Now that research has shown that childhood bullying produces long-term detrimental effects, it is even more urgent that every effort be made not only to put an end to bullying but also to seek out and embrace and protect its victims, to help them summon the courage to be who they truly are, to find and follow their bliss.

As I got a bit older Bill began taking me out to some of his favourite haunts. We smoked Dunhill cigarettes and we drank whiskey from a mickey he kept in the glove compartment of the Beetle as we drove through Stanley Park. He talked to me of music and of the meaning and value of friendship and loyalty.

Professor Wolke points out that “the worst outcomes we found [were] for those children who were bullied at school and bullied at home. Just imagine the child: you go to school and you get victimized there, and then you go home and the same thing happens there – because these are children who don’t have a safe place anywhere.”

A person who has been bullied does not “grow out of” the fear that unremitting bullying causes; the fear simply goes underground, quietly working its poison into the nervous system of a life, shutting down passion, stifling creativity, mocking love.