Dear Reader,
Apparently Michael Bond, the author of Paddington Bear was bothered by social media, his daughter has revealed. Karen Jankel said her father who was 91 when he died in 2017, was disheartened by a more polarised world and waning empathy.
"Paddington as a character is very kind, very down to earth," his daughter said "but he doesn't suffer fools. If he doesn't like something, he was there with his hard stare. So it doesn't mean to say that you should be totally complicit."
In an interview with The Daily Telegraph, 2007, Michael Bond did say that people's manners had changed since the era in which he grew up. He said "I suppose Paddington is my escape from the modern world because, frankly, I find a lot of it very depressing. Everyone seems to be much ruder and more impatient. I thought that when I got to 80, people might step aside when they saw me coming. Not a bit of it. I might as well be invisible."
I have to agree whole heartedly with Michael Bond. People being angry, impatient and certainly ruder is how it is today, which wasn't the case when I was young.
*
From Jane Austen, 1798 in Hampshire
"What fine weather this is! Not very becoming perhaps in the early morning, but very pleasant out of doors at noon, and very wholesome - at least everybody fancies so, and imagination is everything."
*
Dorothy's Dilemma
Dorothy slowly rode the hill,
eating potted beef and sweet cake,
she glimpsed, growing in green moss,
three primroses in full bloom.
Should she pick them?
December primroses in a jar
adorning the kitchen table
was a temptation, a pretty picture.
She pondered long, then left them
to enjoy the fecund earth,
their natural home,
their rightful place.
Days later, she saw with joy,
nestling in the moss,
her primroses, flourishing,
uninjured by cold or rain
or human hand.
*
With very best wishes, Patricia
No comments:
Post a Comment