16: Kris Jozajtis

In the third of my series of interviews conducted in southern Scotland, it was an absolute delight to catch up with Kris Jozajtis, who teaches Religious, Moral and Philosophical Studies in a secondary school in North Lanarkshire, having previously undertaken a PhD in religion and film at the University of Stirling.

We learn why Kris, who grew up in West London in the 1960s to parents who were refugees from Poland, is considered an exotic creature in the part of Scotland where he now lives. Kris remembers watching England win the World Cup in 1966 and reveals why the Kennedy assassination, when he was 5 years old, had a particular impact. He reflects on how the 60s felt like a time of optimism and that it felt like things were going to get better for everyone, especially from the point of view of his immigrant parents. Kris talks about the freedom of growing up and his memory of travelling by himself on the tube to see a football match at the age of 11 and about how the Second World War was an unspoken shadow looming over their lives and which spurred his parents and grandparents to make life as pleasant as possible.

Kris remembers Saturday morning pictures at the ABC Hammersmith and explains why cinema-going wasn’t an escapist endeavour. He talks about becoming something of a film buff, and the opportunity he had to watch groundbreaking French films, because of his father. Musically, Kris recalls being impressed by Roy Orbison’s ‘Oh, Pretty Woman’ and we learn how he once came close to seeing ‘the Big O’ on stage, but did once meet Ray Davies.

Kris explains how it was an essay on spaghetti westerns that secured his passage into university as a mature student and how he has a fascination with films about America. He runs a film club with his schoolchildren, and we learn why his proudest moment is when he showed Chaplin’s ‘The Kid’. Kris also talks about why he shows ‘Pleasantville’ each year and the pleasure he gets from watching the kids’ reaction to it.

We learn why Kris has a problem with the word ‘deserve’, why he stresses the importance of resilience, why adulthood is about accepting compromises and why he considers teaching to be a noble profession.

In the final part of the interview, Kris explains why we need to take responsibility for our actions rather than blame somebody else and why sometimes we just have to say ‘I got it wrong’. Nostalgia worries Kris because it can seem more attractive than the painful present to which we cannot go back. We also learn why Kris considers himself to be both a looking back and a looking forward type of person.

Please note: Opinions expressed are solely those of Chris Deacy and Kris Jozajtis and do not necessarily represent the views or opinions of the University of Kent.