Pav’s Patch: What’s best... fight or flight?

MY mother was just about the most peaceful person you could meet . . . well, unless she thought you were reading your copy of The Buster rather than getting ready for school.

She had a bad time in the war and hated violence.

Yet, when it came to going to school, she would always say: “If anyone hits you, make sure you hit them back. If you have to, you kick them.”

Now this is fine, in theory. The problems come if you hit the big bully, fail to hurt him, and he then hits you back.

As my Uncle Clarence used to tell me, if you’re going to swing the first punch, make sure they go down.

This reminds me of two stories. The first concerns a lad called Phil who was in the year below me at school.

He came from a very good family, was always impeccably dressed with a neatly ironed hanky, but had a slight speech impediment. This made him the butt of some ribbing and he would always wade in. Trouble was he always came off second-best. He never learned.

On the other hand, when my elder son started at high school, he came home and told me that a boy was upsetting him and calling him names.

I asked: “Is he bigger than you?” “No, he’s a lot smaller,” came the reply. And then, without thinking, I said: “Well, why don’t you just chin him.”

I never thought number-one son would take me up on it but he returned home the following day with a detention slip.

Not only had he chinned the annoying classmate, he had done so right outside the staff room in full view of several teachers.

His mother was not happy with me that night. I was accused of bringing up her precious boy to be a thug.

Funnily enough, my son and the other lad went on to become very good friends.

And that takes me on to a newsagent friend. He once turned round to see a man trying to steal a carton of cigarettes. Ted immediately leaped the counter, grabbed the man by the shoulder, spun him round and hit him with all the force he could muster.

The man just stood there and blinked. At which point Ted said: “Take what you like.”

Allow me to finish with these words of wisdom from “Billy Bunter’s Holiday Annual” published in 1967: “He who fights and runs away, may live to fight another day. But he who stays and takes his chance may exit in an ambulance.”