Happy Birthday Charles Dickens!

"This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both... but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom"- Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol.

Many Happy returns to the Sparkler of Albion!

Better known as Charles Dickens, the author considered the greatest writer of the Victorian age, marked the big 200 today – well he would had he been alive.

Celebrations of his life and work took place all over the world and in the UK were led by Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall at the Charles Dickens Museum in Doughty Street, London.

I have decided to mark this great day the only way I know how, by writing a Charles Dickens piece.

It’s a little-known fact the man was an egomaniac and totally self-obsessed hence his self-appointed pen name “sparkler”, a reference to Shakespeare’s The Bard of Avon (Albion was an ancient term for England).

He had ten children, maybe not so little-known, but were you aware they all had nicknames given to them by their dad.

A love of unusual nicknames led Dickens to bestow upon each of his brood a quirky alternative title - “Skittles" and "Plorn” were two.

His fascination is evident in his work, the most memorable being with Pip, an abbreviation of of Philip Pirrip, the main character in Great Expectations.

Charles Dickens’s love of names served as a catalyst to inspire some of the most colourful characters in English literature.

He conjoured up vivid, animated oddballs aching with personality through the magic of some wacky appellation.

Who could forget the miserly Ebenezer Scrooge? I can almost see him scowling and wringing his penny-pinching hands just saying the word.

What about Harold Skimpole, the brilliant, sentimental but selfish protagonist of Bleak House? “Skimpole” – fabulous.

Sweedlepipe, Honeythunder, Bumble, Pumblechook, and M'Choakumchild – all made appearances in his work, who could dream up such beauties but a writer with his tongue firmly lodged in his cheek.

Digging up trivia about Dickens, who died at  58, I discovered some more little-known facts.

He was epileptic, this could explain reference to the condition in his work. 

Oliver Twist’s brother suffered with it.

An obsessive compulsive, Dickens apparently spent hours looking in the mirror combing his hair.

He tormented himself rearranging furniture in his house and couldn’t concentrate until every stick was in just the right position.

He even used to touch things three times for luck. I have always suspected the great geniuses of history to be slightly OCD. 

Many people think Dickens’s work is stuffy. His stories can sadly evoke memories of oppressive classrooms and opinionated teachers.

That is a real shame. I curse the lunatic who ever decreed literature should be force fed on children, then tested with marks given or deducted for right or wrong interpretation.

It is the same as how I shall never forgive my teachers for my aversion to classical music carefully conditioned through hours spent in a music room force fed Mozart and Gershwin before analysing it, of course to our teacher's satisfaction- shameful.

Dickens, Stuffy? No way.

What festive season wouldn’t be complete without curling up with A Christmas Carol and letting the story guide you through the frosty backstreets of Victorian London?

Who hasn’t read Great Expectations and shivered at Miss Havisham’s cold and relentlless hatred of the male sex, which led her to mould the heartless Estella.

Wonderful stories.

To mark the 200th anniversary of Charles Dickens’s birth, I think everyone should pick up one of his books and just fall into it.

No exams, no tests, no “this is what Fagin was feeling” - bah humbug to that.

Just read them for the very reason they were written - fun.

Follow @ExpressNathan