To Kill a Mockingbird at 50

This summer marks the 50th anniversary of the publication on the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel To Kill a Mockingbird. Harper Lee tells the tale of how the children of a widowed lawyer become embroiled in a racist prejudice as he defends an innocent black man accused of raping a white woman, in Alabama in the 1930s.


Although the novel did not go down too well in the deep-south state at the time, it was however an instant success elsewhere and has become a classic of modern American literature.  It remains popular to this day with youngsters and adults on both sides of the pond.  The movie of the same name was released in 1962 and starred Gregory Peck as the lawyer (Atticus Finch), Mary Badham as his daughter, Jean Louise "Scout" Finch and Phillip Alford as his son, Jeremy Atticus "Jem" Finch.

The film was also an instant hit, winning an award at the 1963 Cannes Film Festival; three Academy Awards and three Golden Globe Awards.

The BBC has marked the 50th anniversary of the book with a showing of the influential film and a special program To Kill a Mockingbird at 50, which sees writer Andrew Smith visiting Monroeville in Alabama, the setting of the book, to see how life there has changed in half a century.

I thoroughly enjoyed watching both although I couldn’t help wondering if Scout had grown up to become Kiki Dee.