The Richest Man In Town

It's A Wonderful Life is not just one of my favourite Christmas films, it's one of my favourite films of all time. It's up there with Cinema Paradiso, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, La Haine, La Grande Illusion, Planes, Trains and Automobiles, and of course, Die Hard, but very few films can make me, and so many others that I know, feel the way that It's A Wonderful Life does.


The story of George Bailey, a man so down on his luck and desperate that he is ready to take his own life, believing that he is 'worth more dead than alive' is one that, despite the darkness of the main character's situation, never fails to fill me with hope and an enormous sense of well-being. Over the course of the film, Clarence, an angel in pursuit of his wings dispatched to Earth to save George, shows him how different, and indeed how much worse the lives of those he holds dear, would have been had he never existed. His own brother would have drowned, as would those aboard the boats he saved during World War II. His hometown of Bedford Falls would have been taken over by Mr Potter and the people living there would have been rude, unfriendly, unwelcoming. Mary would have been bitter and unhappy never having met him and his own mother would have struggled to makes ends meet. On seeing how different life would have been in 'Pottersville' had he never been born, George realises just how much he has to be happy about, just how many lives he had touched and begs to be allowed to live. Of course, his wishes are answered, George returns home and Clarence, having saved George, is granted his wings.



The film carries a couple of important messages, in the words of Clarence, in an inscription he leaves in a book he gifts to George, 'No man is a failure who has friends.' Friends are wonderful things. Hold onto them. Tightly. Also, there is a clear message about how precious life is and how no matter how difficult times get, it is surely better than the one and only alternative.


There are lots of beautiful things and people in the world. Cherish them.

This sign is above the door of Vintage Guru on Byres Road. It's a lovely little shop with lots of pretty things to buy. I just hope they didn't think I was too odd as I snapped away at their door!