I AM lying on this long, black couch because I have to get something off my chest. So pick up your notebooks and listen.

It is something that has left me permanently scarred. Whenever a certain person comes within spitting distance, I still break out in cold sweats.

It's all about bullying.

We all know that bullying goes on in or outside of every school but it's the way it is dealt with that makes the difference between life being tolerable or a misery.

Bullies are cunning and are expert at getting away with it.

Their reign of terror can include calling you names, hitting, pinching, biting, pushing and shoving, taking things away from you, stealing your money, taking your friends away from you, spreading rumours, threats and intimidation.

Nowadays there are lots of websites for bullied youngsters to seek advice.

Their recommendation is if you are being bullied tell a friend, tell a teacher and tell your parents. It won't stop unless you do.

It can be hard to do this so these Internet sites advise that if you don't feel you can do it in person, write a note to your parents explaining how you feel.

I was the victim of a cold, callous bully - my big brother. If computers had been invented when I was a lad, I would have gone on the worldwide web to get help. I would have written a note to my parents but we couldn't afford the stamp.

It was not that he stopped me on the way to school and forced me to hand over my dinner money, partly because I never stayed for school dinner in my life.

He did not call me names, chase me on to the A1 or beat me up as such. It's just that I was the butt end of his childhood pranks.

He was eight years older than me, still is, oddly enough, and he resented having his stupid kid brother foisted on him whenever he went out with his pals. "Take our Billy with you," shrieked mum every time.

Sorry if I'm going on a bit, doctor.

Anyway, his catalogue of cruelty included shutting me for what seemed like hours in a massive drawer built into a wardrobe; he shot me in the eye with an arrow tipped with a rusty nail; he threw me into a pond on a fishing expedition and would keep the light on reading - Lady Chatterley's Lover - late into the night in the bedroom we shared.

A lot of the action took place when I was around four or five. One day he carried my little trike to the top of the stairs and told me it would be great fun if I rode it to the bottom.

Stupid little brother agreed and set off bumping down the steps. Half way down I went bum over chest, right over the handlebars and landed on my head at the bottom. Mum brought me round with brandy. Friends will say that explains my adult behaviour and my liking for alcohol.

Once mother had seen I was OK, Big Bro was in for another thrashing.

One snowy December he went out snowballing and mum insisted Billy went too. Which he resented. So when he and his pals ran off, and I followed them to an old air-raid shelter, I could hear them but not see them.

My brother called me from the flat roof of the massive shelter and I looked up - only to find they had rolled a giant snowball which they pushed over the edge to crush and bury me.

You would have thought I would have learned, but one day after my kiddie afternoon nap, he actually suggested playing a game - follow-my-leader. I did not notice he skipped over a particular spot in the garden so I ran over it and sank to my waist in a pit.

It had been cleverly disguised like an elephant trap, was filled with water and lined with nettles.

It all stopped when I was allowed out with my own pals. Then he became a protective, considerate older brother who would spend weeks building me a wooden fort or leather holsters for my cowboy guns at Christmas.

The consolation was, no one else ever bullied me because Big Brother was around.

I like to think that my suffering helped hundreds of other poor kids many years later, because my brother became a teacher and if his pupils took their problems to him, he had enough experience of bullying to know just what to do.

When a little sister came along eight years after I was born, I made sure her life was absolute bliss.

Updated: 09:58 Tuesday, June 15, 2004