OPINION: A Tale of Two Cities

A quick trawl through the local news over the past few days reminded me of the start of Dickens’ famous novel, ‘A Tale of Two Cities’:

“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 season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way--in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.”

Firstly, I read of the fantastic results of so many of our local school-kids in their GCSEs. Next I read of the jailing of local woman Stacey Bride in connection with the unspeakable treatment meted out to a baby girl including multiple fractures to arms and legs and severe facial trauma. She was sentenced to three years which, on the surface seems an amazingly lenient tariff.

Finally my eye was caught by a small piece in which police are appealing for witnesses after a cider bottle was thrown into a child’s pram after the child’s mother, declined to give a cigarette to a passer-by.

I wondered at first how the stories of great GCSE success and the accompanying photos of happy kids could occur on the same planet, let alone the same town as the other stories.

Dickens of course was no slouch when it came to describing or even experiencing the extremes of the human condition. His novels contain stories of extreme cruelty and of the triumph of good over evil.

Success in examinations is no guarantee of success in later life but, as Dickens writes, perhaps it represents for many of these youngsters, ‘the age of wisdom’ and ‘the spring of hope’ where we have ‘everything before us’.

The news media of course is constantly hauled over the coals for dwelling upon the negative and for failing to report the less seamy side of life. And yet, we all know that it is the sordid and the scandalous that sells copy.

Many of these children will go on in life to greater success. Perhaps there will be some future doctors, teachers and playwrights in there. Perhaps most of the others will go on to lead unremarkable but happy, useful and productive lives.

Hopefully all of them will avoid the darker side of life that is often so vividly reported in stories such as those above.

Unfortunately, the best of times and the worst of times co-exist. We live in a time and in a society where extremes often live cheek by jowl. Life, it seems, in Rochdale and elsewhere, really is ‘A Tale of Two Cities’.

Education for many is often the key to future success and let us fervently hope that all those who got their GCSE results go onwards and upwards. For them, let it truly be the very best of times.