A Cracking Christmas!

It was the worst of times – that dead time between people-focussed governments, when the clocks have swung back to a harsh and mean-minded era. Someone in the food bank queue mumbled, ‘ain’t we s’posed to be one of the World’s richest countries?’ A northerly wind blew snow flurries around numb feet as children forgot the cold to build a snow blob.

Potatoes with pimples, carrots greying at the ends, selection boxes past their sell by date, crackers that don’t crack – their jokes not funny anymore.

His ‘shop’ complete, Bob Cratchit lifted Tiny Tim and held him out to a volunteer. ‘Please let him play here in the warmth for a few hours as I’ve got to get back to work.’

‘This is a food bank, love, not a creche,’ replied a ruddy cheeked matron hardened to the effects of poverty, leaning away from the crooked-limbed child. ‘But here’s a toy for the kid.’ She pushed something into his bag.

Worth a try. Cratchit squinted at the sleet and scooped up his son, holding two carrier bags in the other hand. ‘It’s back to granny for you, Tim.’

‘But her house is cold, Dad!’ the lad squealed.

‘Well, clap your hands and whistle God Save the King like I told you.’

A military ambulance rumbled by and a soldier on patrol eyed him with suspicion. Bob’s minimum wage job barely covered the rent, leaving little for food or heating. The threat of dismissal prompted him to hurry, but as he rounded a corner, he slipped on a patch of ice, child and food sent flying. Cratchit lay on his back, blinking snowflakes from his eyes. He tried to move but couldn’t. 

The crying of Tiny Tim attracted the attention of the soldier. ‘You’d better move along, Sir, or I’ll have you interred for vagrancy’.

Cratchit found he couldn’t speak, and could only move his eyes.

The soldier stood over him, looking down the barrel of his rifle. ‘Right, I’m calling for back-up’.

A car slowed, its occupants gawping at the two prone figures guarded by a soldier. Terrorists or Communists. Or perhaps Communist Terrorists? Both words were getting a good workout in the media. The car sped away. Peeling-paint doors remained resolutely closed along the terrace of worker cottages.

After thirty bone-freezing minutes, during which the child’s crying had become a whimper, a riot van arrived and Cratchit and Tiny Tim were bundled into the back. Squashed vegetables and a crushed toy the only evidence they had ever been there.

The van drove to the local team’s football stadium. It had been re-purposed as a Re-Education Centre, run by Chinese guards. The People’s Republic of China had been the successful bidder, having demonstrated relevant experience and eerie enthusiasm.

Cratchit and son were carried on stretchers into the stadium to a medical tent where they were gawped at and prodded by white-coated orderlies.

‘At least we’ll get fed and have a roof over our heads’ Cratchit said to his son.

An elderly man in the bed next to him leaned over and whispered, ‘don’t bet on it. They’re assessing us for ability to work. If you’re no use to ’em they’ll send you to Maggie’s Cabin.’

A startled Cratchit recovered enough muscle power to twist his head slightly. With a croak, his voice returned, ‘What in Hell’s name is Maggie’s Cabin?’

Bloodshot eyes and a pause were unsettling. The old man leant towards him. ‘It’s the away team changing room. Trouble makers, the old, sick and injured are taken there, and no one ever comes out.’

Cratchit gulped and glanced at his son. ‘Well, we’d better do what we can to make the home team, eh son?’ His reassuring grin did little to lift the spirits of the permanently disappointed boy.

Soon after, they were transferred to trollies and wheeled out through a side exit.

‘Be strong and play well!’ the man shouted, earning a slap from an orderly.

A thin veil of snow shrouded the rejects as their trolley wheels squeaked along a rubber mat that led to… the away team changing rooms.

‘In a curious, disconnected way, I’m ready; and it’ll be a release for Tim from his miserable existence.’ All is calm. Cratchit smiled at the upside-down, narrow eyes above him and hummed the tune that was in his head – Silent Night…

*****

Tall Tim awoke from his dream, quickly dressed in the cold room and shuffled to his kitchen. An army truck pulled up in the snow-mush car park and six squaddies in wrong-scenery camouflage gear jumped out, grabbing the communal Christmas tree and shoving it into the truck. 

‘There’s something you don’t see every morning,’ Tim muttered as he stroked his cat, Trotsky, to a purr. One of them returned and planted a sign. Tim moved to another window so that he could read it. ‘CHRISTMAS CANCELLED FOR UNIVERSAL CREDIT SCROUNGERS’ it read, in a menacing script, accompanied by the regime’s iron fist logo.

‘Our government, dropping all pretence of human decency, has spoken.’ Trotsky purred his indifference. Tim shuffled to the front door and picked up a leaflet that had been posted overnight.

‘Join the Resistance and let’s reclaim our country from the fascists!‘ the headline bawled.

He sat at his table, sipping tea and spreading marmalade on his toast. ‘Might be worth a look, Trotters, but only after the snow and ice have melted.’

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Positively Dickensian

On a bleak Black Friday, 25^th November 2016, I ventured out from the warmth of my humble abode to attend the most delightful author talk, the subject being arguably one of the greatest writers in our English language, Mister Charles Dickens.  The presentation, made in Slough’s newest space, a triumph of modern architecture, the Curve, was delivered with enthusiasm by historian Lucinda Hawksley, a great-great-great granddaughter of the man himself. She had come to share with us her new biography of her illustrious ancestor, ‘Charles Dickens and his Circle.’

Her connection to this great literary figure made for an intriguingly personal approach in offering an insight into the life, loves, motivations and achievements of this extraordinary man, told through his associations and friendships with other celebrity figures of the Victorian Age. Indeed, a member of the audience remarked on a perceived family likeness, as she stood next to a portrait of the 27-year-old Dickens by artist Daniel Maclise.  This was the first of many portraits shown of Dickens (with a growing beard over his lifetime) and other notable Victorians. Some are paintings housed in the National Portrait Gallery in London (the publishers of this book) and others, illustrations and photographs.

Lucinda’s book includes portraits of the key figures in Dickens’ life, both family and friends that made for a good slide show, conveying a feel for the time as she delicately exposed the key moments of his life for us to get a sense of the man.  She told us that his early childhood in Portsmouth was a happy time, with his carefree parents creating an atmosphere of kindness, love and playfulness in a tiny terraced house (still standing as a museum).

Things changed for the worse when the family moved to the urban squalor of London.  Soon his parents got into debt and ended up in Debtor’s Prison.  In fact the whole family were interred, and the young Charles, then 12 years old, was sent out to work to earn enough to cover the family’s costs.  His first job was working in a shoe polish factory on the Strand, and he would walk there and back from his one room lodgings in Camden Town each day.

This wretched end to his happy childhood deeply affected Charles, but being of strong character, he battled through and helped his family out of debt, eventually progressing to a better job as a solicitor’s clerk. He began to follow his heart’s desire to be a reporter by going ‘freelance’ and selling news reports to various publications.  Newspapers and magazines abounded in Victorian London, and he soon established a reputation under his pen name ‘Boz’, going on to serialise what was to become his first novel, The Pickwick Papers, in a magazine.  Much later, he finally dared to write about a family who were subjected to the shame and social censure of being sent to the Debtors Prison in Little Dorrit, a subject that haunted him through his life, given the trials of his parents.

Lucinda describes his struggles to achieve his dream of becoming a writer, and the crossover from journalism to fiction writing, through which Dickens could convey his observations and experiences of life in Victorian London.  Various characters entered his life, the first being his wife, Catherine.  She was the daughter of his newspaper editor, and is described as being from a well-off middle class family, and a cut above the ambitious but impoverished Charles.  Together they had ten children, nine surviving to adulthood (kicking the trend of only one in three children becoming adults in Victorian times).  During the course of their marriage he was transformed from an unknown journalist to a famous novelist.

Indeed, the rigours of poverty in industrial Britain were an ever-present theme in Dickens’s writing, and he spent much of his time campaigning for social justice and improvements for the poor.  Lucinda presents us with an array of celebrity friends and associates of the Dickens family – fellow writers and artists, philanthropists and business associates, painting a picture of the celebrity culture of the day.  He went on book promotion and reading tours, engaging with his readers, which has earned him the reputation as the first ‘modern’ author.  He also fought for copyright law, as his works were mercilessly bootlegged, robbing him of income.

Once he became famous, he joined the literary set in London, mixing with the likes of William Makepeace Thackeray, Oscar Wilde, George Bernard Shaw, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Thomas Carlyle, Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Mary Ann Evans (George Eliot).  Illustrators and artists abounded, including JMW Turner, and Hans Christian Anderson was their house guest.  Philanthropists and radicals, royalty and musicians could all be found at their parties.  He was greeted with the fervour of a pop star on his visits to the United States of America, where he befriended Edgar Allan Poe, William Wadsworth Longfellow and Washington Irving.

Lucinda described some of the more poignant moments of his life, including when he left Catherine for his mistress, Ellen Ternan.  Dickens barely survived a devastating train crash in Kent that left him physically and emotionally scarred.  He had pulled Ellen and her mother out of their crushed carriage and was lauded for helping the wounded and dying.  He died exactly five years to the day after this awful event, in 1870 at the age of 57.

These were some of the fascinating insights into the life of Charles Dickens laid before us as the often stern faces of the Victorian greats and Dickens’ family members were flashed on the screen.  I procured a signed copy and started reading the book as soon as I got home.

 

Charles Dickens and his Circle, by Lucinda Hawksley, published by The National Portraits Gallery Publications, 2016.