Tags
A Child's Journey With Dickens, Charles Dickens, Charles Dickens Short Story Competition, Cowes Enterprise College, Dimbola Museum, George and Vulture, HoverTravel, Julia Margaret Cameron, Kate Douglas Wiggin, Lucinda Dickens Hawksley, Quay Arts, RedJet, The Isle of Wight Story Festival
My 2024 started, professionally, on Friday 16 February in a small arts centre on the Isle of Wight, where I was performing at a very special event which set out to encourage a new generation of writers. I had been asked to appear at the event by a gentleman I know well, a gentleman whose dream this initiative had been, a gentleman who had brought a simple idea to life: my brother, Ian Dickens.
Ian has always been passionate about childhood literacy and for a long time volunteered to in schools to help the children with their reading skills. During his spell as President of the Dickens Fellowship his stated mission was to go to schools and talk about our great great grandfather’s rags-to-riches story, and let the students know that with a blank sheet of paper and a pen anything is possible – whoever you are.
Ian and his wife Anne retired to the Isle of Wight and soon he was not only visiting the schools on the island, but also researching the many links that Charles Dickens has to the region. In the Victorian era The Island was a popular escape for respectable folk, as the Queen and her husband Prince Albert had built a retreat there, and Dickens was one of many who sought the privacy and sea air of the many resorts.
In 1849 Charles brought his family to stay at Winterbourne House near Bonchurch and enjoyed an idyllic few weeks walking, playing rounders on the beach and revelling in the scenery. Some of you may remember that I appeared in a show a few years ago called ‘To Begin With’ which was set at Winterbourne during Dickens’ stay.
2024 marks the 175th anniversary of that beautiful summer, and Ian was keen to mark the occasion with a series of events. Having spent his professional life in marketing, he could see the value of various organisations across the island coming together and two years ago he began to talk to anyone and everyone about the possibilities awaiting them. He felt if he could get Osborne House (Victoria and Albert’s residence) on board then the rest would follow, and for a while things were very positive in that respect, but eventually thanks to politics and policies the house declined.
Unbowed Ian pressed on, involving local councils, ferry companies and festivals until his plans began to take shape. Firstly he managed to convince the Dimbola Museum (the museum in the home of photographic trailblazer Julia Margaret Cameron) to display the ‘Technicolour Dickens’ exhibition that had been curated by the Charles Dickens Museum in London. Cameron was known for her incredible portraits of many Victorian literary greats, so the connection between re-imagined photographs of Dickens displayed in a building where so much photographic magic took place made the exhibition too good an opportunity to miss.
Ian’s second project was linked to his passion for literacy, as he launched a short story writing competition for children in Year 5 (age 9-10). There would be no firm subject matter – the choice was down to the imagination of the children themselves, the only restriction being a limit of 500 words.
Once again Ian dusted off his Dickens talk and went into as many of the island’s primary schools as he could, encouraging every year 5 to enter the competition. Soon the entries came flooding in (more than 100), and the process of judging began. The first selection round involved five members of the Dickens clan, none of whom lived on the Isle of Wight, meaning that there could be no accusation of favouritism. Ian sent as all a random sheaf of stories and we selected 2 or 3 that we felt merited further consideration. When the shortlist had been gathered the final selection was made by Ian, the High Sheriff of The Isle of Wight and a member of the organising committee of the IW Story Festival – at which the winners would be announced.
The prizegiving was to be on Friday 16th February, but I made my way to the island on Thursday afternoon, to spend an evening with Ian and Anne. We were joined later in the afternoon by our cousin Lucinda Dickens Hawksley, a prolific author and one of the other preliminary judges. Having met Lucinda from the ferry Ian drove us to Freshwater, to the Dimbola Museum to have a special after-hours viewing of the Technicolour Dickens exhibition. Photographer Oliver Clyde had observed original monochrome photographs of Charles Dickens and set about colourising them, but not in a straightforward way. With great diligent research he discovered what clothes Dickens had purchased in the years of the portraits and recreated the exact colours and textures of the fabrics. In one picture Dickens is wearing a tartan waistcoat and from tailor’s receipts deduced that it was a Clan Gordan tartan, so used the correct dark blues and greens, with a slight yellow stripe to bring the image to life.
I had a slight part in the success of Technicolour Dickens, in that Oliver had been worried about effectively capturing Charles’ complexion. In the black and white images his skin was quite washed out, due to the lengthy exposure times necessary in the 1800’s, so Oliver photographed me and my cousin Mark in precisely the same poses, so that he could overlay genuine Dickens flesh tones onto the original (or, as Ian pointed out, could add the ravishes and wrinkles of real life!)
It was fun to study the pictures close up, and we all posed for photos next to the photos. There is a hope that I may be able to return to Dimbola later in the year to perform one of my shows with Charles looking down on me from the walls, which may be a bit intimidating.
From Freshwater we drove back to Ian and Anne’s house near Cowes and had a lovely family dinner.
On Friday morning we rose and breakfasted before changing into our smart attire ready for the great ceremony. Ian wore a rather rakish red and white striped blazer, whilst I adopted a dark suit and blue shirt. Both of us sported G&V ties (The George and Vulture is a chop house in the heart for the City of London, which features in The Pickwick Papers, and each December male descendants of the great man meet for a luncheon there, wearing the maroon ‘club’ tie emblazoned with a gold vulture holding a bone in its beak. The original sketch was created by my grandfather, Gerald, and featured the caption ‘Alas poor George.’
For cufflinks I used the set given to me during last year’s tour in New Jersey by my friend Laurel, featuring small golden geraniums with a pearl in the centre if each.
The event was to be held at The Quay Arts Centre in the town of Newport, a brilliant facility which sits astride the River Medina. The centre was full of noise and bustle as we arrived, for the entire weekend was taken up with the IW Story Festival and in almost every gallery and space in the building there were entertaining talks, loud concerts, spectacular presentations and noisy workshops taking place. Our slot was at 12, so we were shown to the green room where we all chatted and waited.
As time passed we were joined by Dawn Haig-Thomas, the High Sheriff of the island who would be announcing the winners, and representatives of the sponsors, HoverTravel and Cowes Enterprise College.
The clock ticked on. I withdrew into myself and ran through what I would have to read, Dawn disappeared and changed into her High Sheriff regalia, Anne listened into an interview with an author who had been giving a presentation and immediately went to buy a copy of his book, and Ian chatted, networked and effortlessly schmoozed.
Soon it was time to begin and the auditorium filled with school children and their families, all anxious to know if their story had won an award. At exactly 12 Cheryl Buggy welcomed us all onto the stage and we took our seats as if we were going to be interviewed on a Saturday night chat show. Ian was first up, talking about his vision and the reasons behind the contest, and when he had finished, it was my turn. I had been asked to perform ‘A Child’s Journey With Dickens’, the short story by Kate Douglas Wiggin in which she reminisced about meeting Charles when she was only ten years old. The story had particular relevance for this event, because at the time of the encounter, in 1868, she was the same age as the contestants in the competition.
I used my best New England accent, pronouncing car ‘cah’, barn ‘bahn’ and water ‘Watah’. Despite the title, the show isn’t really aimed at children, and I was worried that it wouldn’t hold the attention of the audience, but everyone seemed to enjoy it.
Performance over, it was now time for the important business of the day, and Dawn announced the winners. Part of the prize was that each winning story would be read by an actor, related to Charles Dickens, so I was up and down for the rest of the session reading 6 amazing stories. The talent on display was remarkable and there was a real mixture of charming, intense, thoughtful and poignant essays. After each the child in question came to the stage, accepted their envelopes, shook hands with Dawn and politely whispered ‘Thank you’, before returning to their proud family.
The overall winner not only received a book token, but also a stack of books equal to their height for their school library, so when the first prize was announced we had great fun on stage piling up books behind the beaming victorious author, trying to prevent them toppling over to the applause of the audience.
When we had finished we mingled on the stage and posed for photographs with the prizewinners, One lady came up to me and shook my hand, saying ‘Thank you so much! You could read the phone book and make it sound amazing’ I shall accept that review with great pride! Ian also welled up when one of the young authors came up to him and shook his hand, ‘may I have a photo?, he asked. ‘Of course,’ replied Ian, ‘would you like to have the High Sheriff and Gerald in it too?’ ‘No,’ the little boy replied, ‘I just want it with you’
We vacated the stage, as the next event was due to start, and returned to the Green room, where I was interviewed by the festival’s social media team about Charles Dickens, my shows and the event itself.
Anne, Lucinda, Ian and I then drove back to Cowes, had some lunch in a pub near their home, and then he drove Lucinda and I to the RedJet quay for our journey back to the mainland.
It had been an incredible event and the huge success of it was purely down to the efforts of my big brother, and I hope he feels justly proud. I can say for sure that I am immensely proud of his achievements, and hope that this is just the start of a major and important competition. Imagine his delight if, in ten years time, the winner of the Carnegie Medal (a leading prize for children’s and young adult’s literature) was to be the author who won the Isle of Wight Charles Dickens Short Story Competition in 2024. What a legacy that would be!