Although the more elderly and cynical amongst us might well consider the
present to be another country and the past to be overwhelmingly more attractive.
Set in a mixed Grammar School,"It's great to be young" features one of the great stars of British pictures Mr John Mills as a "modern" teacher"(i.e.one who manages to get through the day without throwing a blackboard rubber or boxing an ear),a relatively new phenomenon in 1956.
A fine trumpeter( dubbed by H.Lyttelton)he very worthily embarks his pupils on what would be called today as a "liberal" education,offering a broader view of what could be considered important.
This acts as a catalyst to the age - old clash between youth and experience
in which he courageously refuses to take sides but agrees to represent the authority's case to the children and provide them with the information they need to make a decision between acquiescence and the mid - fifties version of anarchy.
Nowadays of course Grammar Schools are being treated like embarrassing relatives at a family wedding but whatever the fashion now dictates they were in fact not the elitist semi - Nazi organisations the powers that be would like us to think.
The pupils were generally speaking well - behaved and attentive as shown in the film,but knew their own minds but were capable - in their fashion - of
displaying their own preferences and opinions.
In 1956 I was in a skiffle band that won the Inter - House Music Competition
"By Acclaim " as the rather shocked Adjudicator put it.
On the strength of that I was made Deputy Head of House Music(not "House Music",you understand)
This was a mantle I wore rather lightly as I was utterly musically illiterate,
however,as the children in "It's a great life" demonstrated,it prove that
there was "another way" and for a few days none of the teachers threw a blackboard rubber at me.
Review of It's Great to Be Young!
