Good Tommy or Bad Johnny?

Outside our back door there’s an ornamental well that my friend Reg from Men’s Shed made. We planted it out with pansies… one duck’s in the bucket, another duck’s looking on…

I’m reminded of the old nursery rhyme ‘Ding dong bell…’ about a cat, not ducks, in a well.

Nursery rhymes often contain cruelty to animals… baking blackbirds in a pie, chopping off blind mice’s tails with a carving knife… In this one naughty Johnny Thin throws a cat in the well; there’s a happy ending because the kind-hearted Tommy Stout pulls him out…

It’s clear. Tommy’s the good guy; Johnny’s the bad guy.

In ‘Born Again’ Chuck Colson’s imprisoned for his part in Richard Nixon’s Watergate scandal. Fellow prisoner Homer Welsh, a construction worker from Tennessee, is in prison for whiskey-making:

‘Moonshining is considered by these mountain people an honourable, respected profession… it is a skill passed down from one generation to the next… they recognise its illegality, but do not consider it immoral… Moonshiners are usually hardworking, Bible-reading, God-fearing men.’

It reminded me of Jean Valjean in Les Misérables… imprisoned for nineteen years for stealing a loaf of bread to feed his sister and her seven starving children… illegal but not immoral?

Homer… Jean… Good Tommy or Bad Johnny?

Yesterday I mused on Joseph Plunkett, executed for his part in leading the 1916 Dublin Easter Rising… marrying Grace Gifford, in prison, before his execution… motivated by loyal patriotism… like Homer and Jean, believing that his actions were illegal, but far from immoral.

Plunkett wrote a beautiful poem ‘Blood on the Rose’ that finishes:

All pathways by his feet are worn,
His strong heart stirs the ever-beating sea,
His crown of thorns is twined with every thorn,
His cross is every tree.

…writing about Jesus …The Good Tommy …executed because many thought he was a Bad Johnny.

I’m left musing on Homer, Jean, Joseph, Jesus… the illegal that may not be immoral… those who I may label ‘Bad Johnny’ who are actually a ‘Good Tommy’.