After digesting the serious, often appalling, news do you turn to our lighter media – the tabloids and TV – for some light relief, only to find more angst?
For instance, the inevitable tears in talent shows. I can’t take any more stories of ‘battling’ drink, drugs or bullying. I sympathise, I really do, but how about contestants being judged on their skills and positive points, as others are at auditions or job interviews?
It’s a talent show, not a counselling session.
So, I was heartened to be reminded of the dignity of the teenager who was brutally shot in Pakistan a year ago. If anyone can claim to be a victim it’s Malala Yousafzai who suffered appalling injuries from a Taliban attack.Her ‘crime’ was, as a girl, to defy them by going to school. Just to write those words brings a lump to my throat.
But from Malala, not a whinge. Not a tear. Instead, the 16-year-old has set up a fund and presented a four million-signature petition to the United Nations in support of children faced with the same situation. Malala, who has now settled in Birmingham, says she still loves her ‘beloved Pakistan’ but considers herself an honorary Brummie.
I am so proud of my home town for nursing her back to health, providing her with a new school and most recently applauding her courage by getting her to open the city’s brand new library.
It was great to see Dame Kiri Te Kanawa in the TV period drama Downton Abbey playing Dame Nellie Melba, the world famous soprano who sang at Covent Garden and made her sound recordings at HMV in Blyth Road, Hayes.
You may know that the factory was opened in 1908 and the foundation stone had been laid the previous year by Dame Nellie, but did you know that peach Melba and Melba toast were named after her?
The Australian opera singer did not have an easy life (her husband allegedly beat her) but, like Malala, she did not offload on to her audience. After she died in 1931 her headstone bore Mimi’s final words from Puccini’s opera La Boheme – ‘Addio, senza rancor’.
‘Farewell, without bitterness’.
