What the Dickens!

Leaders of all kinds have been looking for inspiration over the last year in an attempt to make sense of the crazy world in which we still live. Kipling’s If has featured often on my reading list but it is local boy Charles Dickens who best fits the bill here.

At all stages of life, new challenges put us under pressure. To a Robin it could be putting on a coat unaided, or in Form 1 reading a book aloud to a parent. Further up the school, it might be a maths test, a public poetry recital (remember those?) or a penalty shot on goal.

With life experience, most of us learn to cope better each time. However, fundamentally, to achieve that resilience we must go through the difficult times in order to prevail.

The pandemic has forced us all to look into the abyss and to have our resilience challenged. We are certainly not the first generation to experience hardship so we can, and should, be confident that we will get through these difficult times.

As Mr Dickens so beautifully put it,

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity..., it was the spring of hope...”

So let’s hope for a brighter future together this Spring as one, united family again.

Craig McCarthy
Headmaster