Being bullied as a young child left indelible marks on Monica Gabb. Now she has turned her experiences into a book to help other children. She talks to Ruth Campbell.

MONICA GABB was in her final year at primary school when her world suddenly became a dark and troubled place. People she thought were her friends didn’t want to know her. There were rude comments and name-calling. She didn’t understand why.

To a ten-year-old girl, whose mother died after suffering breast cancer two years earlier, there didn’t seem to be anywhere to turn. She felt hurt, isolated and confused, and couldn’t face school and the cruelty she endured there.

“You are on your own at school. I felt completely alone all day, and time went so slowly,”

she recalls. Seventeen years later, Monica can remember her feelings of anxiety as if it were yesterday. And that is why she has decided to help other children who may be going through the same ordeal.

Now a successful graphic designer and lecturer, based in Ripon, North Yorkshire, Monica has produced a powerfully-expressive illustrated book, Words Don’t Hurt, to tell her story.

She also runs workshops and gives talks to children in primary schools. “I want to encourage them to discuss bullying with their parents and teachers. Many victims keep it to themselves in fear that telling someone would make things worse,” she explains.

She was inspired to have the book printed by the 11-year-old son of a friend who was being bullied at school, and set up her own publishing company, Mimo Publications. “He was really brave. It was through talking about it with his mum that they managed to resolve it together.

He stood up to the bullies, he invited them to play with him,” she says.

Bullying, she stresses, is not always overt and children don’t always recognise what is happening to them at first. “My best friend in primary school was very controlling,” she recalls.

“That turned into a form of bullying: everybody did as she said and suddenly nobody would talk to me.

“I remember vividly standing in the dinner queue and no one would talk to me. It makes you feel so excluded, so alone. One girl did whisper to me secretly once ‘I am still your friend, but don’t tell her I said that,’ that is how controlling the bully was.”

Words Don’t Hurt, which is being promoted by the Harrogate-based national charity Bullying UK, describes Monica’s feeling of dread before school every morning. “It’s here again, it’s in my head. It’s in my throat, that fear and dread.

My stomach tightens, I feel sick, every mouthful seems to stick.”

Told from a child’s perspective, the poetic narrative describes the pain the bullies cause. Accompanied by dark, troubling illustrations, Monica’s emotions spill onto the page. “I slam the door, walk down the road. I feel as if I may explode. The tension’s more than I can bear. I hate my life, it’s so unfair. I see the school, I reach the gate.

I see the gang who lie in wait. I wish I could just disappear. And rid my life of all this fear.”

As an adult, Monica can look back on these events and put them in context. She can now understand that the girl who was bullying her had problems at home. “Bullying doesn’t always involve punching or name-calling, it can be much more subtle.”

She didn’t talk about it, because she didn’t recognise what was happening. “But my attitude at home changed. I was really horrible. I was quite angry and I didn’t know why.”

Things came to a head when she slammed the door in her stepmother’s face. “She refused to move until I told her what was happening.

So we talked through the door. I said I wanted to leave the school. “I hadn’t realised it was a form of bullying, I thought this girl was my friend,” she says.

Colour and light break through onto Monica’s pages as she realises that talking about her suffering helps. She has embroidered the kind words spoken by her stepmother to illustrate how much they meant to her, and uses striking, colourful fabrics and prints to bring the pages to life.

Monica is keen to emphasise how quickly everything was resolved once things were brought out into the open. “We all had a meeting with the headteacher. The girl involved made more of an effort with people after that.

Maybe she didn’t realise she was doing it either.

“Unless it happens to you, you don’t realise how something like this can affect you. If you don’t talk about it, you suffer in silence and it affects you so much. There are so many different ways of dealing with issues.”

Words Don’t Hurt has already received positive reviews from anti-bullying organisations, including Bullying UK, whose founder, John Carnell, describes it as “one of the most creative, thought-provoking books I have read on the subject.”

And reviewers on the internet have spoken of being “moved to tears”.

One says: “I wish I had this book when I was at school. I wish I could have read it with my parents and let them know how solitary and alone being bullied feels.”

When Monica visits schools, she discusses what it feels like to be bullied. Children ask questions and talk about their own experiences, she says. “Bringing it out into the open gets rid of the taboo. They see how emotions change when you talk about it.”

Although her bullying felt like a terrible ordeal at the time, Monica says: “It hasn’t scarred me for life, it hasn’t affected my friendships at all. In a way, it has helped because I understand how important it is to children when things go wrong.”

Through Words Don’t Hurt, Monica is turning those early years of pain and suffering into something positive.

■ Words Don’t Hurt, (Mimo Publications, £5.95). Bullying UK, which offers free information and advice to victims of bullying and their families, is selling Monica’s book through its website, bullying.co.uk and Monica is donating ten per cent of all proceeds to the charity. You can also buy the book at mimoweb.co.uk