‘And so shines a good deed!’

'And so shines a good deed'...remember the quote and who said it, come on you must remember it; rack your brains, well…can you recall?

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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