Slapped, beaten, spat at and robbed. These were regular experiences for Becky Martin, but the young actress has managed to beat the bullies and bring her talents to the big screen. She has just appeared in a controversial new film exposing the bullying which is rife in British schools, based on her own ordeals at a school in Nottingham.

At 17 Becky is an unusual film star. Her progression into acting has been more of an accident than through a burning desire for fame. When she was 15 she went to a modelling agency in London. They put her in touch with Noel Clarke, who had just written a film about bullying in inner-city schools called Kidulthood. It was by pure coincidence that Becky had been through some of the same hardships as her character, but the meeting seemed like fate.

“We did some role plays and it just so happened that I had had a lot of similar experiences,” said Becky. While at school Becky was subjected to physical and mental abuse for years. She had to regularly endure being surrounded in the school playground by gangs of her schoolmates, who would slap her, shout abuse at her, spit at her and generally make school life unbearable.

The troubles reached a low point for Becky one night after a school disco. She was walking home when about twenty girls from the school stepped out from behind some bushes and surrounded her. They slapped her and beat her and stole her phone and purse before, terrified, she ran back into the school and broke down in tears.

The film is set in the Ladbroke Grove area of West London, but Becky’s own experiences come from her time at the Bramcote Park school in Nottingham. Her character, Katie, commits suicide in the film, which all takes place in the space of one, tragic day. Although Becky’s troubles never reached the same height as her character’s, it was a traumatic part to play because of the similarities in her own former life.

She had to take several breaks during filming because it was too painful to relive her ordeals at the hands of the school bullies. In fact Becky says that the experience has been quite therapeutic, and that by playing the tormented Katie she has managed to put a lot of her demons behind her.

“It was quite traumatic during filming,” she said. “I had to take quite a lot of breaks.”  Becky left the school in Bramcote when she was in year 9 and is now studying for her A-Levels at the private Nottingham Girls High School. With her days of bullying behind her she can now look to the future and despite having a precocious talent for acting, plans to study biochemistry at university. Bullying is alarmingly widespread in schools across the country. It is a problem that many teachers will have to deal with, but as Becky knows, is far more complicated than many imagine.

“Some people just can’t tolerate differences,” she said. “It is ignorant and cowardly people who bully.” Becky is from a middle class background unlike most of her classmates at Bramcote Park, and it was for her differences that she was singled out and hated.

“They thought I was different and they don’t like people who are different. “People like that won’t give you a chance,” said Becky. One saving grace for her was that she was able to talk to her teachers and parents about what was going on. But like her character in the film, so many teenagers feel unable to tell anyone and chose to suffer in silence. Becky said: “A lot of parents aren’t prepared about what they can do if their children do tell them.”

But it is crucial that anyone who is suffering at the hands of their schoolmates does come forward. Schools are becoming more and more aware of the problem, and help is always at hand. Since leaving Bramcote Park Becky has lost contact with almost all of her old classmates. The few she has remained in touch with understand her reasons for leaving but many felt angry and confused at the time.

“Most of them when I left felt like I was abandoning them,” she said. “They didn’t understand why I was leaving.” Now the future looks bright for Becky. She may be an accidental star, but now with her troubles behind her it seems the sky’s the limit.

Kidulthood website

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