and kicking me in the backs of my legs. This went on for quite a while, and by the time he was bored of that, we were alone, all the other kids had moved away while I was facing the wall.

Now he was right up in my face, he had hold of me by my jumper and was snarling and shouting at me about how much he fucking hated me and how dare I be so fucking rude to him. I don't think I said anything back now, I was crying too hard, and scared.

He dragged me across the hall and into a room at the top of the cellar steps that had been a sixth form common room but was now unused, bare walls, a few chairs, hard lino floor. He started to throw me around the room, picking me off the floor and throwing me back down, kicking, punching and shouting. I remember a big trail of snot and tears flying off my face onto the floor and he held me down and made me lick it up, then he flung me around some more, all the while kicking me if I was down, hitting me, all the while shouting obsceneties at me. I remember looking at his face, just terrified, there was foamy spit at either side of his mouth, pure hatred in his eyes. Eventually he picked me up and held me against the wall and screamed in my face,

“Spread your fucking legs! I want to kick you in the bollocks!”

There was no way I was going to do this, no way at all.

“No..”

“Spread your fucking legs you cunt!”

“No.. I won't.”

Punch in the head, drop to the floor, picked up, slammed against the wall.

“Spread your fucking legs you little cunt, I am going to kick your fucking bollocks off”

I kind of believed him, things had gone so far now that I was scared for my life, I didn't think he would ever stop, and I was sure that castration was in my future. I have no idea how I managed it but I slipped his grip and bolted for the door, he almost had me again as I was trying to open it but then I was through and running down the hall. All I could think was that I should get to the headmasters house, that that would be the only safety.

He looked genuinely shocked when he opened the door, I had been hammering on it right up until he did though.

“Help, I've been beaten up..” was all I could say.

He took me back into the boarding house, to the Housemasters office and they both quizzed me at length, he kept saying that I was making a very strong accusation and asking if I was making anything up, I was so distressed I was practically hysterical. They looked for T but he'd run off, for now. Eventually I was sent back up to my dorm, I just went to bed, exhausted.

The next day was when things got bad.

There was an ancient system at the school called 'Form Privilege' or 'Form Priv' for short, basically it was a licence for older kids to use younger kids as slaves. The older kids would push to the front of the queue in the dining room, and would also shout younger kids to get them cups of tea, slices of bread and butter etc.

I realised that the situation wasn't over as every single boy from T's year and some from above punched me, hard, as they pushed past, every one of them hissing “GRASS” at me as they did it, when I eventually got my breakfast, as soon as I sat down, “ROBINSON!” I went over to their table, one of them asked for a cup of tea. I got it, went back to my table, sat down, “ROBINSON!” Someone else wanted a slice of bread. This went on until breakfast was finished and I had to throw mine away uneaten because it was time for school.

At lunchtime it happened again.

Then again at teatime.

Then again at breakfast the next day.

And on and on for a couple of weeks.

I remember sitting on the window ledge in the dining room one lunchtime with my uneaten meal on my tray on my knee, crying, big painful sobs full of despair, just thinking, “Why?”

Every register that was read by a prefect, my name was substituted for Grass, everywhere I went at school it was shouted at me, random punches constantly. T didn't even get suspended or anything, he was gated for two weeks, ie he had to stay in the boarding house after tea.

One of his friends, A.H., spent a year making it his business to punish me. He would come and find me every day and as well as the daily beating he would make me change my t-shirt if it was one with a band on. If he saw me wearing it again that day, well that was the end of that shirt and also a further beating, I can't imagine how much effort that must have been for him, because he did manage it every day. A few years ago I got his email address from the Friends Reunited website and sent him a long email asking him why and telling him how his actions, had affected my life since school. He wrote back, which surprised me, but just to say that he didn't remember any of that and that I must have him confused with someone else, which didn't. When he left school he joined The Met, good to know that such people are looking after us.