Quota Quickies and Apples

In yesterday’s news…

Lowestoft Journal… Daniel Jillings has won the prestigious Rotary Young Citizen Award 2025 and received the award in London.

Daniel’s profoundly deaf and a British Sign Language user. He’s been actively campaigning since 2018 for all students to be able to study BSL as a GCSE. Daniel’s efforts have resulted in extensive media coverage and an award-winning BBC documentary…

Local BBC news… Jamie Campbell from Southend is running in Sunday’s London Marathon. Dressed as a shrimp he’s hoping to break the world record for running a marathon in a crustacean costume.

Southend has a rich fishing history… their football team’s nickname is ‘The Shrimpers’… Fundraising for a local healthcare charity Jamie’s aiming to be the world’s fastest shrimp.

BBC national news… When Sheena Gough was 14-years-old she enrolled at the Scottish School of Ballet. Aged 17 she trained in Paris alongside Margot Fonteyn and other famous international dancers.

An injury led her to spend a lifetime teaching ballet. Students spoke of her inspirational teaching… Finally, after a 72-year career, 89-year-old Sheena has decided to hang up her ballet shoes…

Yesterday I learnt about ‘Quota Quickies’… 100 years ago, American films dominated British cinemas. The 1927 Cinematograph Films Act attempted to protect the British film industry: a certain percentage of films distributed and shown in British cinemas had to be made in Britain.

Consequently films were made at minimal cost with maximum speed. These poor quality, films were often detrimental to the reputation of British cinema…

I fear that we sometimes think of people as quota quickies: second rate people who make up the numbers…

An alternative? This morning, I read ‘Keep me as the apple of your eye’, a Biblical phrase used in literature and everyday speech to describe someone who is special, valued, cherished.

Daniel, Jamie and Sheena are each very special ‘apples’… I hope and pray that the people I meet today I shall value as ‘apples’, and not dismiss as ‘quota quickies’.