Charitable April 1988    

Trevor Leggett was head of the Japanese Department of the BBC.

This is one of his broadcasts to Japan

Zubari for April 1988          

Hello listeners!

When you read of great charitable work, by someone famous as a great altruist, you are probably impressed, like all of us. If you then later read of great defects in the personal character of that person, how do you feel?

150 years ago, the prison conditions in Britain were terrible. The criminals were kept like animals. One of the great reformers was Mrs. Fry, the wife of a banker. Even on freezing days in winter, she went into the worst of the prisons, brought blankets, towels and so on, and also preached to them that Christ loved them. She helped to awaken the conscience of the British public by her writings about the prisons, and reforms began to be made.

Recently her private diaries have been published. It has been discovered that she drank alcohol heavily. Outwardly her clothes had been very plain. But inside, they were lined with fur. And she was spiteful towards some people.

These diaries have been published, and there is controversy about whether this should have been done, or not. Some think that her work was the important thing, and that it is mean to publish details of some weaknesses of character. Others say: “It shows that she was human”.

A famous college Headmaster said that today we lack good models for life, because we are too anxious to make petty criticisms. Children and young people, he says, need heroes and heroines to follow. The selfishness in modern social life is because we have dragged down the great and good models of the past, by malicious personal criticism.

Well, listeners, what do you think?

© Trevor Leggett