Don’t let bullies beat you. I didn’t and look at me

GAY comic Alan Carr has a message for victims of bullying: “Keep calm, it will be all right.”

It was what the self-confessed “camp boy with big teeth” did when he was bullied as a teenager, vowing to carry on no matter what life threw at him. Opening up about the years of turmoil he suffered as a schoolboy, Carr, 42, says: “Look at me, even if you’re not a fan. It will be all right, it will. I promise you.

“If you are being bullied at school don’t do anything rash.”

In an interview on BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs today the Chatty Man host suggested bullying wasn’t as bad when he was a child as it is for children today.

“It was just psychological really,” he says. “I’m not justifying bullying but I’m sure I must have been annoying. I probably was a bit loud.

“I never was a victim as I always thought they were losers. From one till nine I had loads of friends

KEEP CALM: Comedian Alan Carr said he was a victim of bullying as a schoolboy, left, but always considered them to be ‘losers’

but then it was lonely. Anyone will tell you about being bullied, it’s the breaks and the dinner time are the hardest bit.

“Kids today go through hell and it doesn’t stop, it goes online now.”

Carr said he first became aware of his squeaky voice aged 12. “I did drama and we watched a play back and I was like ‘what’s that voice?’. Any time I relaxed my hand was on my hip like a teapot, my voice soared like a seagull with its wing trapped.

“It was like a punch in the stomach. Why didn’t anyone tell me? it But the bullies were telling me, was awful.”

Carr told host Lauren Laverne he grew up in a football-dominated family. His father was former Northampton Town manager Graham Carr. His grandad, Wilf, played for West Bromwich Albion.

“My dad said just do what you’ve gotta do,” he said.

Carr started stand-up comedy while studying at Middlesex University. His career took off several years later in Manchester.

The star married Paul Drayton in singer Adele’s back garden this year. “Best day of my life,” he said before choosing the singer’s Melt My Heart To Stone as one of his discs.

His book of choice was an Argos catalogue: “At least there’s pictures, oh if I had that soda stream or leaf blower. I feel it’d help me more.”

Carr says he would take a keep fit-foam roller as his luxury, joking: “Years of mincing has done my hip in so I could roll on a foam noodle.”

Desert Island Discs is on BBC Radio 4 at 11.15am.