THE GHOSTS WITHIN A CHRISTMAS CAROL by Penny Dolan

Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, In Prose. A Ghost Story of Christmas  was written in a single six-week burst of energy and, unusually at that time, appeared as one single volume.

Up until that point, Dickens had worked in serial form, writing sections at a time, planning almost as the chapter before appeared in print. 

Even as he scribbled away, bringing Scrooge into life, he was struggling with Martin Chuzzlewit, his American novel, and with fears about his own popularity as an author.

Dickens wanted A Christmas Carol to be seen as his book. 

He commissioned Chapman & Hall as his publishers and then chose the look of his new book. He wanted a handsome red cloth binding and a gold design on the cover while the gilt-edged pages would include four black-and-white woodcuts set within the text itself and four full-colour etchings by the artist John Leech.

A Christmas Carol was published on 19^th December 1843, reasonably priced at five shillings, and became the most popular book of the season.  By Christmas Eve, every one of the six thousand copies had been sold.  Dickens must have been delighted.

      

The novella quickly became a “national benefit”, according to Thackeray and, with its outspoken attack upon those who ignore the poorest in society, was seen as a piece of radical literature. Yet, at the same time, the story also celebrates family and food and fun alongside the Christian themes of mercy and love.

The story certainly feels haunted, in more ways than one. Even before their appearance in his story, Dickens recognised those two awful children, Ignorance and Want. He had become a friend of Miss Burdett-Coutts, a rich philanthropist with a deep purse, and so had been visiting Ragged Schools - schools set up by Evangelicals to save souls - so he could make practical suggestions to guide her charitable work.

However, when Dickens visited the Field Lane Ragged School, he had to walk through Saffron Hill, an area of London which had haunted him since his childhood: he had used it for some of the scenes with Fagin in Oliver Twist.

Once inside the school, Dickens found “a sickening atmosphere, in the midst of taint and dirt and pestilence, with all the deadly sins let loose and howling at the doors”. His companion left hastily while the unruly children, for their part, mocked Dickens stylish white trousers and bright boots.

Just as awful was the knowledge that Field Lane school was close to where he, as a boy, worked in a blacking factory. Dickens had been sent there by his bankrupt father, while his sister was sent to music lessons. The young Dickens was utterly ashamed of his fall from respectability, especially when he was placed in public view in the window, a disgrace that he felt so deeply that he kept it secret until almost the end of his life.

Revisiting the area, witnessing again all the filth, disease and vice of that “doomed childhood”, and the hopeless sense of destitution must surely have fed into the darkness of his Christmas Carol.

Dickens brought jollity to the story, of course. He was someone who loved parties and celebrations and surprises and plays and conjuring tricks and the playful side of his character is very much there in the joyful scenes and resolution of A Christmas Carol.

Yet even the plenty is ambiguous. Dickens, the self-made man, knew that it was his pen that brought in the good things that he and his extended family enjoyed and the money they spent.

Yet, a little like Scrooge, Dickens was a man for whom money and time were almost everything. He was cautious about his household expenditure, and spent phenomenal time and energy visiting or lecturing or going on long night-walks where he plotted his stories. Dickens, like many who have known poverty, was haunted by the fact that he had to be successful.

Furthermore, his worries were increasing: his wife was about to have another baby, another child that he had to keep fed and clothed and out of the gutter. Dickens enjoyed being with children, although very noticeably on his own terms, but he was worried about the cost of them. At the same time, he was growing far less fond of his poor, low-spirited wife Catherine and rather more sentimental about pretty young ladies that reminded him of his youth.

Scrooge’s memories of his own childhood echo those of his creator: does his miser draw on the ambivalence and shadow within Dickens?

Sadly, within two weeks of publication, Dickens had reason to feel even more ungenerous and suspicious. A simplified version of A Christmas Carol was issued by a pirate publisher and though Dickens immediately sued and won the case, the publisher also immediately declared bankruptcy and Dickens was forced to pay the court costs himself and felt he had been almost ruined by the whole venture. Moreover, errors in production costs meant that Dickens made hardly any money from that first beautiful edition. God Bless Us Everyone indeed!

Six years afterwards, however, in 1849, Dickens started to give public readings of A Christmas Carol. These proved so richly popular and rewarding that Dickens kept telling his strange, enigmatic Christmas ghost story until his own death, performing at the Bradford Alhambra, in 1870.

And, probably, if you look around locally, someone will be continuing that same tradition, and reading Dickens Christmas Carol this winter too – a tale that’s still, sadly, just as apt for our own age.

A Happy Christmas to you all.

Penny Dolan

Note: In this post, I’ve drawn on my own reading of Peter Ackroyd’s impressive biography of DICKENS, first published in 1990.

And Today's Saint is . . . By Penny Dolan

I've spent the last five days in bed, struck down by some kind of World Book Day induced bug, and don't think I've felt so bad since. . . when?  No matter, because this morning, I'm beginning to feel better. I woke with that wonderful sense of health pleasantly returning. I know it's not a holy miracle - witness the meds by the bed - but I certainly feel very blessed in my body, and glad to be able to make it downstairs.

Nevertheless, my head's not a sharp as it should be for wrangling a half finished article, so here, as they say is, a post I made somewhat earlier about today's saintly miracle.worker, St Patrick. Please note that Michelle Lovric has many more books out by now! 

Imagine living at a time when the whole year was decorated with different feasts and bright with various holy stories, even if many were a little odd and possibly slightly painful? Once the old church calendar offered a religious tale for almost every day of the year so that - regardless of many less beneficial aspects of the past - there was a rich public pattern that seven-day shopping & the return of the Apprentice may not quite replicate.

Today, the 17th March, is the Feast Day of St Patrick, Patron Saint of Ireland. The web offered images of shamrocked Guinness, stylised leprechauns, fancy dress parades and even – may the man himself help us! - bright green dye for ponds and city pools and waterways. The horror!

To greet Bishop Pat in proper style, one should surely climb up the great hill of Croagh Patrick, barefoot or upon one’s knees. 

However, having just read Michelle Lovric’s The Book of Human Skin, I have met this year’s share of penitents. Today's post comes from a warm, comfortable chair. (Do read that wonderful novel, by the way!)

Briefly, Patrick was captured as a boy in Wales, taken as a slave to Ireland, escaped back home, trained as a priest and then, in his dreams, heard Irish voices begging him to return. 

So he did, standing up to the druids who opposed his new faith, baptising many with the extreme vigour of an upstart and ignoring complaints from other clergy that he was enticing too many rich young maidens into his convents, and presumably not theirs. 

Patrick had such mystic powers that he cleared Ireland of all wicked snakes, even removing all biological evidence that serpents had ever existed there too. Amazing! Christianity with strong, added magic. But what was he like?

St Patrick appears in a story that I had partly heard before, one of the great legends of Ireland and this, again briefly, is it:

Oisin, the son of the great ruler Finn MaCumhail, fell in love with the beautiful Niamh of the Golden Hair and rode away with her to the Land of the Ever Young. After years of great happiness, Oisin remembered his family and friends, and longed to visit his old home, just once. At last Niamh set Oisin off on a white horse, tearfully warning him never to set his foot on the ground during his travels.

Alas! Hundreds of years had passed. Oisin found grass growing where the walls of the royal palace once stood and nothing was left in the land to show what had once been. Turning his horse, he saw three men struggling to lift a large and heavy rock. Beneath this stone, they told him, lay the Three Treasures of the Kingdom.

Without thinking, Oisin dismounted to help. As his foot touched the ground, all his strength and beauty faded, the years fell on him and he became an old, old man.

Well, the version I’d originally read, or heard, ended there. I’d imagined a quick  crumbling into sorrowful dust with a funeral to see the story off. But no - there was someone who would not leave the weak, wrinkled old man in peace.

As recorded by Lady Gregory - who sadly was not there at the exact time - along comes St Patrick, insisting on taking Oisin into his house and hearing the whole of Oisin’s story, maybe as a holy version of a reminiscence workshop, although Patrick doesn’t seem to treat him very kindly.

Our pagan hero is unable to withstand the holy fellow but he does not give in gracefully.  Oisin laments the glories of the past and is unimpressed by Patrick’s continual questioning, debating and chiding.

Here's Oisin’s almost final comment on the mighty man in the big green frock:

Oisin: “O Patrick, it is a pity the way I am now, a spent old man without sway, without quickness, without strength, going to Mass at the altar.

Without the great deer of Slieve Luchra; without the hares of Slieve Cuilinn; without going into fights with Finn; without listening to the poets.

Without battles, without taking of spoils; without playing at nimble feats; without going courting or hunting, two trades that were my delight." 

Patrick. "Leave off, old man, leave your foolishness; let what you have done be enough for you from this out. Think on the pains that are before you; the Fianna are gone, and you yourself will be going." 

Oisin. "If I go, may yourself not be left after me, Patrick of the hindering heart; if Conan, the least of the Fianna, were living, your buzzing would not be left long to you.” 

Too much care in the community, eh?

All of you, Irish or not, enjoy the day, and may St Patrick and all the saints preserve you from any tiresome buzzing!

 www.pennydolan.com

 

WHEN IS A PICTURE WORTH A HUNDRED WORDS? by Penny Dolan

I was reminded, by the recent Cheapside Hoard post, of my visit to the Museum of London last year.  I had a brilliant day all by myself, seeing things like these and more:

Caesar Augustus

Door from Newgate

Interior of lift at Selfridges

The London Wall with lovers and lunchers

 and all sorts of things to do with London, including this painting:

Old London Bridge

However - and I wish it wasn’t so - I came away with a big moment of grumble. Late in my visit, I went into a small booth for yet another video experience. There'd been others: The Black Death, The Fire of London, and so on. This time, we were shown a collection of short clips taken from twentieth century newsreel films.

The audience was a random group. Some were probably keen viewers and students, some were just pleased to sit down, and I was both. There in the half-dark, among all the adults, were several pre-teen & teen children. They were all at an age when one hopes history will start to mean something to them. We all sat, watching the flow of footage.

After a while, close by me – the seats are rather tightly arranged – I caught a fragment of conversation.

A girl of about thirteen asking “Mum, what’s she doing?” 

The mother, with a large shrug and a sigh, answering “I don’t know.”

Before long, the show ended. So many years. So many people and places. So much activity flickering across the screen, ending in a long list of credits. So admirable. Apart from the fact that there were no words on screen or anywhere close by that told the viewers exactly what or when or where or who they had seen, or why it was important.   

A picture doesn’t, I feel, always tell a thousand words. A picture often needs its own words to give it a context and history, especially in a museum. Below is a still photo similar to the moving image. She's been shoplifting, perhaps?

So that’s my grumble, my disgruntlement. Although we live in a highly visual age, there are times when a picture is not enough on its own, and some kind of written information is essential. I feel that history is dangerously weakened when the importance of words gets forgotten.

Penny Dolan

Ps. Dear London Museum, if I missed an important information board, or something similar, I’d be only too glad to learn of the fact. I know there is a display about the Suffragettes but obviously, from the overheard conversation, not everyone visits that section.

Stitches in Time: Penny Dolan

 

Some years ago, Mrs Hutchison (Top Juniors) placed a collection of small “prizes” across her desk. 

Then, one by one, she called out her forty pupils in order of merit. When the almost-last child arrived at the desk, a small ball of grubby 3ply white wool was the best “prize” on offer. 

She smiled maliciously as I took it, but a ball of wool had possibilities, as every maze-wanderer knows.

I never did knit, although I‘ve begun many times. It seems to need some clever left hand/ right hand co-ordination that’s not in my skill set My stitches end up the wrong way round more times than its worth inflicting on anyone’s patience.

Yet I’ve always wanted to. I enjoyed sewing too and treasure some old family sewing books. Both were such a big part of life in the past and they feel as if they are part of the whole lost “making of things” world.

Making or mending real usable things – not felt flower pictures or lego models – seems rarely part of the lives of children now. Inmy historical fiction, I long for my readers to visit a time when “making” happened.

For example, Mouse, my young Victorian hero, is befriended by the Aunts Indigo and Violet, both dressmakers for the Albion Theatre. Mouse himself lodges in the shop of Mr Tick, a clockmaker, and eventually much of the plot circles around the making of a “flying” device for a production of A Midsummer Nights Dream. Even the heroine, Kitty, is involved in real backstage laundry work.

At dramatic storytelling level, such things have to be a general part of the setting. “Making things” causes problems by taking up too much time and holding up the action of the story.

Quicker by far to be Mossycoat and have a besotted pedlar bring you three beautiful dresses and your aged Ma stitch the green, leafy garment than to do it yourself. 

Quicker to be Queen Elizabeth, with a Lady in Waiting counting the pearls stitched to your sleeves. 

Quicker by far to order in your clothes and worry about the tailors bill afterwards. Better not be poor Jenny Wren trying to make a living of dressing dolls.

We still have examples of the wonderful stitchery of the past in museums and galleries and it is mostly anonymous. There is such light and shade in needlework.

 On one hand, there is the fancy sewing, embroidery and stitch-work, the domestic arts that occupied good middle-class spinsters, wives and daughters while they listened to gossip or music or books read aloud. Comfortable, even artistic.

On the other, there has always been the plain and practical sewing, done by women and by men. Even my grandfather, somewhere in his soldiering, learned to sew and darn and mend with tiny, neat stitches.  

 

 So, by their poignant samplers, did many children, including Ann Bronte. These were the stitches that were intended to hold the home together, the family clothed and a respectfully bended head at all times.

  

But stitchery is also a nicely portable skill, and was one of the few ways that young women could, with luck, gain independence. 

Sewing could happen almost anywhere, from comfortable home, dressmakers shops to places less lovely.

 At one time there were the hordes of poor tailors hidden in backstreet hovels. Later there were the vast sewing rooms of the late Victorian industrial age.   

Was this last choice better for the young woman than life within the same four walls with the same faces or was it worse?

 

 This advert on the left parodies a doleful ballad, The Song of The Shirt, converting it to the joy of the good housewife's new toy. 

Yet even as the sewing machine liberated the home dressmaker,  it also produced more industrialised sweatshops across Europe, North America and beyond.

I must admit these harsher aspects of “making” are ones that I've included in any stories but maybe I should? After all, that kind of sewing continues in another country, but not in the one called history.

 Meanwhile, I'd like to end on a more cheerful note. Some spirits can't be worn down

Penny Dolan.

A Boy Called M.O.U.S.E.

www.pennydolan.com

TALES OF THE PAST: Penny Dolan.

The drive was always a kind of journey into the past. The road leads up and along a ridge of moorland, skirts the reservoir that sits like an overfull saucer above the Aire Valley and its sprawling industrial towns. Eventually, the route drops down steeply and joins the old level road, now edged by pebble-dash semis, occasional newsagents, tyre fitting services and one room hairdressers.

I turn left through open gates and there, fronted by a large pond - treacherous in snow - stands a seventeenth century manor house. This is East Riddlesden Hall, owned by the National Trust and where, occasionally, I told stories to young audiences.

Well, what does one tell for such a gig? The problem with history is that real life stories often aren’t story-shaped, as all writers of fiction know, and there were experts in the house who could describe all the objects better than I could.

I had read guidebooks on the property, but I also spent ages wandering around the Hall musing and imagining, trying to find objects that interested me, and to work out what, for children, was different “then”. What would develop historical awareness?

The venue itself wasn’t the easiest to clothe with children’s tales. East Riddlesden Hall was built by James Murgatroyd, a wealthy clothier, in 1642. Although there were Royalist symbols on one of the walls and a priest’s hiding hole, the family also became known for “profanity and debauchery”.  The Hall is said to be the inspiration for Gilbert & Sullivan’s gothic opera “Ruddigore”, and is haunted by the ghosts of several wives, lovers and visitors who met sad or violent ends.  Not quite light fun, and in practice, one ghostly story per family session is enough. Small horrified faces at one’s knee are worrisome as are outbreaks of bawling. Ghost stories needs both shaping and rationing.

So I chose and adapted tales that highlighted some aspect of life at the time, embroidering the tales with emphatic historical descriptions. I included the blowing out of candles and lanterns; the turning of spits over the fire and the weary back from crops that must be planted and gathered; I gestured the gathering of herbs, flowers and fevers; the putting on of fur-lined cloaks and shawls, of gloating over petticoats and finery; I listened for horses, carriages or carts, and ordered servants, true or mistrusted, to bar the door against the dark.

My tales, however, were mostly folk tales.  The Hall contains important embroidery and fabric. So I chose The Three Spinners - a variation of Rumpelstiltskin - where the plot works out extremely well for the reluctant bride. As a clumsy child, I adored that tale and the three ugly aunts.

I offered Mossycoat, where the mother races to stitch the daughter a coat in time for her to escape from the dreadful pedlar, even as she steals all the fine dresses he’s brought her. No quick trip to Top Shop for that young Mossycoat.

Occasionally I used a tale that might have been heard in the house:  the bold brave Molly Whuppie. Her retort to the Giant “Once more, twice mor, I’ll come to Spain,” always suggested the time of the Armada, when England was at war with Spain.

I did make my own variation of the Riddlesden “ghostly rocking cradle” legend. The ailing mother lies alone in her four-poster bed, the house emptied of servants by sickness, but is calmed by seeing her child’s cradle rocked by a mysterious old lady who she takes to be her absent husband nurse.  A kindly ghost felt omewhat happier for young listeners than a spooky stranger by the bed!

If the group seemed older, I might mention the need to check who it was your family wanted you to marry, moving into another favourite tale, Lady Mary & Mr Fox. Somehow, the hints of gambling and new money always make it feel very “Restoration” to me.

There was always the fun of telling the story of King Charles escaping by hiding in a big tree, which might have been a little like the one we were under – and then I’d watch their eyes look upwards.

There were other stories of course. I always tried to introduce each one by referring to some item or place in the house, making it clear that what I was telling were “only fairy tales.”

The original idea was to tell stories at different points in the house. However some rooms and staircases were so small that regular visitors found it hard to squeeze past the bundle of children and parents. Besides, one or two of the volunteer guides also felt the enthusiastic tales disturbed the ambience of “their” rooms. So I was moved outside.

During spring and summer visits, I told stories out on the lawn, under the huge mulberry tree.  The weather was always uncannily good, as if it was an enchanted garden. I carried my small basket of props, my storytime bell - of a size to be heard anywhere in the garden – my notice board, giving the session times and settled myself on the broad bench ready to start.

I spent a few magical times there, including Halloween tellings in the big tithe barn. Then one autumn, the lovely lady who organised my story-times moved to a distant site. A new person took over that post, and from then on, invitations came there none.

I believe I was supplanted by someone dressed in an overlarge “character” costume. So very much more believable than stories.