Ah, the crisp days of September, when we remember going back to school. I can still smell the leather school bags, visualise the new school books, neatly prepared pens and pencils (ballpoint pens were not permitted in my day – perhaps they were thought to prompt careless handwriting) and recall that feeling of starting out on a fresh chapter of life.
I now think it’s a great privilege to be a teacher and to play such an influential role in the formation of young minds. Everyone remembers an inspiring teacher (and some people remember some pretty dire ones, too). The message a teacher imparts can stay with us for life – and return in later years with renewed understanding.
I can’t say that Mother Margaret Mary was a noticeably inspired teacher. Her pedagogical skills were concentrated on the down-to-earth rather than on any soaring flights of imagination. But she gave advice to us teenage girls which I think could still be usefully deployed.
“Girls,” she used to say. “You will encounter many vexations in life and you will have to overcome them. But listen to this: don’t be ‘chippy’. Nobody likes a ‘chippy’ person – one who takes offence at the slightest provocation. Don’t go around looking for insults, or always thinking you’re hard done by. If you think someone has been disparaging about you, brush it off, and do something else.”
Young people today face a different world, and teachers are given different tools to tackle the problems of their pupils, but isn’t the counsel “don’t be chippy” still quite relevant?
We know how much social media can be a forum for bullying, and how deeply disturbed by verbal abuse and hurtful insults some young people can be – to the point of self-harming.
Offence can be given, but it must also be taken.
“Don’t be chippy” isn’t always easy advice to follow when someone says something nasty – especially on social media – but the sensible words of this teacher, now long gone, pop up with increasing frequency from the synapses of my memory.
…..
Anyone interested in the recent history of Poland will find Paweł Pawlikowski’s Cold War an absorbing depiction of that country’s story from the 1940s to the 1960s, told through the eyes of star-crossed lovers (based on Pawlikowski’s parents).
Shot in black and white, it reminded me of one thing that communism did rather well: folk dancing. There was lots of folk dancing behind that Iron Curtain, and Polish folk dancing is vigorous, colourful, beautifully costumed and thoroughly engaging. I think only the Hungarians, with their stunning csárdás, can match the Poles.
Cold War makes little allusion to Polish Catholicism, which endured so tenaciously throughout this period. My late husband Richard West, when visiting the country back in the 1950s, was astonished to see the huge numbers of pilgrims for Our Lady of Częstochowa. But that is presumably not part of Pawlikowski’s story – though a reference to believing in God is.
…..
There is about to be a police crackdown on older drivers to test their eyesight, since some oldies have been been involved in accidents caused by deficient sight. There is a simple test that all drivers can carry out for themselves: can you read a vehicle’s registration number 20 metres (about 67 feet) away? For a handier measure, this is about the length of five cars. Take an area where five cars are parked in a line, and see whether you can read the registration number of the fifth car along. As I now have some impaired vision in the left eye, I did this test myself last weekend. Yes, I could read the registration number of the fifth car, just about all right.
Nevertheless, I’ll be doing less driving in future, more as a matter of conscience than legality. I recall the author John Julius Norwich describing the moment when his mother, the legendary Lady Diana Cooper, quit driving, which she had much enjoyed. She hit a pedestrian bollard in the middle of a road, which she hadn’t seen. Afterwards, she reflected: “That could have been a child.”
That agonising thought haunted her and she gave up driving her car. Her conscience, not the law, guided her choice.
Areas of Catholic Herald business are still recovering post-pandemic.
However, we are reaching out to the Catholic community and readership, that has been so loyal to the Catholic Herald. Please join us on our 135 year mission by supporting us.
We are raising £250,000 to safeguard the Herald as a world-leading voice in Catholic journalism and teaching.
We have been a bold and influential voice in the church since 1888, standing up for traditional Catholic culture and values. Please consider donating.