Why bullies win

Remember when Friends Reunited was a thing? Twenty-something years ago, before Facebook even existed, this primaeval social networking site connecting people with their old schoolmates was the most searched thing on the UK internet. It is, now, at one with Nineveh and Tyre. In fact, the only truly memorable thing it achieved was to inspire a black-hearted spin-off site called ‘Bullies Reunited’.

That site purported to help reconnect the pre-teen thugs of yesteryear with their sniggering accomplices, or the boys and girls whose knees they’d skinned, pigtails twisted or Y-fronts wedgied to shreds. It was a joke, but a good one.

The nastiest, most aggressive, most tantrum-prone ten-year-olds grew up to be the most successful 46-year-olds

Because you do remember the bullies, don’t you? For all that Thomas Hughes loved pious Doctor Arnold, the standout character in Tom Brown’s School Days, as George Macdonald Fraser recognised, was Flashman. Most of those of us who grew up with Grange Hill in the 1980s will, I dare say, remember only two characters clearly.