God bless us, everyone

THE EDITOR, Madam:

Like many other television viewers at this time of the year, I always watch A Christmas Carol with Alistair Sim playing the lead role of Ebenezer Scrooge. Made in the 1950s prior to Technicolor, and long before the computer technology that plays such a large part in modern cinema, the film remains one of my all-time favourites.

The film was released around the same time that I was studying Charles Dickens’ wonderful tale of redemption in Mr Jones’ English literature class during my first year at Redruth County Grammar School in the United Kingdom (UK), having won a scholarship to attend there at age 11.

Watching the film all these decades later refreshes memories of those schooldays, and make me wonder how kids are currently treated, compared to back then. For example, in today’s consumer society, many self-proclaimed experts have declared in all different kinds of media how pandemic isolation and restrictions are injurious to everyone’s mental health, especially in the younger generations. Without harping on about the ‘good old days of the 1950s’, when attending that school, World War II had only recently ended in 1945, and food rationing had continued for another decade thereafter in the UK.

Almost all the kids there came from working-class backgrounds where money was scarce; everyone had relatives who had participated in WWII, many of whom had been killed, maimed or wounded. Life was certainly not a cakewalk, but we struggled and helped each other where possible. We also considered ourselves lucky that Charles Dickens had spotlighted the need for societal change, calling poor children “ignorance and want” for Ebenezer Scrooge to observe.

I have to wonder how today’s younger generation would handle growing up in that post-war era, let alone in Tiny Tim Cratchit’s days, where he was still so grateful for so little to proudly declare “God bless us, everyone.”

BERNIE SMITH

Parksville, BC

Canada