Enough To Make You Spit?

Punching and kicking can hurt but what is the problem with being on the  receiving end of  a stream of phlegm? Full on, right in the face. Well for a start it's a health hazard. TB is making a comeback and when that fact is allied to an increase in spitting it becomes an even bigger concern.

 I was a victim of unprovoked spitting back in the middle 50s; I must have been about five foot five inches tall and seemingly easy pickings for a much taller bully. The perpetrator  was about three years older than me and at the time seemed to be about six feet tall. His name was Waugh and I thought better of retaliation; after all I was at the entrance to the cinema in Station Road and looking forward to the show; for another thing 5'5' v 6 feet is a bit like New Brancepth FC v Newcastle United FC Ltd. No chance. No way.

What was going through his geographically large but strangely tiny brain? Was he envious about my shorts or the shilling in my pocket courtesy of my grand-dad Dicky Hope? It could not be the latter because the shilling was not on show. Was this Waugh a victim of some disease  known only to sociology, or some other ology?

I certainly made amends even though I had not sought to do so. He cornered me not far from Temperance Terrace, sometime after the original incident, and my response was to kick him in the leg and run. He hopped about in pain as well as surprise and never bothered me again. 

Were you ever bullied at school? Perhaps you were a bully but reformed in adulthood. Perhaps you were able to go through school without any such trouble. I do know that at least one member of 4a was unhappy at school because of bullying but the details will remain confidential forever. 

Dennis the Menace never went to our school. I cannot recall a red and black striped jumper and sticky up black hair. I can recall the late Titchy Thompson as being a fly in the hair but he was no bully to speak of.

WB