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Assuredly there are infinitely greater numbers of individuals whose surname is 'Brown', than those with the very un-traditional British surname of Wiener. Woe betide the child with an unusual name, for he becomes an irresistible taunting magnet to school bullies. Or perhaps just those with a somewhat warped sense of humour. Or those youngsters who have been ill bred and taught.

On the other hand, it's a kid-thing, isn't it? When young people are irritated by others causing them grief they're liable to act out in their own fashion, protesting against the injustice of it all. Or they remain locked within themselves, resisting the appeal of fighting back and nurse their own special social misery. To state simply that children can be cruel is truly an understatement.

I still recall as a child how devastated I felt when a gang of my peers (not my friends) who lived up the street, would heckle and jeer when they saw poor little innocent me: "Rita, Rita, kiss my feeta down the streeta". That marked me for life. Almost 70 years on, I still recall the burning, irritating frustration. (Those who know me can attest that I am not normal, now; marred for life from the unfairness of it all.)

Which didn't stop me, years later, still young, but old enough to know better, from joining in when a young girl was singled out for the availability of her name, slightly different than those of the others around us: Anna. She was regaled with "Anna-Banana". And although I liked Anna-Banana very much, I thought the extension of her name so sweet, though she did not.

There are times when a child fights back, and slings his own verbal shots to counteract those hurled at him. We do teach our children not to resort to physical violence, but we do not necessarily teach them to absorb and slough off perceived personal insults. Nor should we. And it is most untrue that "sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me", for they do.

And when ten-year-old Harrison Wiener experienced bullying in his schoolyard in Oldham, northwest England, as a bully made a mockery of his surname, he returned the compliment. Harrison was called "sausage boy" by the bully, and Harrison called the bully "chocolate brownie". Both are Caucasian, the reference to colour simply derived from the surname.

Yet school authorities thought this rather amiss, and teachers at Thorp Primary school felt Harrison's to be a racist rejoinder, insisting that he apologize. The incident was written on his school file, and a report made to the local education authority. In an absurd instance of adults behaving like complete and utter asses.

Likely they too were tormented by school bullies at an impressionable age, and the carnage wrought to their sensitive cerebral functioning marked them too, for life.