The Victimhood Of Nick Buckley – he deserves compensation and sympathy

My last article was about Attributional Ambiguity which is a fancy name for victimhood culture. I thought it would be a fun exercise to victimise myself. What can I claim? Have I been persecuted? Who can I blame?

I was born a poor black boy on a plantation in Alabama. Oh wait a minute, that was Jesse Lee Peterson, not me. Let me start again.

I was born a poor white boy in Wythenshawe Hospital – that is better and more accurate. I was the son of an immigrant and was initially raised in an unhappy home frequented by violence. I had over a dozen homes in my first two years, including in Manchester, London and a foreign country.

From two years old I secured stability when my mother, my baby sister and I moved in with my maternal grandparents. We lived in a slum in Moss Side until the council condemned it as part of a massive slum clearance project. We were moved to a council house on the notorious Anson Estate in Longsight. Our slum home was demolished and today it is part of the Manchester Science Park.

By this period in my life, I had developed a stutter and struggled to pronounce words correctly. This still affects me today. Only a few people close to me ever notice my disability for I hide it well.

Stuttering in school was fun! I was the butt of many jokes and rightly so – it was fun to watch me struggle. I could not let others dominate me so I was the first person in a group to make fun of my stutter – I took away the power to hurt me by cracking the first joke. It worked - my speech infliction was never an issue for me. By the time I reached my teens, it was virtually gone except in times of extreme stress.

I was poor as a kid. I knew it. I was never hungry or wore rags, but I was poor compared to everyone else around me. All my friends had something that I did not have which money could not buy, they all had fathers in the home. I was very much the exception 50 years ago, but today it seems to be the norm.

I was seven years old when I was told by my mum that my father had died a few days earlier in a car accident on Princess Park Way in Chorlton – I was playing snooker on the kitchen table. The accident occurred on Halloween when two drunk men got into a car and crashed into a lamppost. The driver had the sense to put his seatbelt on and it saved his life. The passenger was not so bright and exited the car through the windscreen and died on the scene. My father was the passenger. I have no memories of him as I was two years old the last time I saw him.

A year later, my granddad died and I was left in a household full of women. My mum, gran, 2 aunties and a baby sister. I became over-feminised with no male role models in my life. This was picked up on by local kids who spent years calling me gay, homo and queer. This affected me, not in a life-changing way, but it definitely had an impact.

The worse part of my childhood was the transition from primary to secondary school and the following few years. I was deemed stupid probably due to my stutter, so was placed in a different class from all my friends for the first term. Also during this time, I had attracted two local bullies who made my life hell for several years. I do not mean name-calling and taking my sweets, but physical beatings.

It started because of a bag of chips that one of the bullies had purchased and bigger kids took handfuls until none were remaining. He was angry and took it out on me. He must have enjoyed it for it went on for years. I coped by developing a special skill, I can now see around corners. I was beaten up many times, but took solace from the times I spotted them first and avoid a beating. A decade later, one of them apologised to me. He had just come out of prison and had been reflecting on his behaviour and actions that led to his incarceration. The other bully never apologised. 30 years later, I helped his son with a volunteering opportunity when he was on probation and wanted to turn his life around. He never knew I knew his father and mother.

My schooling was poor. I did not know this until I went to college and sat next to kids who had been to better schools. I was in the top class at school and passed my exams without any real work. The school was tough, I knew that at the time. My music teacher was stabbed 39 times in the chest and survived. A new young female teacher was sexually assaulted by a dozen pupils when she was pushed into a stairwell corner. I could walk from my English lesson to the next classroom through a hole in the wall where kids had kicked out the breeze blocks to create a makeshift doorway. This school was closed down the year after I left.

What a childhood! But surely once I became an adult everything got better?

The first time I suffered an armed robbery was with a knife to my throat. I worked in a video shop when two black men came in and took the takings. The owner installed a higher counter and a glass screen. The same men came back a month later. I felt secure with the new counter and the baseball bat under it. Unfortunately, this time they had a gun and pointed it at my head. I testified in court and they were found guilty.

An argument with a taxi driver led to a dozen Asian men with weapons attacking me. I spent some time in the hospital and left with 19 stitches in my head. No prosecution.

I went for a part-time job in a Chinese restaurant but was not successful. When I chatted to the manager about why, he politely explained. He wanted a Chinese person for the job as customers expect Chinese staff in a Chinese restaurant.

Over many decades of my adult life, I paid more for services than the females I knew. I paid higher car insurance until the EU deemed it illegal. I paid entrance fees to bars and nightclubs where my girlfriends could happily walk in for free.

I have even been turned away from gay nightclubs for not being gay. I have been charged more for food at a cricket match compared to my Asian friends. I eventually sent them to buy my samosas and kebabs – at half price.

In 2020, I criticised BLM and the attack dogs came for me. I was ahead of the curve and knew this was a corrupt organisation, but the people were too happy being virtuous to deal with the truth. My employers sacked me over email for being a racist and a Nazi.

After a five-week fight, I got my job back, but never got my old life back. Within months of my victory, I resigned from my position as it was not tenable, my finances have never been the same since.

In my 55 years on this planet, have I ever felt like I was being persecuted? No.

Have I ever classed myself as a victim to seek sympathy? No.

Do I have any evidence that life has treated me unfairly? Yes.

Could I have worked harder, been a better person, and avoided many of my problems? Yes.

Life is hard. Always has been, and always will be. You do not win the game by giving up and crying like a child. You win with determination, by going that extra mile and believing in yourself.

I am a Victor, not a Victim.

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• Lessons In Courage, 2021: https://t.co/ey8xhpF6os

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