HELLO everyone, hope you’ve all had a good fortnight.

As always I’ve been busy as ever religiously online shopping and watching The Great Bake Off.

However last Friday night I had the privilege of helping with the Ardgowan Hospice Girls’ Night Out and what an amazing time I had!

The lovely organisers from the hospice really put on a spectacular night. I even got to meet the lovely Jean Johansson.

We talked all things charity, the Tele and the future – she’s a lovely lady who contributed fabulously to the evening.

Well this week my topic of choice isn’t exactly the most pleasant one, in fact even the mention of it probably has some people angered. The B word.

No, not that one, don’t be silly. It’s bullying. Let me just put it out there that this year, the ‘Ditch The Label’ Annual Bullying Survey revealed that 43 per cent of young people are bullied once a week.

If that’s not bad enough, it was then discussed that 92 per cent of people bullied reported it to a teacher, however only 49 per cent were satisfied.

What kind of message does that send out? That school environments do not take bullying as seriously as they should? School is meant to be the ‘happiest days of our lives’ yet so many young people are suffering on a daily basis for a number of reasons and school communities truly need to work harder to resolve this.

Bullying to the older generation may be thought to be all about violence – for some it’s automatic to assume that it means getting ‘battered behind the bins’. But to a young person living in the 21st century, bullying is a completely different ball game. Bullying nowadays, much like the people who do get bullied can take on all shapes and forms – it can be verbal, cyber, physical and mental with all of these types having detrimental effects. With the ever evolving world and the fact that many things are now becoming more socially acceptable simultaneously comes those people who still want to belittle others.

Nowadays teenagers who are expressing their individuality through their clothing, music choices, friendship groups and even sexuality can find themselves at the centre of an ugly disagreement because someone doesn’t like their choices.

What young people need to remember is, no matter what, never stop being ourselves and to stand up for who we are, as usually jealousy is a key instigator in many cases and nothing to worry about – it’s simply best to ignore it and stay fabulous.