I went to Bishop Vesey's Grammar School for seven years. Some of my main memories from that time are bullying. Unfortunately, I was one of the kids who was bullied the most.

Verbal abuse

The most common form of bullying at Bishop Vesey's was verbal abuse. Insults were extremely common. We called it 'blazing'. Instead of insulting one another, we were 'blazing' each other. We congratulated the bully when he made a good 'blaze'.

Things boys made fun of about me:

• The fact my family was poor whereas most of the other boys were from middle-class families
• My lack of aptitude for sport
• The fact I enjoyed schoolwork, or at least didn't hate it like everyone else
• My hair (some of the front hairs used to stand up in a V-shape)
• The way I ate
• The way I spoke
• My Polish surname (Pietrzak)
• My bag (it was a cheap Head bag instead of an expensive Nike or Adidas bag)
• My dad's job
• My MP3 player (I had a cheap one and everyone else had iPods)
• The music I listened to
• The fact I liked Pokemon and Tamagotchis
• The fact I was somewhat autistic and came across as aloof to the other students

I made friends with a group of outcasts like myself. There was a fat kid, a Jewish kid, a nerdy kid, and me. We were like the Losers Club in It. We bonded over our ineptitude at sports and our enthusiasm for geeky things like Pokemon. The rest of the kids called us the "Gay Patrol".

The other boys were testosterone-fuelled and defiant, like James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause, a movie I've never seen and probably never will because it's in black and white and doesn't have an Avenger in it.

The fat kid was called Sam Cobley. Even though we were friends, he would insult and make fun of me every day. In some ways, he was more of a bully than a friend. He made fun of the way I ate. He said I ate like a giraffe. He made fun of the fact I was poor. He made fun of the bag I carried, the coat I wore, the pens I used, the way I walked, and the way I talked. It was a constant stream of jibes and insults. One kid – not Sam, to be fair – once even made fun of the size of my mouth, because apparently, my mouth was too small. I'm not sure what I could have done to rectify that problem and make that boy happy. Maybe he wanted me to have facial surgery.

I once confided in Sam that my dad was a part-time balloon modeller – it was true, my dad would go to Cannon Hill Park on weekends and make balloon models for money. But Sam went and told everyone that my dad was "a clown", which was not what I had said. People were soon saying things like, "Petey, is your dad a clown?" The main bully at the school, Michael Cotton, would pinch his nose and make a honking sound at me as if he was honking an invisible rubber nose.

Michael Cotton, by the way, was in the same class as me for English, Physics, Biology and Chemistry. That’s almost half of the classes I had for two years. He seemed to hate me more than any other student. He made it his job to make every lesson as uncomfortable for me as he could. If the teacher ever left the class for a minute, then he would spend that time honking his nose at me while the rest of the class laughed.

Theft

Another type of bullying is the theft of property. Theft of pens, pencils, school bags. One kid called Umar Hussein used to steal my pen or pencil during class and refuse to give it back. I needed the pen to do schoolwork. So I developed this tactic where I’d tell him, "My grandmother gave me that pencil before she died." He would then feel sorry for me and give it back.

One time, Umar stole my ruler, so I told him, "My grandmother gave me that ruler before she died." He was beginning to catch on though. “Did she really?” he asked. “Yes,” I said solemnly. He gave me the ruler back. But I could see he was beginning to doubt me. So I made sure to keep my things out of his reach from then on.

Umar once pulled on my tie so hard that it made the knot really small and it took me twenty minutes to get it loose. He also broke my ruler in half after I proudly told him it was shatter-proof.

Umar was also involved in a prank one day where the entire class conspired to hide my school bag. I was doing school work and had my bag under my desk when Umar took it without me noticing, He then used his feet to pass it down to the next table. The other students then passed it between themselves under their tables until it reached the far end of the classroom. Everyone was looking forward to seeing how I'd react to my bag going missing. Maybe they thought I'd panic. I didn't though. I was so used to the bullying by that point that at the end of the class, I just got up and retrieved my bag from the other side of the classroom as if nothing had happened.

Another time, my gym bag was stolen. I never found out who did it. I never got my gym kit back either and my mom had to buy a new one.

Physical bullying

There wasn't much physical bullying at Bishop Vesey's. No wedgies, swirlies, or throwing kids into lockers. The most that happened to me was Umar sometimes jabbed me with his ruler during Physics class. He did this because he thought it was funny.

Actually, an incident happened to me in Year 7. I was eleven years old. It was lunchtime and I went to my form room to use my locker. One of the boys in my class pushed me to the ground. I tried to get back up but another boy jumped on my back, forcing me back down. The boys formed a circle around me. Every time I tried to get up, a different boy would jump on my back, forcing me back down again. This went on for some time. I remember feeling helpless. Eventually, they let me up, and one of the perpetrators (a kid called Alex Parachristophorou) apologised, saying, "Sorry Petey, but it was just too funny."

Skipping school

Every day, I dragged myself to that school. Every day, I forced myself to go to a place where I knew I'd be bullied and ridiculed. As the bullying got worse, I started skipping school. Those days would start with a sick feeling in my stomach that I now recognise as anxiety. I would stand at the bus stop waiting for the bus to take me to school. Eventually, the anxiety would be too much for me and I'd cross the road and get the bus going the other way, to the city centre instead. There was nothing like the relief of knowing that today, at least, I wouldn't be facing the bullies at school. On the bus, I would take off my school blazer and tie and hide them in my rucksack, so I looked less like a school kid and more like an adult. It helped that I looked older than I was. People probably thought I was an office worker instead of a teenage kid skipping school.

The bus would arrive in the city centre and I'd get off near the Evening Mail building. I remember watching the hustle and bustle of office workers walking in and out the building, and I wondered if that would be my life in ten years, and it made me want to cry. I tried not to think about it. I had a handful of coins in my pocket my mom gave me for lunch, probably about £4, and about six hours to kill.

Birmingham city centre has a cinema called the Odeon, and some days I went to watch a film there. It was a strangely sad experience, going to watch a film on your own on a weekday afternoon. There were only a few other people in the audience, all seemingly jobless men. One day I watched Jackass: The Movie. No one questioned me, a 15-year-old boy, going to see an 18-rated film. I remember the men in the audience (always men on their own) found the movie hilarious. I didn't laugh so much. Another day I saw M. Night Shyamalan's Lady in the Water. I liked that film, but the men didn't like it, and they came out complaining about it.

After the cinema I would eat lunch in McDonalds alone and then go to the library where they had computers you could use for free. I liked sitting there at the computer with the internet in front of me. Downstairs was the children's library where my mom and dad had taken me every week to get books. Now I was too old for the children's library, which made me kind of sad.

At around 3 PM I'd get the bus back home. One day I remember I walked back home, just for something to do, and it must have taken hours. Before I got home, I would take my tie and blazer out of my rucksack and put them on. I would get home and pretend like I'd gone to school that day. My mom knew that school was hard for me so she made a big point of cheering whenever I came home after school, I guess to try to cheer me up. She never suspected when I'd skipped school.

I skipped school five or six times, and people began to notice. My form teacher, Mr. Robson, told me to stay behind after registration one day. When the other boys had left and we were alone, he asked, "Where were you yesterday?" I told him I had been ill. "Well for that, I'll need a sick note from one of your parents." I assured him I'd bring in one tomorrow. But I never did, and he forgot about it.

At morning break, one friend said to me, "You missed so many D&T classes, Petey, it's like you're never there."

I stopped skipping school because I knew someone would find out eventually.

Changing my name

My experience at Bishop Vesey's hurt me so much that I changed my name because of it. My name - Paul Pietrzak - was so bitterly tainted with taunts and insults from school that, at the age of 22, I changed it by deed poll to Paul Jones. It was a cathartic experience. Now my Vesey name, 'Pietrzak', had no more power over me. I could be someone other than the lonely, bullied kid at school.

Conclusion

If there's one thing I've learned from this, it's that I won't be sending my kids to Bishop Vesey's.