Mr Dick’s Kite FOR ALL DICKENS FELLOWSHIP MEMBERS No.96 Summer 2015 “Look here. There’s a Drawing Room, or a grand day in the Park, or a Show, or a Fete, or what you like. Very well. I squeeze among the crowd, and I look about me. When I see a great lady very suitable for my business, I say ‘You’ll do, my dear!’ and I take particular notice of her, and run home and cut her out and baste her.” Our Mutual Friend. Chapter 11 Book The Third Dear Readers, Here is another selection of pieces which I hope will be of interest to you, and thank you to those who have contributed to our little magazine. Front Cover: The front cover for this issue is *If you read this Mr H Gregory, please get in from Our Mutual Friend and shows Miss Jenny touch with the Editor who has been trying to Wren the little doll’s dressmaker who is crippled, make contact with you, and forgive the long delay finding her fashionable model in the midst of in publishing your article. London society in order to copy the dress design Finally, in July this year, Mr Alan Watts and replicate it for her dolls. celebrated his 96th birthday. ‘Many Happy In this issue there is a piece found amongst the Returns’ to the originator of this magazine!! notes of a past member of the Dickens Fellowship Don’t forget. I am always grateful to receive any whom many will remember; Mr Mostyn Harper. contributions for Mr Dick’s Kite. I understand that he used to lead some very Please send them to interesting walks – and that they usually ended [email protected] up in the pub! Good for him!! or by post to Also going through some old correspondence I F. Hogarth found a fascinating letter from Mr Harry Gregory 16, Apex Close, responding to an article originally printed in Mr Beckenham, Dick’s Kite, No 79. Kent BR3 5TU. An Interesting Offer The Funs The following piece of information has been Mr Weller knew perfectly well how he was passed to me by Paul Graham, and may be of going to use his money. When he came into an interest to Dickens Fellowship members. inheritance he had no hesitation in saying that Ashgate Publishing have informed us of the he would like to put what might be due to him publication of The Art of Adapting Victorian in ‘the funs’. He asked his son: “wot do you call Literature, details of which can be accessed by the them things again?” link below. “Wot things?” enquired Sam. The work examines the dramatizing of Jane Eyre, “Them things as is always a goin’ up and down in David Copperfield and The Woman in White in the the City.” period 1848-1920. “Omnibuses?” suggested Sam. The author of the book, Karen E. Laird, is really keen for her work to be promoted to members of “Nonsense,” replied Mr Weller. “Them things as is the Dickens Fellowship, and Ashgate Publishing alvays a fluctooatin’, and getting theirselves inwolved are offering members a 20% discount on the cover somehow or another vith the national debt, and the price of £60. chequers bills, and all that.” Members just need to enter the discount code “Oh! The funds,” said Sam. C15JRS20 for a 20% discount on this book when Pickwick Papers Chapter 52 ordering from the Ashgate website. This offer is ASW valid until 31st October 2015. http://www.ashgate.com/isbn/9781472424396 2 3 From our Postbag Some items have been waiting in the Postroom for some time, I’m afraid, but they shall have their day in the sun. But first, let me express the great sadness with which my father and I received the news of the sudden death in April 2015 of Elaine Oakley of Christchurch New Zealand Dickens Fellowship. This lovely lady was a friend of both my parents, and was known to many other Dickensians here in England and around the world. She will be greatly missed, not only by her own family of which she was the heart, but also by the Christchurch Dickens Fellowship members. Our thoughts go out to all those who knew and loved her. Gads Hill Sir John Falstaff Inn in company with Alan and Two items of interest came in the post regarding Marjorie Watts. Gads Hill Place. “I arrived at Gads Hill in a state of stun. I was The first from the Monterey Peninsula Dickens actually going into the house that Dickens had owned Fellowship, whose newsletter The Mutual Friend at the end of his life. I wandered over the grounds contained a piece about the school at Gads Hill loving it. We went into the house. The Watts’ had which has opened once again for visitors, and been there many times before and this made me feel mentioned how Dickens’s desk and chair, having very comfortable. I got to look around seeing familiar been purchased recently for £800,000, is now at the parts I had only seen in pictures. We went into his Dickens House Museum in Doughty Street on view study. We closed the door that looks like a bookcase. to the public. This desk used to stand in the study We sat down and they started chatting as though at Gads Hill. this was all normal. I could barely breathe. Dickens’s study! It was just what I had imagined it to be. In the haunting picture of Dickens’s study, painted after his death by Luke Fildes and called “The After we had finished at Gads Hill, we went to the Empty Chair”, standing next to the desk in the Sir John Falstaff Inn for lunch. This is where Dickens foreground of the painting is a very large basket. ate lunch. While we were eating, Cedric Dickens, a Could this be a waste paper basket, I wondered? prominent descendant and author, now deceased, Did Dickens ever need one, and if he did so, surely came to our table and greeted Marjorie and Alan not such a large one as this? As I understand it he warmly. They introduced me to him; he had some made very few notes, annotating his manuscripts business nearby and had stopped for lunch at the Inn. and sometimes jotting down ideas about his Wow! I don’t think I have ever enjoyed a day more characters, but that was all. Hardly any notes were in my life.” found after his death. He kept his plot ideas in his head and his manuscripts were all originals, he never made copies. Below: Luke Filde The Empty Chair Although it is true that he did have a large correspondence, he preserved most of these letters, burning many of them in a major clearout only later in his life. So what went into this bin? Perhaps the many and varied begging letters he received, or maybe the bills, once paid The second item came from Beth Bliss in the Cleveland Branch Dickens Fellowship newsletter A Twist of Dickens, who wrote about her first visit to Gads Hill and the 3 Dickens’s Calm Approach With the 150th anniversary of the Staplehurst railway accident being commemorated in June this year, it is interesting to reflect how different things might have been if Dickens had not remained calm in dealing with this appalling situation. He could so easily have lost his life. The carriage that Dickens was travelling in was left central gas-apparatus fell down. People began to hanging over a bridge in a most perilous position panic and make a rush for the stairs, which would and although he may not have fully realised the have caused mayhem and possible deaths. Dickens extent of the situation, if he had made a sudden saw that a lady at the front came rushing towards movement to open the carriage door or if his him, and could see that it was a place where she travelling companions had lost their heads, they and would be visible to the whole hall. He instantly the carriage, could have fallen to their doom. spoke to her, laughing, and half-asked, half-ordered her to sit down again. She immediately did so, and Dickens was praised by many people for his in a few moments calm was restored to the rest of fortitude and courage in the aftermath, when he the people and all was over. helped injured passengers and although he was hurt himself, appeared to others to be calm and The men who came to fix the apparatus were in control. It was only later that the shock of the extremely worried about what might have happened accident caused him to suffer ill health and terrible and the very real danger of fire. The gas-man anxiety. complimented Dickens saying “The more you want of the master, the more you’ll find in him” His calm attitude certainly prevented further Fleur Hogarth mishap for his two fellow travellers, one of whom was Ellen Ternan, and the second her mother, both of whom were understandably very afraid. Christmas in Ipswich Dickens wrote to Thomas Mitton on 13th June An invitation was received by my wife and 1865 that the younger lady screamed and the older myself to join a Dickens Christmas Event at lady cried out “My God!” In this extreme situation The Great White Horse Inn in Ipswich, the very he told them “Pray don’t cry out. We can’t help hotel where Mr Pickwick found himself in the ourselves, but we can be quiet and composed.” Ellen’s wrong room and terrified the lady in yellow curl- mother immediately replied “Thank you.