CAROL ELLIS describes herself as a gentle, sensitive person – and as such she was an easy target for the bullies who made her school days so unpleasantly memorable that today, more than four decades later, she still feels distressed when she hears of children being bullied.

Our recent story about a Colne Valley girl, Sabrina Pollock, who claimed she was punched in the face after suffering months of racial abuse and physical assaults left Carol saddened.

"It made me realise that the bullies always seem to win in the end and that nothing has changed," she said.

Originally from Lancashire, Carol’s parents moved from Burnley to Southport when she was primary school age. She says she was initially bullied for having a different accent. It was to be the start of a nightmare experience that she believes altered the course of her life.

"I had quite a broad Burnley accent and the other children made my life miserable because of it," she explained. "What surprised me is that the teachers made fun of me too, which was very cruel. They used to stand me in front of the class and make me read poetry just to show me up."

So from the age of seven Carol – who is now 60 – learned that people who were different stood out and attracted the attention of bullies.

"I was actually quite quiet and shy and the experience took my confidence away very quickly,’’ she said. "Nobody wanted to play with me."

By the time she was enrolled in her third primary school – this time in Accrington – Carol didn’t expect to make friends.

"I was only there for a year," she said. "Being passed from school to school meant that I didn’t really have the chance to make friends."

But it was at secondary school, again in Accrington, that Carol really found out just how intimidating bullies can be.

She explained: "I tended to stand and watch the others playing rather than involve myself, so I was a target for a group of girls who found it hilarious to use me as a verbal punchbag.

"They would push me about and pull my hair but most of the bullying was psychological. They’d threaten me with what they’d do to me outside of school and pushed caterpillars and bits of animals they had been dissecting down my clothes. They frightened me witless.

"If I had any baking they used to take it off me so I never got home with any. I had to lie to my mum about it and say that I’d spoiled everything I’d baked."

And yet despite the fact that the bullying went on until she was 15-years-old and could leave school, Carol didn’t report it to teaching staff.

She said: "My mum and dad knew I wasn’t very happy at school, but when I told them about the girls they just said ‘don’t play with them’ and ‘keep away from them’. I realised that I was going to have to deal with it on my own.

"It never occurred to me to go to a teacher. If I had done they would probably have hauled the girls out in front the whole school at an assembly and caned them. That would only have worsened things for me outside the school gates."

She thinks now that one member of staff suspected what was going on and offered to let her stay inside school during break times.

"He said I could be the animal monitor,’’ said Carol. "But they (the bullies) waited outside for me."

Carol’s only solution to the problem was to leave school as soon as she could. At 15, with no qualifications, she found a job in a shoe shop.

"If it hadn’t been for the bullying I think I would have stayed on at school,’’ she said. "The headteacher thought I was quite bright and didn’t want me to leave, but I wanted out.’’

Ironically, she didn’t entirely escape the bullies.

"I went to work for Woolworths and I hadn’t been there long when the main instigator of the bullying turned up to work there with me,’’ said Carol.

"She wanted to be friends. It was as if nothing had happened, but I wasn’t interested. The others I worked with made it quite clear to her that she hadn’t to play any games with me there."

Carol and her husband Leigh, who died two years ago, moved to Huddersfield 25 years ago. She became a carer and worked at the Zetland Street Day Centre before finally taking a post as receptionist at the Kirklees Library headquarters in Red Doles Lane.

It was a happy time in her life.

"I made lots of friends here,’’ she said. "I’m a member of Crosland Hill Methodist Church and have found it much easier to make friends as an adult.

"But my confidence issues have carried on right through my life and I have been bullied in the workplace because I am the sort of person who doesn’t argue back when someone tells me what to do."

When her own two sons, now 34 and 31, were at school Carol was always vigilant for signs of bullying.

She said: "I became a parent governor of their primary school and was a volunteer helper in school. I think that perhaps in the back of my mind I was wanting to be involved to protect them.

"I always spoke up when the issue of bullying came up at meetings and when one of my sons experienced some problems at high school I went straight up there.

"Unfortunately, bullying is not easy to deal with and there must be many more problems for children now, with the internet, Facebook, mobile phones and Twitter.

"At least when I got home I was away from it all."

Carol says parents and teachers should not underestimate the effects of bullying on students.

"It is a devastating experience for a child," she said.

According to the NSPCC, in 2010-11 there were more than 30,400 calls to Childline about bullying. It is the main reason why boys contact the charity.

National figures collated by the NSPCC show that almost half of all children say they have been bullied at school and 38% have been affected by cyber bullying.

Worryingly, 18% of young people say they wouldn’t tell their parents what was happening to them.

Sadly, nearly 40% of disabled children say they are worried about being bullied because of their disability.