Better late than never

I have realised that it is the 13th at the very last minute, and am very sorry for being late, so just wanted to post something quickly. Tonight I was out at a rehearsal for 'A Christmas Carol,' an amateur dramatic production we are putting on to raise money for our local village church. My husband and I play Mr Cheerly and Mr Heartly, the charity collectors who try unsuccessfully to get money from Scrooge in the first half of the play, and then, as Mr Cheerly, I benefit in the last part, from Scrooge's changed attitude, and a big donation to my charity. It's been a lot of fun rehearsing and watching the others play their parts, and sadly the message of 'A Christmas Carol' feels more relevant than ever - greed is not the way to reach happiness and is really messing up the world. However, what I love about Scrooge is that he DOES change and the predicted terrible  future does not happen. As I say as number one narrator at the end , 'Scrooge was better than his word. He did it all, and infinitely more: and to Tiny Tim, who did NOT die, he was a second father.'  Before I went to rehearsal tonight I was feeling a bit panicked and depressed by world news, but a dramatised work of fiction has cheered me up and lessened despair. We don't have to repeat old stories and we don't have to be manipulated by societal  scripts written by people with vested interests - we CAN be kind and we can look after each other and change predicted pessimistic outcomes - and I think, as writers for children, we are very lucky to have the chance to write stories which bring hope. So as Tiny Tim says, 'God bless us, every one,' and Good luck to all who write to make the world better.