Most peoples experiences of London are packed tube trains, busy shops, bright lights and crowds of people. Mine always seem to be very different and I often feel like I am living in a Charles Dickens story. Walking around quiet lanes or alleys, church bells ringing as random people shout out greetings as I run various errands.
I can walk down my street in the little place I live hundreds of times a year and maybe only get accosted a handful of times but in London everyone seems to know me. Police, soldiers, taxi drivers, bus and tube drivers, markets tall holders, pub goers. Even tourists have commented on it.
Thankfully it makes my Charles Dickens Walking Tours even more authentic and for some reason, London seems never more Dickensian than during Christmas. His Christmas Carol story almost single handedly created the modern Christmas that so many today enjoy and for that reason on Tuesday I was doing a little special Christmas Carol themed tour.
Before we got to all things Scrooge related, we started off in Borough which I’ve written on quite a lot over the years, even earlier this year.
There is a beautiful church at a busy junction, St George the Martyr.
The church is also known as Little Dorrit Church as it is rather central to the story Little Dorrit who calls the debtors prison next door, home.
The wall of Marshalsea Debtors Prison remains or at least it did yesterday as you can see above. Famously Charles Dickens own father was once incarcerated here for a rather miserly debt.
I’ve always felt an affinity for this church, it has such history behind it. One of its more recent events took place on the front steps where Londoners gathered to cheer home triumphant troops fresh from the victory over Napoleon in the Battle of Waterloo.
Really though it is from Charles Dickens and Little Dorrit. The little street urchin who roamed these parts that Dickens and I suppose myself know off by heart.
One summer night during Covid, I went out with a friend to the top of The Shard for her birthday and due to a long series of unlikely events we found ourselves marooned on Borough High Street. Hours from home, the tube station here closed due to Covid and not having eaten since about 6am.
I remember thinking at the time that Little Dorrit would have related and you can see just how empty the streets are a little before 10am during Covid.
Normally I show my lovely visitors a small stained glass window of Little Dorrit who can be seen praying under the foot of St George.
Yesterday in the 20 minutes from when we arrived outside until after we had gone down numerous alleys and lanes with links to Charles Dickens and his stories, the church had gone from open to closed.
Perhaps rather but not extremely naughtily I noticed the back gate open which it never usually is and I pointed out the stained glass window from the outside, it looking about 1% as impressive as it does from the inside.
Just then the door of the crypt opened and a church verger appeared and after a short explanation, we were invited inside. The amount of places I wangle myself into is unreal. Maybe it is just my friendly chitchat and sense of adventure on these tours.
You can see Little Dorrit praying under the right foot of the rather noble looking St George above.
But then something a little unexpected happened and we were invited to a private room in the church office and were shown a beautiful fireplace with old decorated ceramic tiles.
This was the very spot where Little Dorrit slept by the fire when she was locked out of the debtors prison. Charles Dickens must have been here himself one day as a borderline homeless boy and he put his experience to good use as Little Dorrit went to sleep and warm up here, she using burial registry book as her pillow.
It was only afterwards I realised it was even more Dickensian than I at first realised. We were both invited in by the church verger but rather than a registry of burials, at the base of the fireplace was a memorial for a church warden that had not yet been fastened to a wall.
Perhaps even we were invited in as the verger recognised me. Anyway this little spot is remembered in Little Dorrit below.
“We have often seen each other,” said Little Dorrit, recognising the sexton, or the beadle, or the verger, or whatever he was, “when I have been at church here.”
“More than that, we’ve got your birth in our Register, you know; you’re one of our curiosities.”
“Indeed!” said Little Dorrit.
“To be sure. As the child of the — by-the-bye, how did you get out so early?”
“We were shut out last night, and are waiting to get in.”
“You don’t mean it? And there’s another hour good yet! Come into the vestry. You’ll find a fire in the vestry, on account of the painters. I’m waiting for the painters, or I shouldn’t be here, you may depend upon it. One of our curiosities mustn’t be cold when we have it in our power to warm her up comfortable. Come along.”
He was a very good old fellow, in his familiar way; and having stirred the vestry fire, he looked round the shelves of registers for a particular volume. “Here you are, you see,” he said, taking it down and turning the leaves. “Here you’ll find yourself, as large as life. Amy, daughter of William and Fanny Dorrit. Born, Marshalsea Prison, Parish of St George. And we tell people that you have lived there, without so much as a day’s or a night’s absence, ever since. Is it true?”
“Quite true, till last night.”
“Lord!” But his surveying her with an admiring gaze suggested Something else to him, to wit: “I am sorry to see, though, that you are faint and tired. Stay a bit. I’ll get some cushions out of the church, and you and your friend shall lie down before the fire. Don’t be afraid of not going in to join your father when the gate opens. I’ll call you.”
There is Little Dorrit on the right with her friend before they go to sleep by the fire.
I must admit I shall be spending Christmas alone as I always have for the last 8 years or so. No tree or decorations, family or friends. There is always that moment on the 23rd or Christmas Eve when having shown families the wonder of Christmas and knowing they are having the best day or week of their lives; seeing everyone else rushing home to be with their loved ones, I will say thankyou to the local bus driver and that will be the last person I see or speak with until my next tour and the realisation that this is my Christmas. Christmas will just be another very ordinary day as much of the world does its things and the one day everyone says no-one should be on the own, I will be just that again.
Not exactly A Christmas Carol but very Little Dorrit I’m sure you’ll agree. Most of my day will like hers be spent trying to keep warm next to a roaring fire.
Stephen Liddell 