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Mr. Chips
Two centuries and more in the moulding and countless acts played out in a world thrown off it's axis by the predator species.
I yearn for those long passed times though I never trod those streets not climbed those mountains. I have but glimpses of what it was to have life then. Brought to me on platters by the silver screen and scribed in hardbacks dutifully collecting dust in the annals of time in a musty library on the Tottenham Court Road and others similar elsewhere.
Yet more extensive held suspended in cyber space where thousands of years of human history form a mere stain on a microdot and document man's achievements and failures at so many levels it forces a tear from my eye like an acid drop etching my lifetime into a sunken cheek and upturned lip.
So I yearn for those magic times, times of order, of respect, of duty, of belonging, of a sense of purpose and a sound knowledge of the mechanics of the universe and the eternal truth of Karma.
Mine like all others have the most accurate albeit tenuous attachment to what went before through our forefathers, our mother, our father as indeed they did theirs. That is and was the animated, coloured, tactile, aromatic most accurate link to who we were and what we have become.
Unlike today, the very fast moving, self-indulgent, I am, I have, touch me if you dare, get a response if I care. The complete I am.
No this was of gentler times when chivalry was still galant and manners we're the measure of a man and courtesy was afforded to all though even from a different class, cast or station. Where decorum held sway and time was taken to scan below the skin and reveal the true character denied by its face like protection.
These times ran concurrent with an expanding world a graphic depiction of a globe dissected by politics, religion, philosophy, tradition, history, protocol, desires, ambitions, genes, culture, geographical coordinates and a yearning to learn about others and their ways.
Far from the modern here's my ego, feed it don't bleed it because without all my adornments I am just an empty shell with a faceless reflection.
A film from the 1930's plays nonsense with my mind and visits and revisits me more frequently as I move on in years. It's of a time of the Raj in some far flung colonial outpost. A time that conjours in me the pride of what being British was really about and having been filmed in black and white serves only to underline the eons that life has progressed or distressed since then.
The film was called 'Goodbye Mr. Chips, ', without doubt the most poignant film I have ever had the pleasure to watch. And for it to revisit me like waves of soul cleansing incense is to pay it due deference.
Mr Chips epitomises to me the wheel of life where a headmaster of a boys boarding school gives his life to the betterment and education of young nine or ten year olds up to the age of sixteen or seventeen year olds before releasing them into a fast changing world on the brink of so much.
Those boys whose parents were forging there roles in society we're transformed from mischievous, sometimes haughty youngsters into accomplished young men lacking life experience yet brandishing all that Mr Chips could muster in terms of skills to confront the world and it's wants.
Me. Chips was a tutor if immense understated skill who made his pupils the pride of their parents and the vanguard of the 'New World Order', but yet a particularly articulate and cultured one.
Now for me what is of paramount importance after, in gentlemanly fashion shaking each boys hand after five plus years of grooming, was the boys leaving ceremony and each to a man paid homage with deep reverance for the transformation Mr Chips had oveseen and was a very low key 'Goodbye Mr. Chips' reverberated as the world notched another degree towards the setting sun.
Still Headmaster of the school yet bedridden and at deaths door with the a pale watery sun an hour or two away from setting Mr. Chips, tutor, mentor, confidant, friend, companion, stalwart and guide to so many that touched his glow, lay on his bed eyes scanning his final resting place and his mind recalling days gone by stated with the love of a parent and pride of a caring Headmaster to each and every boy in response to their ,'Goodbye Mr Chips, ' ' he said Goodbye, John Foster, goodbye Terence O'leary, goodbye Geoffrey Windsor, keep up the good cricket, goodbye Trevor Clarke, goodbye Peter Thornton, keep your chin up and your head down..............,'
Goodbye Mr. Chips,!
I yearn for those long passed times though I never trod those streets not climbed those mountains. I have but glimpses of what it was to have life then. Brought to me on platters by the silver screen and scribed in hardbacks dutifully collecting dust in the annals of time in a musty library on the Tottenham Court Road and others similar elsewhere.
Yet more extensive held suspended in cyber space where thousands of years of human history form a mere stain on a microdot and document man's achievements and failures at so many levels it forces a tear from my eye like an acid drop etching my lifetime into a sunken cheek and upturned lip.
So I yearn for those magic times, times of order, of respect, of duty, of belonging, of a sense of purpose and a sound knowledge of the mechanics of the universe and the eternal truth of Karma.
Mine like all others have the most accurate albeit tenuous attachment to what went before through our forefathers, our mother, our father as indeed they did theirs. That is and was the animated, coloured, tactile, aromatic most accurate link to who we were and what we have become.
Unlike today, the very fast moving, self-indulgent, I am, I have, touch me if you dare, get a response if I care. The complete I am.
No this was of gentler times when chivalry was still galant and manners we're the measure of a man and courtesy was afforded to all though even from a different class, cast or station. Where decorum held sway and time was taken to scan below the skin and reveal the true character denied by its face like protection.
These times ran concurrent with an expanding world a graphic depiction of a globe dissected by politics, religion, philosophy, tradition, history, protocol, desires, ambitions, genes, culture, geographical coordinates and a yearning to learn about others and their ways.
Far from the modern here's my ego, feed it don't bleed it because without all my adornments I am just an empty shell with a faceless reflection.
A film from the 1930's plays nonsense with my mind and visits and revisits me more frequently as I move on in years. It's of a time of the Raj in some far flung colonial outpost. A time that conjours in me the pride of what being British was really about and having been filmed in black and white serves only to underline the eons that life has progressed or distressed since then.
The film was called 'Goodbye Mr. Chips, ', without doubt the most poignant film I have ever had the pleasure to watch. And for it to revisit me like waves of soul cleansing incense is to pay it due deference.
Mr Chips epitomises to me the wheel of life where a headmaster of a boys boarding school gives his life to the betterment and education of young nine or ten year olds up to the age of sixteen or seventeen year olds before releasing them into a fast changing world on the brink of so much.
Those boys whose parents were forging there roles in society we're transformed from mischievous, sometimes haughty youngsters into accomplished young men lacking life experience yet brandishing all that Mr Chips could muster in terms of skills to confront the world and it's wants.
Me. Chips was a tutor if immense understated skill who made his pupils the pride of their parents and the vanguard of the 'New World Order', but yet a particularly articulate and cultured one.
Now for me what is of paramount importance after, in gentlemanly fashion shaking each boys hand after five plus years of grooming, was the boys leaving ceremony and each to a man paid homage with deep reverance for the transformation Mr Chips had oveseen and was a very low key 'Goodbye Mr. Chips' reverberated as the world notched another degree towards the setting sun.
Still Headmaster of the school yet bedridden and at deaths door with the a pale watery sun an hour or two away from setting Mr. Chips, tutor, mentor, confidant, friend, companion, stalwart and guide to so many that touched his glow, lay on his bed eyes scanning his final resting place and his mind recalling days gone by stated with the love of a parent and pride of a caring Headmaster to each and every boy in response to their ,'Goodbye Mr Chips, ' ' he said Goodbye, John Foster, goodbye Terence O'leary, goodbye Geoffrey Windsor, keep up the good cricket, goodbye Trevor Clarke, goodbye Peter Thornton, keep your chin up and your head down..............,'
Goodbye Mr. Chips,!
