Keeping Dickens alive

Mr Dickens is rightly proud of his famous forebear. He has written several books around his great grandfather, such as Drinking With Dickens and Dining With Dickens, and his house is named Dingley Dell, after the place in Pickwick Papers.

His visit, and the 100th anniversary this year of the founding of the first Dickens Fellowship, makes this a timely moment to recall the visits to North Yorkshire of the great novelist.

Charles Dickens toured Britain to give readings from his books. But his connections with Yorkshire goes deeper than that. His brother, Alfred Lamert Dickens, was a railway engineer whose York employers had an office on Micklegate. He lived in Malton.

So too did one of Charles Dickens' great friends, Charles Smithson. He was a lawyer whose Easthorpe Hall home lay outside the market town. While staying here, Dickens wrote several chapters of Martin Chuzzlewit.

Perhaps his most famous Yorkshire connection lies in Nicholas Nickleby. Even as a young boy he had been fascinated by the tales of Yorkshire Schools - boarding institutions for unwanted boys.

A court case in 1836 brought the matter to his attention again. It revealed the terrible conditions and brutal punishments suffered by the pupils.

He decided to investigate. The following year he visited Bowes Academy at Greta Bridge, near Barnard Castle, run by William Shaw. What he saw inspired the infamous Dotheboys Hall in Nicholas Nickleby.

He took the precaution of assuring readers that the fictional headmaster Wackford Squeers was "the representative of a class, and not of an individual". But Shaw's defective vision naturally associated him with the character of one-eyed Squeers.

There have been several other real life Yorkshire folk put forward as the "originals" of Dickensian characters. Mrs Gamp, the formidable nurse from Martin Chuzzlewit, was said to have been based on a temporary housekeeper at Easthorpe Hall.

One of Dickens' brother's friends, Richard Chicken, who lived at Bishophill in York, was said by some to be a model for Mr Micawber. Chicken's begging letters are preserved in York archives.

Even Charles Smithson's gift to Dickens of a raven he had obtained from a Flamborough Head pub was said to have evolved into Grip in Barnaby Rudge.

The author had mixed opinions of Yorkshire. While staying at Easthorpe he toured the surrounding countryside, including the Castle Howard estate, which he described as "heaven". Leeds, however, was dismissed in a letter as "a beastly place", and Harrogate was "the queerest place, with the strangest people in it".

He was far keener on York. He loved to visit the Minster, and it was the sight of the 13th-century Five Sisters Window which inspired him to relate the tale of the five sisters in Nicholas Nickleby.

At his first reading in York, in 1858, he was enthusiastically received. As Brian Sourbut and Peter Smith's essay in York History reveals, tickets for the reading at the Festival Concert Rooms in Museum Street cost between one and five shillings.

The Yorkshire Gazette recorded how he "elicited unbounded applause, and sent his audience home delighted with their evening's amusement".

His next planned visit, booked for a few weeks' later, was not a success, however. Dickens' reputation plummeted after his unhappiness with the state of advanced ticket sales led him to cancel.

"It is not often that we have to record conduct like that which Mr Dickens has displayed," said the York Herald, "and we cannot help thinking that if every gentleman who itinerates the country for his pecuniary benefit were to imitate the example thus afforded, there would soon be an end, and deservedly so, to all public confidence and support."

By the time of his next professional reading in York, in 1867, the public had clearly forgiven him. His performance of the trial scene from Pickwick "created a good deal of laughter" said the Gazette. His last reading in the city came on March 1 1869. By this time his health was ailing - he died the following year.

The central passage was the murder of Nancy by Bill Sikes. The Herald reporter recorded that "those who listened testified by their rapt attention the magic spell under which they were placed.

"Mr Dickens, in fact, threw an air of reality around the characters which rendered it difficult to conceive that they were mere creatures of the imagination."

To this day, audiences enjoy readings from these remarkable books. These days it is members of the Dickens Fellowship, York branch, who create the drama.

The branch was originally established in 1902, but then disbanded six years later. The current group began in 1974 and is going strong. Guest speakers talk about various aspects of Dickens and Victorian history at their monthly meetings.

Of the 30 or 40 Fellowship members, a dozen are interested in taking part in readings. They are much in demand. The group gives about 25 readings a year, with December their busiest period due to the popularity of A Christmas Carol.

Fellowship member Michael Fife said the dialogue in the books is really quite gripping, and that Dickens himself had quite a reputation for delivering his own words.

"He was quite a performer. He had to say later on, 'I don't mind if you cry out'. It was very, very dramatic.

"In the murder of Nancy from Oliver Twist, Dickens performed it solo and would clutch his own neck. People have written about it. Unfortunately there weren't any cameras or tape recorders to capture it."

The late Christopher Dickens, the author's great, great grandson, lived in Spofforth and was life president of the York Dickens Fellowship. Through the branch he met Ted Shaw, a descendant of William Shaw, supposed inspiration for Squeers. Mr Shaw is now life president of the branch.

Most of the Fellowship's readings involve two or more people dressed in the clothes of Victorian times. Each event raises money for the charity of the hosts. They are also invited to make a donation to the Fellowship, which goes to its charities, chosen with Dickens' favourite causes in mind.

Leslie Richardson, who has been involved in the Dickens Fellowship for more than 20 years, said of Dickens: "The more you know about him the more incredible he is. We sometimes ask our audience the question: was he a social reformer, or a novelist?"

The Dickens Readers performances have changed over the years, he added.

"When I first saw the readers, they sat in a row and read undramatically. Now we move about and cry, or laugh. The rule seems to be, if you can do it and not lose the place in the script that's fine.

"You can put your arm around matron and give her a kiss, and that's okay as long as you don't lose your place."

For more information on the Dickens Fellowship, contact Leslie Richardson on (01904) 795219

Updated: 10:34 Monday, May 20, 2002