@RupertLowe10 I appreciate that everyone has a view on this and I certainly respect yours, but if it’s any consolation, six weeks before my mum died of pancreatic cancer, she cuddled our 14 year old dog before his last visit to the vet and quietly said “I wish someone was doing this for me”.
@Mathew_Lynch44 About a month before my mum died of pancreatic cancer, we had to have our dog put down. As she was hugging him goodbye, she said “Oh my boy, I wish I was going with you today.” We humanely put him down and my mum suffered another agonising month.
@HMRCcustomers I tried before school, the whole of lunch and been on hold for 34 minutes this evening trying to find out why I’ve been taxed so much that I don’t have the money for my bills and mortgage this month. Why is it so hard to get through to anyone?
“Country singer Dolly Parton wrote the songs "I Will Always Love You" and "Jolene" on the same night.
When the first song was at the top of the charts in 1974, Elvis wanted to record his own version of the song. Dolly was interested until Colonel Tom Parker, Elvis' manager, said that it was standard procedure that when the king of rock and roll covered a song - half of the rights to that song would go to him in the future.
She refused it.
"I said, 'I'm really, really sorry' and cried all night. It was terrible for me, on the one hand, it's Elvis. People told me: "You are crazy." It's Elvis Presley...' but I just couldn't do it. Something told me in my heart not to do it and I didn't. I know he would rock with that song. But I couldn't. And then Whitney Houston came along with her version and I made enough money from the rights to buy Dollywood."
She grew up in severe poverty and no one famous has done more for the education of the poor than her.
In 1990, the percentage of students who did not graduate from high school in her hometown was over 30%. She introduced the "Buddy Program", where all high school graduates received a nice sum when they graduated. It wasn't just a waste of money, she personally came and explained the concept to them - everyone should find a buddy, and whoever doesn't succeed she will find one for them. Everyone had to sign that they will graduate and do everything in their power to ensure that their buddy also graduates. She taught young people about friendship and helping.
The number of school dropouts dropped to below 6% and has remained so until today.
When 900 families lost their homes in the 2016 fires, she paid each family $1,000 for the next five months. When she came to the bank to finish the paperwork, she gave each family another $5,000 to find. A total of nine million dollars.
Also, her work - Imagination Library from 1995, was inspired by her realization that young people in rural areas and poor families already fall behind when they start school and that this prevents them from pursuing higher education. The goal of her program was for every child in her district to receive one book, once a month, from birth to school, completely free of charge, without any conditions. It started as an initiative in her hometown and has spread to a huge number of countries around the world.
By 2018, over 100 million books were distributed in this way.
She is also known for her witty statements, at the beginning of her career she said:
“I'm not offended by jokes about stupid blondes because I know I'm not stupid... and I'm not really blonde either.”
Anonymous
@MissHudsonHist For me, behaviour, attitude and staff. We had a bubble system for the first full year, which meant three consecutive cohorts of Year 7 being disrupted and not being conditioned in how to behave. Attitude towards learning has nosedived. Sadly, tenacity in our teachers is MIA.
@JanetMMac@IreneBirtwhist1 @MsJasmineMN Absolutely. As with a lot of teacher criticism, the opinion stems from someone’s experience as a student themselves because that’s all they have to work on.