Just before I got married, my soon-to-be-mother-in-law gave her son some advice. ‘Whatever you do, always be kind to her,’ she said.
He reported this to me with tears of laughter. ‘Isn’t that the oddest thing you’ve ever heard?’ he asked.
It wasn’t, really. It was rather wise and very touching. It was his laughter at the very idea that stayed with me.
I was reminded of this on talking to the deputy head at a local school this week. I have some Ukrainians living with me and the older of the two children, a girl, had come to me with a problem.
It transpired that at the secondary school there was a culture of bullying the Ukrainian children. The locals (for want of a better word) were lying in wait for the Ukrainians and pretending to shoot them. They tripped them up, pushed them over, jeered at them and told them that the best Christmas present they could have would be all the Ukrainians’ being sent home. This had been going on for months.
Our little town has been fantastically hospitable to the refugees – we have taken in so many that we were given a royal visit of congratulation and encouragement – so it seemed not only shocking but rather odd. How could so many parents be welcoming and so many children be foul?
The adult among my Ukrainian guests speaks very little English. So all conversations, however important, have to be with the daughter and I feel very much in loco parentis.
I rang the school and asked to speak to the person in charge of the welfare of the refugees. I left three messages, with no response, until I used the magic word ‘safeguarding’.
The deputy head was particularly horrified that the pupils had not gone to her because they felt it would make matters worse, and assured me that the school was full of ‘nice kids’.
Well, of course it is, but I was not concerned with the ‘nice kids’. I was interested in the brutes terrorising children who had already seen more horror than (please God) they ever will in a lifetime.
My own Ukrainian family comes from Bucha, and on arrival here they looked with wonder at the quietness of this town.
Finally, the teacher promised an assembly on ‘kindness’. I have watched so many children yawn their way through assemblies on kindness that I know how very little effect they have.
The problem is that everything has to be sugar-coated. Why can’t we sometimes go in at the dirty end and point out evil, rather than maundering on soppily about the good?
Ideally, I would give an assembly for all the children except the Ukrainians. I would show footage of bombed blocks of flats and exhausted soldiers. I would ask them to imagine the fear that you would never see your father or your home again.
I would shock them and I would shake them. I would not ask them to be kind. I would educate them.
I am convinced kindness would follow. Because, yes, most of these ‘kids’ are ‘nice’. They just need to be reminded that kindness does not always begin and end at home. It needs to be extended to the stranger every bit as much as to the friend.
Enjoy The Oldie every month. Subscribe to The Oldie.
