My childhood was hell – I was preyed upon by nightmare family members in my own home, admits Billy Connolly

BILLY Connolly has admitted he has never got over being abused as a child in a new TV documentary and revealed: “My life at home was hell.”

The Scottish comedian, 80, opens up in the first episode of the second series of Gold’s Billy Connolly Does….

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Billy Connolly has opened up about the abuse he suffered as a child[/caption]

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Billy grew up in a poor part of Glasgow and was raised by his two aunts from the age of four[/caption]

Billy grew up in one of the poorest parts of Glasgow, and along with his older sister Florence, was raised from the age of four by his two aunties after his young mother left their father for another man while he was serving in the Royal Air Force in Burma.

Discussing his heroes and villains from his childhood and 50-year showbiz career, the Big Yin tells how his dad’s sisters, aunts Mona and Margaret, left him terrified to come home to the cramped tenement where they lived after school.

Billy says: “My life at home was hell. There was awful things going on.

“I was being preyed upon and my aunt was a nightmare. If I went home from school, she’d be there. I couldn’t sit and do my homework with her roaming about.

“At six years old, I learnt a thwack on the hand or even a smack in the mouth is overrated as a pain creator – it’s not the worst thing you’re ever going to feel.

“My aunties could f***ing inflict twice the pain without lifting their hands – by humiliation. All the time: ‘Stupid. You’re thick, you’re stupid.’

“To humiliate someone is a desperately bad and wrong thing; it’s worse than hitting somebody.

“Humiliation is for ever. It takes you so long to get over it; it takes your whole life.”

The Glaswegian funnyman also tells of the physical attacks he endured at school at the hands of his teachers.

He recalls: “School was very violent indeed. I had a psychopath called Miss McDonald – Rosie McDonald. Big Rosie, they called her, as if she deserved affection.

“Her specialty was placing pencils under your knuckles, between your knuckles and the desk, so as to induce extra pain when she whacked you.

“She would thrash me for nothing, for showing interest in pigeons outside the window, for glancing away when she was talking. She was a sadistic b*****d.”

Billy Connolly Does… series two begins with episode Heroes And Villains on Thursday March 30 at 9pm on Gold. TV Mag is available for free every Saturday, only in The Sun.