I have just finished my annual Christmas reading of A Christmas Carol. Please make a small effort and read this book, it is only 91 pages long and it is the most fantastic story of how a man is redeemed after living a terrible greedy, grasping lifestyle - I think it is soooooooooooooooooo relevant today.

OK, I know everyone knows the story but I thought I would give you a small quote which really brought tears to my eyes....(page 66)

""Forgive me....but I see something strange".....

"Oh Man! Look here! Look, look, down here!" exclaimed the Ghost.

They were a boy and girl.....Where graceful youth should have filled their features out, and touched them with its freshest tints, a stale and shrivelled hand, like that of age, had pinched and twisted them and pulled them into shreds. Where angels might have sat entrhroned, devils lurked, and glared out menacing. No change....no perversion of humanity...has monsters half so horrible and dread.

"Spirit! are they yours?" Scrooge could say no more.

"They are Man's" said the Spirit, looking down upon them. "And they cling to me...this boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware of them both".....

"Have they no refuge or resource?" cried Scrooge.

"Are there no prisons?" said the Spirit, turning on him for the last time with his own words. "Are there no workhouses?"


Thank you Charles Dickens for reminding me of the true spirit of Christmas....I hope he has reminded you also. Ignorance and want should be banished forever but we need to work hard to banish them.