Yes you’ve got it, it is indeed a quotation
from the movie ‘Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory’ starring Gene Wilder as
the enigmatic and irrepressible Willy Wonka. The original book from which the
Movie is derived was of course ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’ by Roald
Dahl.
The young boy Charlie Bucket has visited
the chocolate factory and experienced its many awe inspiring wonders including
the everlasting gob-stopper. Wonka gifts Charlie one of the gob-stoppers with
the caveat that he mustn’t let his candy nemesis Mr Slugworth get hold of it as
he would copy it for his own nefarious profit.
Any fan of the film will remember Wonka’s
rant near the end at Charlie and the kindly Grandpa Joe, Wonka pulls the rug
out from under Charlie by citing an illicit sampling of product by the boy and
his grandfather as just cause to deem any contracts null and void, in short
Charlie had won the greatest prize of his life, the Wonka chocolate factory,
but Willie Wonka had whipped out the smallprint and lay Charlie’s dream in
shreds.
The boy had a moral dilemma, should he
spite Wonka (and also earn some cash) by selling the everlasting gob-stopper to
old Slugworth, or should he simply return the wondrous piece of candy to Wonka
as hence walk away back to his life of poverty and grind.
And so Charlie chooses the latter option
and places the candy on the desk beside Wonka thus prompting the iconic
quotation ‘And so shines a good deed!’
Of course we the viewers are left with a
moral dilemma to struggle with, what would we do in the same situation, would
we give him back his damn candy or would we run as fast as our little Charlie
legs could carry us to find Slugworth to cut a deal.
I am of course going to tell you I would
have done exactly what Charlie did, but then I have the benefit of hindsight
and I already know the ending is a happy one for the boy, but what is this
feature of the human psyche which embodies such nobility and kindness for our
fellow man and woman, and more importantly why do some of us feel obligated to
do good while other people appear, on the face of things, to be inherently
evil?
I was once faced with my own gob-stopper
type dilemma, read on to find out what happened...
From the time I was ten years old I ran
errands for my mother to the local shop to buy the staple grocery items; bread,
milk, sausages and the like. I pretty much followed the same routine every day,
get home from school, drop my schoolbag and head down to the local shop for my
mother. I usually went to the local Mace store on Belbulben Road in Drimnagh,
South Dublin, which was run by a man called Peter Mahon and his wife (whose
name escapes me right now, possibly Sylvia), I developed a relationship with Mr
Mahon over the years and we were on first name terms, I was a regular in his
store and even though I was just a kid he treated me with dignity and respect,
well heck I was a paying customer after all!
On one particular day my Mam gave me ten
pounds to head down to the Mace shop to get some milk and bread, she always had
me wrap any money notes around a small coin to lessen the chance of losing them
out of my pocket, times were tight and ten pounds went a long way back in 1977,
I stuck the money my pocket and held onto it for dear life as I headed down
Mourne Road to the shops.
I greeted Mr Mahon as usual as I entered
the shop, he was a tall imposing man and always had a pen stuck behind his ear
which made him look more important, he was constantly busy packing shelves,
sweeping the floor or slicing ham behind the counter, he gave me a wink and a
cheery hello as usual. I walked around the small shop and gathered my grocery
items in my cradled arms before heading to the till where Mr Mahon was waiting
to serve me, there were no barcode scanning in those days (God I am old) and he
pressed the large buttons on his the big clunky cash register before the cash drawer
finally opened with a loud ‘Ding’.
I reached into my pocket for the ten pound
note and handed it over, it was still wrapped up around the ten pence coin, Mr
Mahon smiled and started to count my change from the cash drawer as some more
people walked into the shop, as usual he greeted them with gusto and dropped
the mixture of coins and notes into my hand, as always I immediately stuck the money
right down deep into my trouser pocket, bid a farewell to Mr Mahon and headed
home.
My Mam was busy in the kitchen as I hauled
the bag of shopping up onto the counter, I dutifully unpacked the items and folded the plastic canvas shopping bag
and stuck it down the space beside the fridge, I was all done with my daily
shopping task and as my Mothers beaming smile meant she was a happy camper, one
last task was for me to give my mother the change, I reached into my pocket and
pulled a mash of coins and some notes, I slapped it all on the counter for my
Mam to put back into her purse.
I was about to turn and walk away when I
glanced at the pile of money, immediately I caught an image of a man on one of
the notes which I knew well, it was the unmistakable image of Jonathan Swift
emblazoned on a red ten pound note, my eyes lifted to seek out my Mother, my
heart started to beat faster and my face grew hot, I felt as if I had done
something wrong, that somehow it was my fault that Mr Mahon had given me back the
original tenner which I had proffered for the shopping!
My Mothers eyes smiled back at me ‘Would
you look at that, Mr Mahon has given you back the ten pound note by mistake,
now what do you think we should do?’. I can remember my instinctive thought process
as clear as day, we simply had to give it back, it was in our DNA, and we both
knew that anything other than this action would be a bad deed.
‘I should bring it back to Mr Mahon’ I
answered, ‘Yes you should, now go ahead and get it done’ my Mother replied as
she waved me out of the kitchen.
I grabbed the crisp new ten pound note and held
it up my nose, oh it smelt so good, I took a ten pence piece and wrapped it up
in the middle of the note, as good as it felt to hold it in my hands I knew this
money belonged to someone else and I needed to return it to its rightful owner.
As I ran down Mourne Road towards the Mace
store my mind was racing, would Mr Mahon wonder why I hadn’t come back sooner
with the note, had he missed it yet, would he be angry with me in some way,
would he reward me with some chocolate maybe or a pack of Golf Ball chewing
gum?
I kept running but this time the note and
coin were clasped in the middle of my small sweaty palms, I kept looking at it
as I was running along, making sure it was still there, I was holding Mr Mahons
money in my hand and I was not about to lose it!
I arrived at the shop hot and flustered and
panting furiously, Mr Mahon looked happy enough as he served another customer;
he glanced at me quizzically as I walked toward him.
I waited for the customer to walk away and
then held up my open hand to Mr Mahon ‘This ten pound is yours Mr Mahon’, he
stared at the note in my hand for what seemed like an eternity but didn’t
speak, his face turned from that quizzical look to one of relief, he hadn’t
know the note was missing but was obviously relieved to get it back.
H didn’t make a big deal of it at the time
as I feel he wanted to keep the incident between the two of us (and my Mam).
He gently took the note from my hand and
released the ten pence coin which he then handed back to me, he hit the button
to open the cash register drawer and deftly slipped the ten pound note
underneath the black plastic coin tray, I watched as Jonathan Swift disappeared
amidst a bundle of assorted historical celebrities which were found on other
notes, an array of Queen Maebhs from the one pound note, a decent number of the
bald Scotus from the five pound note, a couple of Swifts and I thought I seen at
least one image of James Joyce from the Blue twenty pound note but I couldn’t
be fully sure.
He shut the till and with it, I thought, my
prospect of any reward, the sweet anticipation of a chocolate dime bar in my
mouth dissipated quickly, he then stood up and reached into his pocket and
produced a bundle of notes. Mr Mahon slipped out a one pound note and held it
out to me with a large smile on his face ‘and so shines a good deed’ he quipped
as I hesitantly took the note from his hand, our eyes met and I knew I was
Charlie Bucket to his Willie Wonka, my stomach was churning with excitement and
all I wanted to do was run home and show my mother my crisp one pound note. I
thanked Mr Mahon and turned on my heels to run home with him shouting after me
that he would see me tomorrow as usual for my shopping.
And so a good deed was carried out on that
fateful day, we did the right thing by giving back the money, it may have
seemed easier to say nothing, to keep the money and reap the benefit of it, but
we both knew that Mr Mahon was a hard working business man and that the right
thing to do was hand him the money. Having carried out the good deed I felt
liberated as I skipped up my street, of course the one pound note in my pocket
helped to sugar coat things for me and certainly put an extra spring in my
step.
Some people feel we live in a highly
cynical world, a bleak society where a dog-eat-dog mentality prevails and a
society where nobody has time to help one another.
Call me naïve but I simply don’t believe
this is completely true, sure there is real evil in this world and no end of
folks who would slit your ear off for a fiver, but I try to eclipse this evil
by recognising all of the inherently good people around us, family, friends and
strangers alike. People who are prepared to help you out in whatever way they
can because they know that you would do the same for them.
I will sign off with a small story about
another good deed I experienced recently. I had left some trousers into our
local dry cleaners and they managed to lose them, they searched and searched
and could not find where they had misplaced them, the unfortunate conclusion by
both parties was that they would have to compensate me for the trousers,
however I didn’t want the money I really just wanted my trousers back.
I called in to the dry cleaners one final
time this week in the hope that they had found my items and guess what, well some
kind lady had found them in her wardrobe, she knew they were not hers and she
promptly brought them back to the cleaners. I was reunited with my favourite
trousers and the cleaner did not have to fork out for a couple of new pairs, we
were happy all round.
Another example of a good deed carried out
by someone because it probably made them feel nice to do so, it made them feel
good to be kind to another human being, just like I felt when handing the money
back to Mr Mahon and how Charlie Bucket must have felt when he gently placed
the everlasting gob-stopper back on Willie Wonka’s desk, ‘and so shines a good
deed’. So doing the right thing can actually be cool, we need to remind ourselves
of that, it’s good to be good.
So it’s your choice really, are you a
Charlie Bucket or a Mr Slugworth? I know which one I would rather be, now where
did I leave that Oompa Loompa wig!?!?
Alan Carroll
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