1 00:00:02,000 --> 00:00:06,680 It's 24th December, 1843... 2 00:00:06,680 --> 00:00:10,640 and a man is hurrying through the streets of London to get home to his family. 3 00:00:10,640 --> 00:00:13,240 Tomorrow is Christmas Day. 4 00:00:13,240 --> 00:00:18,280 But if you were walking through the centre of London, you'd hardly be aware of it. 5 00:00:18,400 --> 00:00:22,240 Over in Printing House Square, they're producing tomorrow's edition 6 00:00:22,240 --> 00:00:24,680 of the Times, just as if it was any other day. 7 00:00:24,680 --> 00:00:29,760 Here it is, here's a copy - London, Monday December 25th, 1843. 8 00:00:30,160 --> 00:00:35,200 But astonishingly, if you look through the paper, there isn't a single reference to Christmas. 9 00:00:37,120 --> 00:00:42,160 In fact, there's scarcely been a reference to Christmas in the Times for 25 years. 10 00:00:43,000 --> 00:00:47,560 And yet 1843 was a momentous year in the history of Christmas, 11 00:00:47,560 --> 00:00:52,280 because it was the year that this man, Charles Dickens, 12 00:00:52,280 --> 00:00:54,760 published A Christmas Carol. 13 00:00:54,760 --> 00:00:58,000 This little book IS Christmas. 14 00:00:58,000 --> 00:01:02,400 It is full of presents, decorations, turkey, plum puddings, 15 00:01:02,400 --> 00:01:06,480 family parties, and most of all, goodwill to all men. 16 00:01:06,480 --> 00:01:11,000 But as it happens, all these things we think of 17 00:01:11,000 --> 00:01:16,000 as completely traditional were in fact newly fashionable at this time. 18 00:01:16,680 --> 00:01:21,240 This is the story of how Christmas as we know it had to be invented, 19 00:01:21,240 --> 00:01:24,400 and how Charles Dickens came to tell the world 20 00:01:24,400 --> 00:01:27,520 that they had a positive duty to celebrate it. 21 00:01:39,040 --> 00:01:43,040 Charles Dickens is heading home to celebrate the season. 22 00:01:46,360 --> 00:01:49,600 But what sort of celebration is that going to be? 23 00:01:49,600 --> 00:01:52,720 And what sort of man is he? 24 00:01:56,440 --> 00:01:59,720 He's hurried home to his rather comfortable house 25 00:01:59,720 --> 00:02:02,280 not far from London's Regent's Park. 26 00:02:02,280 --> 00:02:05,400 And he'll do what quite a lot of well set-up Victorians 27 00:02:05,400 --> 00:02:06,840 like to do at this time. 28 00:02:06,840 --> 00:02:09,520 It's new, and it's fashionable, 29 00:02:09,520 --> 00:02:13,800 and it's to celebrate a private, family Christmas. 30 00:02:13,800 --> 00:02:18,800 In his writing he summons up a picture of overwhelming enthusiasm. 31 00:02:19,440 --> 00:02:24,520 "Then the shouting and the struggling and the onslaught that was made on the defenceless porter to despoil him 32 00:02:25,640 --> 00:02:29,440 "of brown paper parcels, the wonder and delight 33 00:02:29,440 --> 00:02:32,840 "with which the development of every package was received." 34 00:02:42,400 --> 00:02:46,520 We know quite a lot of what Charles Dickens got up to in the Christmas 35 00:02:46,520 --> 00:02:49,800 of 1843, the year that he published A Christmas Carol. 36 00:02:49,800 --> 00:02:54,520 And I think probably the reason he loved Christmas so much was because it was a perfect time for him. 37 00:02:54,520 --> 00:02:57,600 His children were young enough to enjoy it. 38 00:02:57,600 --> 00:03:01,160 And he was innocent enough to love it too. 39 00:03:01,160 --> 00:03:06,200 At this stage of his life, he has four very small children and he gave them all elaborate nicknames. 40 00:03:08,560 --> 00:03:12,560 The eldest, Charlie, was known as Fluster Flobby. 41 00:03:12,560 --> 00:03:15,400 Mamie was called Mild Gloucester. 42 00:03:15,400 --> 00:03:20,440 Katy was Lucifer Box, which is a Victorian name for matches. 43 00:03:20,920 --> 00:03:25,760 And little Walter had the charming name of Young Skull. 44 00:03:25,760 --> 00:03:30,400 Dickens' wife Catherine was expecting another baby at any moment. 45 00:03:30,400 --> 00:03:35,200 Her younger sister Georgina also lived with the family. 46 00:03:35,200 --> 00:03:40,280 And Dickens close friend, Forster, who would be his first biographer and often shared his house. 47 00:03:41,000 --> 00:03:43,760 Dickens still looks quite young, doesn't he? 48 00:03:43,760 --> 00:03:46,480 In fact, he was only 31 years old. 49 00:03:46,480 --> 00:03:49,520 But he's already a literary giant. 50 00:03:49,520 --> 00:03:54,600 The celebrated author of the Pickwick Papers, Oliver Twist, and Nicholas Nickleby. 51 00:03:55,880 --> 00:04:00,960 These novels distilled the character, the colour, and the sheer harshness of the early 1800s. 52 00:04:03,200 --> 00:04:07,520 They'd made Dickens the writer of his age. 53 00:04:07,520 --> 00:04:10,360 Dickens really was, if not the first celebrity, 54 00:04:10,360 --> 00:04:13,000 the first celebrity author. He went on book tours, 55 00:04:13,000 --> 00:04:15,240 and went abroad to give book tours. 56 00:04:15,240 --> 00:04:17,600 And gave special readings for charity. 57 00:04:17,600 --> 00:04:22,200 I want to take you first of all back to 1843 - he's just come back 58 00:04:22,200 --> 00:04:24,800 from America earlier in the year. 59 00:04:24,800 --> 00:04:26,800 Yes he got back, yeah, 60 00:04:26,800 --> 00:04:29,400 he got back from America in 1842. 61 00:04:29,400 --> 00:04:34,480 And he'd been there for six months - he hadn't actually told his wife how long they were going for. 62 00:04:34,640 --> 00:04:38,960 He said it would be about three months. And then when he came back, started working on Christmas Carol. 63 00:04:38,960 --> 00:04:42,840 It came out on 19th December, 1843. 64 00:04:42,840 --> 00:04:45,960 It sold out within days which is incredible. 65 00:04:45,960 --> 00:04:48,960 It just shows what a massive celebrity he'd become by that point. 66 00:04:48,960 --> 00:04:53,640 So there he is, I mean, he's almost like the sort of sage of his era. 67 00:04:53,640 --> 00:04:58,160 The person that everybody will listen to. So why do you think he chose Christmas as his subject? 68 00:04:58,160 --> 00:05:02,720 He loved Christmas. His daughter Mamie said that it was his favourite time of year. 69 00:05:02,720 --> 00:05:06,720 And he made them all love it. He sent his children off to learn dancing. 70 00:05:06,720 --> 00:05:09,080 His two daughters Mamie and Katy learnt the polka once. 71 00:05:09,080 --> 00:05:12,680 So that he could dance with them, dancing was a huge part of the Dickens family life. 72 00:05:12,680 --> 00:05:17,680 And Catherine Dickens was usually pregnant so, although she'd loved dancing beforehand, most Christmases 73 00:05:17,840 --> 00:05:22,880 she seemed to be imminently about to give birth so Dickens would often dance with his daughters instead. 74 00:05:28,760 --> 00:05:33,640 And this year, he was planning his biggest Christmas celebration ever. 75 00:05:33,640 --> 00:05:37,920 As well as dinners, games and magic lantern shows. His week would include a party for all his friends. 76 00:05:37,920 --> 00:05:42,080 There would be a trip to the pantomime at the Haymarket Theatre 77 00:05:42,080 --> 00:05:46,280 and it would end with another huge party for his son's birthday. 78 00:05:49,640 --> 00:05:54,240 One of Charles Dickens's own rules of Christmas was to make every 79 00:05:54,240 --> 00:05:57,640 conceivable effort to entertain his family and his friends. 80 00:05:57,640 --> 00:06:02,640 He'd even gone to the bother of buying a complete set of conjuring tricks from a professional magician. 81 00:06:04,120 --> 00:06:08,560 He spent hours rehearsing and preparing for a show. 82 00:06:14,080 --> 00:06:16,200 Ladies and Gentlemen! 83 00:06:19,320 --> 00:06:21,720 I am the unparalleled necromancer! 84 00:06:27,840 --> 00:06:29,920 He was pretty good at it too. 85 00:06:29,920 --> 00:06:31,960 As one of his guests noted. 86 00:06:31,960 --> 00:06:36,960 "This part of the entertainment concluded with a plum pudding 87 00:06:37,160 --> 00:06:40,040 "made out of raw eggs, raw flour, 88 00:06:40,040 --> 00:06:45,040 "all the raw usual ingredients, boiled in a gentleman's hat and tumbled out wreaking, 89 00:06:45,360 --> 00:06:50,360 all in one minute before the eyes of the astonished children and the astonished grown people. 90 00:06:53,160 --> 00:06:56,760 A Christmas pudding! 91 00:06:56,760 --> 00:07:01,760 Charles Dickens seemed utterly dedicated to doing Christmas properly. 92 00:07:04,560 --> 00:07:07,600 their daily concerns for Christmas, 93 00:07:07,600 --> 00:07:11,560 and at this time, he did have quite a few of his own. 94 00:07:11,560 --> 00:07:15,520 Not everything in this busy household was perfect. 95 00:07:15,520 --> 00:07:20,560 Perhaps one of Dickens's best tricks was sustaining the illusion that his marriage was entirely happy. 96 00:07:20,720 --> 00:07:25,040 In a recent letter, he'd referred to his wife as "the donkey". 97 00:07:25,040 --> 00:07:29,960 And he'd had problems with his father who'd been borrowing money 98 00:07:29,960 --> 00:07:32,280 using his famous son's name. 99 00:07:32,280 --> 00:07:36,000 His father really just used Charles Dickens as a meal ticket. 100 00:07:36,000 --> 00:07:40,440 He'd always been getting himself into trouble, but as soon as he realised that his son was financially secure, 101 00:07:40,440 --> 00:07:45,440 and quite wealthy, he would just say, well, I'm Charles Dickens's father, and people would give him credit. 102 00:07:50,320 --> 00:07:52,360 But in the autumn of this year, 103 00:07:52,360 --> 00:07:57,360 the first instalments of his latest novel Martin Chuzzlewit were not selling as well as he'd hoped. 104 00:08:00,320 --> 00:08:05,280 He'd written A Christmas Carol in six hectic weeks. 105 00:08:05,280 --> 00:08:09,760 And he had every hope that this, at least, would be a financial success. 106 00:08:14,360 --> 00:08:19,400 This very Christmas Eve, he received some rather heartening news from his publishers. 107 00:08:21,080 --> 00:08:26,080 In just five days, A Christmas Carol had sold 6,000 copies - 108 00:08:26,720 --> 00:08:29,080 an astonishing figure. 109 00:08:29,080 --> 00:08:34,160 It looked like it had netted Dickens a small fortune. Or so he thought. 110 00:08:35,440 --> 00:08:40,440 As it happens, he'd been a little too lavish with his ideas 111 00:08:40,440 --> 00:08:45,040 for the illustrations and the design for this book. 112 00:08:45,040 --> 00:08:48,680 So he expected to make about £1,000, but he wasn't to know that evening. 113 00:08:48,680 --> 00:08:53,720 In fact he was only going to make 230 quid off the initial sales of A Christmas Carol. 114 00:08:55,200 --> 00:09:00,200 He'd been a little bit too generous in his Christmas gift to the world. 115 00:09:04,040 --> 00:09:09,120 "The curtains of his bed were drawn aside, I tell you, by a hand, and Scrooge 116 00:09:12,000 --> 00:09:17,080 "starting up into a half-recumbent attitude found himself face-to-face 117 00:09:17,280 --> 00:09:20,400 "with the unearthly visitor who drew them." 118 00:09:20,400 --> 00:09:23,480 It was an immediate hit. 119 00:09:23,480 --> 00:09:26,320 So what were the ingredients of its success? 120 00:09:26,320 --> 00:09:29,920 Well, first and foremost it was a brilliant piece of entertainment. 121 00:09:29,920 --> 00:09:31,960 A terrific scary ghost story. 122 00:09:31,960 --> 00:09:36,640 "It was a strange figure, like a child, 123 00:09:36,640 --> 00:09:41,680 "yet not so like a child but like an old man viewed through some supernatural medium." 124 00:09:43,160 --> 00:09:47,280 As we all know, it's the story of Ebenezer Scrooge. 125 00:09:47,280 --> 00:09:51,080 A cold-hearted miser who hates Christmas and who complains 126 00:09:51,080 --> 00:09:55,360 at having to allow his poor clerk Bob Cratchit, the father 127 00:09:55,360 --> 00:09:58,720 of the crippled boy Tiny Tim, a day off work. 128 00:09:58,720 --> 00:10:03,400 But then Scrooge is visited by a series of different ghosts 129 00:10:03,400 --> 00:10:08,480 who take him on a journey to discover the meaning of Christmas. 130 00:10:08,480 --> 00:10:13,520 "Are you the spirit, sir, whose coming was foretold to me?" 131 00:10:16,400 --> 00:10:19,160 ..asked Scrooge. 132 00:10:19,160 --> 00:10:21,400 "I am." 133 00:10:21,400 --> 00:10:23,400 "Who and what are you?" 134 00:10:23,400 --> 00:10:26,440 ..demanded Scrooge. 135 00:10:26,440 --> 00:10:30,560 "I am the ghost of Christmas past." 136 00:10:30,560 --> 00:10:33,200 "Long past?" 137 00:10:33,200 --> 00:10:36,080 ..enquired Scrooge. 138 00:10:37,680 --> 00:10:40,960 "No, your past." 139 00:10:40,960 --> 00:10:43,920 The ghost takes Scrooge back to look at his childhood 140 00:10:43,920 --> 00:10:48,920 when he was able to enjoy Christmas before the love of money took over. 141 00:10:49,320 --> 00:10:51,760 He calls Christmas a humbug. 142 00:10:51,760 --> 00:10:56,400 One reason for the book's success was that it had a powerful message. 143 00:10:56,400 --> 00:10:58,720 It was a ghost in front of him. 144 00:10:58,720 --> 00:11:02,240 It's a message that children still respond to today. 145 00:11:02,240 --> 00:11:07,280 It was about a man who was really angry and hated 146 00:11:07,640 --> 00:11:11,440 Christmas and hated everything and didn't want to give anyone money. 147 00:11:11,440 --> 00:11:14,520 Then these ghosts came of Christmas 148 00:11:14,520 --> 00:11:19,320 and showed him what would happen if he kept doing this. 149 00:11:19,320 --> 00:11:24,320 When he was with the ghost of Christmas past, it showed him, 150 00:11:26,680 --> 00:11:31,720 And the Christmas present, it showed him 151 00:11:31,720 --> 00:11:35,240 everyone altogether enjoying Christmas. 152 00:11:35,240 --> 00:11:40,280 And the future, when everyone was talking about his death they was all happy. 153 00:11:41,520 --> 00:11:46,560 So he thought, "Everyone hates me, so I've gotta be a better man." 154 00:11:47,040 --> 00:11:51,600 I like the end part, like when he suddenly changes. 155 00:11:51,600 --> 00:11:54,560 When he woke up he just suddenly started being nice to everyone. 156 00:11:54,560 --> 00:11:59,600 It's basically saying if you don't enjoy yourself other people won't enjoy themselves. 157 00:12:01,240 --> 00:12:05,080 And the moral is what goes around comes back around. 158 00:12:06,840 --> 00:12:11,840 Dickens's message was popular with the highly moral Victorians. 159 00:12:12,280 --> 00:12:17,320 In the year after it first appeared as a book, there were no less than eight different theatre productions 160 00:12:17,320 --> 00:12:22,360 of A Christmas Carol and the story has been performed countless times since on stage and on film. 161 00:12:25,160 --> 00:12:30,240 Patrick Stewart has done both, and knows that adults find as much in it as children. 162 00:12:31,000 --> 00:12:36,040 I think that the secret of it is the second chance. 163 00:12:36,160 --> 00:12:40,400 And particularly this is something which affects 164 00:12:40,400 --> 00:12:42,720 middle-aged and older people. 165 00:12:42,720 --> 00:12:47,720 This sense that no matter how much you have screwed up your life, 166 00:12:48,800 --> 00:12:53,840 and Scrooge is a success, in financial terms, he has done terrifically well, 167 00:12:54,720 --> 00:12:58,680 but in every other possible way, his life is a disaster. 168 00:12:58,680 --> 00:13:01,640 In humanitarian terms, in personal terms, 169 00:13:01,640 --> 00:13:06,000 in fulfilment in relationships, it is calamitous, his life. 170 00:13:06,000 --> 00:13:11,080 And then he is given this great gift of being shown where he came from, 171 00:13:12,040 --> 00:13:16,320 how he started, and gradually what he has become, 172 00:13:16,320 --> 00:13:21,320 and the impact of what he has become has had on other people. 173 00:13:21,520 --> 00:13:25,840 And he is allowed to take a step back 174 00:13:25,840 --> 00:13:28,600 and change himself. 175 00:13:28,600 --> 00:13:33,640 And I start to get emotional just as I think about this, and of course this is a Shakespearian theme too - 176 00:13:35,000 --> 00:13:39,960 he uses this similarly, in which somebody is given an opportunity to change their life. 177 00:13:40,720 --> 00:13:44,520 And to make that change have an impact on the world around them. 178 00:13:44,520 --> 00:13:46,600 I find that really potent. 179 00:13:51,080 --> 00:13:54,600 It was the impact, though, 180 00:13:54,600 --> 00:13:59,440 of the book that caused such amazing... 181 00:13:59,440 --> 00:14:03,080 because this is a review here 182 00:14:03,080 --> 00:14:06,360 in a magazine of the time under the title "Literature". 183 00:14:06,360 --> 00:14:11,400 How shall we convey to our readers the surpassing beauty with which this accomplished author 184 00:14:12,320 --> 00:14:16,920 of the seasonable little volume has worked out, or as he sportively terms it - 185 00:14:16,920 --> 00:14:21,920 raised "the ghost of an idea." There's a page here of enthusiasm. 186 00:14:22,000 --> 00:14:27,040 And Thackeray, who was Dickens's great rival, called it "a benefit to mankind". 187 00:14:28,880 --> 00:14:33,920 And he said to every man and woman who reads it, Dickens has done a personal kindness. 188 00:14:36,080 --> 00:14:39,840 Another critic compared it to the Fourth Gospel. 189 00:14:39,840 --> 00:14:42,920 It was an instant classic. 190 00:14:44,520 --> 00:14:48,480 Dickens had done more than create an uplifting entertainment for the entire family. 191 00:14:48,480 --> 00:14:52,640 He'd also produced the ideal Christmas gift. 192 00:14:52,640 --> 00:14:57,680 Brian Lake is a book dealer who specialises in original editions of Charles Dickens's work. 193 00:14:58,960 --> 00:15:03,760 Dickens took quite a lot of interest in this book. He wanted it to be 194 00:15:03,760 --> 00:15:06,480 a sort of Christmas present in itself? 195 00:15:06,480 --> 00:15:10,200 Yes, it was designed by Dickens to be a Christmas present. 196 00:15:10,200 --> 00:15:15,280 He wanted to make money out of the book so he created something to sell at five shillings, 197 00:15:16,200 --> 00:15:19,480 which he felt that people would go out and buy in large numbers. 198 00:15:19,480 --> 00:15:23,240 Show me a first edition. This is a first edition of A Christmas Carol? 199 00:15:23,240 --> 00:15:24,880 This is it. 200 00:15:24,880 --> 00:15:29,120 Dickens always spent a lot of time on the physical appearance of his books. 201 00:15:29,120 --> 00:15:33,280 He was always very concerned about how much they would cost. 202 00:15:33,280 --> 00:15:38,320 He wasn't just a writer, he was very concerned about how it was going to be seen by the public. 203 00:15:38,600 --> 00:15:43,600 Initially, he wanted to have green title page and green endpapers. 204 00:15:44,360 --> 00:15:47,720 You can see this didn't work. It starts to rub off. 205 00:15:47,720 --> 00:15:50,760 So the next version was with yellow endpapers. 206 00:15:50,760 --> 00:15:53,880 But all of them are made with this rather beautiful attention... 207 00:15:53,880 --> 00:15:56,440 We've got a two-colour title page. 208 00:15:56,440 --> 00:15:59,920 Absolutely unique to A Christmas Carol, and the expense 209 00:15:59,920 --> 00:16:03,720 of hand-colouring basically killed the book commercially. 210 00:16:03,720 --> 00:16:08,280 All of the colouring is done by hand, it's done by rows of women sitting, 211 00:16:08,280 --> 00:16:12,960 applying different colours, and therefore became a very expensive process. 212 00:16:12,960 --> 00:16:17,800 So the fact that when we come to visit a bookshop before Christmas, 213 00:16:17,800 --> 00:16:21,640 and it's groaning with books ready for Christmas, 214 00:16:21,640 --> 00:16:25,880 that's all down to the success of this book. 215 00:16:25,880 --> 00:16:29,960 It was the first Christmas story, really. 216 00:16:29,960 --> 00:16:32,920 It just spawned a whole industry. 217 00:16:32,920 --> 00:16:37,120 If I wanted to buy a first edition of A Christmas Carol now, 218 00:16:37,120 --> 00:16:40,720 the original first edition with the green endpapers. 219 00:16:40,720 --> 00:16:43,120 With the green endpapers. How much would I have to spend? 220 00:16:43,120 --> 00:16:47,120 Probably £10,000-£15,000. 221 00:16:47,120 --> 00:16:52,080 Even though there were 6,000 produced. Yes. It's a popular book. 222 00:16:52,080 --> 00:16:55,760 It's one of the Dickenses that people really want. 223 00:16:59,480 --> 00:17:03,640 All the ingredients were certainly there for a Christmas bestseller for Dickens. 224 00:17:05,720 --> 00:17:09,920 It was a terrific thriller with a moral message for all the family, 225 00:17:09,920 --> 00:17:12,000 and lovely to look at, too. 226 00:17:14,080 --> 00:17:19,120 But that doesn't entirely explain its huge contemporary success. 227 00:17:19,320 --> 00:17:23,360 The truth was, Dickens had caught the wave of a new fashion that had 228 00:17:23,360 --> 00:17:27,440 been building in Victoria's England over the last 30 years. 229 00:17:27,440 --> 00:17:32,320 Christmas was about to bust out all over the place. 230 00:17:38,640 --> 00:17:42,040 1843, the year that A Christmas Carol came out, 231 00:17:42,040 --> 00:17:45,480 was clearly an annus mirabilis for Christmas, 232 00:17:45,480 --> 00:17:48,960 because it happened coincidentally to be the same year 233 00:17:48,960 --> 00:17:53,400 that the very first Christmas card was published - and here it is. 234 00:17:54,960 --> 00:18:00,000 And it shows a family holding up glasses of wine, enjoying Christmas. 235 00:18:00,000 --> 00:18:05,040 It could pass muster as a Christmas card today, the very first one. 236 00:18:05,480 --> 00:18:09,880 It was the idea of Henry Cole, a civil servant and industrial designer, 237 00:18:09,880 --> 00:18:13,520 who is often credited with having designed the Penny Black stamp. 238 00:18:13,520 --> 00:18:18,440 He doesn't look a very merry soul, but he started something. 239 00:18:18,520 --> 00:18:22,360 Henry Cole was obviously far too busy 240 00:18:22,360 --> 00:18:26,840 to send Christmas greetings to all of his friends, acquaintances 241 00:18:26,840 --> 00:18:30,560 and business associates, so instead he wrote, "A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year" 242 00:18:30,560 --> 00:18:34,520 on a piece of cardboard, and so the Christmas card was invented. 243 00:18:34,520 --> 00:18:39,560 In little more than 30 years, four million cards were being sent every year. 244 00:18:41,680 --> 00:18:46,760 It became a fashion, then a craze and then a tradition - just like A Christmas Carol. 245 00:18:47,840 --> 00:18:52,760 The Victorians were hungry for Christmas ideas. 246 00:18:52,920 --> 00:18:57,720 Especially the comfortable people of the middling sort, as they called themselves. 247 00:18:57,720 --> 00:19:00,720 Dickens was one himself. 248 00:19:00,720 --> 00:19:05,760 These were city-dwellers who wanted the chance to enjoy themselves. 249 00:19:07,560 --> 00:19:10,960 They wanted to have a proper Christmas. 250 00:19:12,480 --> 00:19:14,840 But what sort of Christmas was that? 251 00:19:22,440 --> 00:19:27,480 Do you ever get the feeling as you settle in for the exhausting hard grind of another Christmas season, 252 00:19:29,120 --> 00:19:33,760 that these things must have been done a lot better about 150 years ago? 253 00:19:33,760 --> 00:19:38,800 In fact, that's exactly what they thought, about 150 years ago. 254 00:19:41,440 --> 00:19:44,720 Because the Victorians loved history. 255 00:19:48,760 --> 00:19:51,240 These are the Houses of Parliament, 256 00:19:51,240 --> 00:19:54,320 and they're actually being built in 1843. 257 00:19:54,320 --> 00:19:57,680 They're brand new, and yet, if you look at them, 258 00:19:57,680 --> 00:20:02,680 they're being made to look like a Flemish Burghermaster's hall 259 00:20:03,840 --> 00:20:06,160 from the early 1300s. 260 00:20:06,160 --> 00:20:09,320 This is the fastest-growing era the world has ever seen. 261 00:20:09,320 --> 00:20:11,600 They're rocketing into modernity. 262 00:20:11,600 --> 00:20:16,000 And yet they're obsessed with the romance of the past. 263 00:20:16,000 --> 00:20:21,000 And there's no better example of this obsession than the Society of Antiquaries. 264 00:20:21,160 --> 00:20:26,240 It was the Antiquarians who first began gathering up the folklore and historic customs of Britain. 265 00:20:27,360 --> 00:20:32,400 I've come here just off Piccadilly to meet a modern-day historian, Steve Roud. 266 00:20:33,320 --> 00:20:36,080 Steve. Hello there. 267 00:20:36,080 --> 00:20:37,960 Welcome to the Society. 268 00:20:37,960 --> 00:20:43,040 The enthusiastic, educated members of this very exclusive club 269 00:20:43,640 --> 00:20:48,720 were also the first to investigate the origins of our Christmas traditions. 270 00:20:48,960 --> 00:20:52,600 The first people to really start worrying about Christmas 271 00:20:52,600 --> 00:20:56,360 were around 1800, 1810, at a time when really, 272 00:20:56,360 --> 00:20:58,720 Christmas was fading away. 273 00:20:58,720 --> 00:21:00,680 People weren't really celebrating it. 274 00:21:00,680 --> 00:21:03,520 It was literally just dying out. 275 00:21:03,520 --> 00:21:08,360 They suddenly realised if they didn't do something, then Christmas, 276 00:21:08,360 --> 00:21:11,480 one of our major festivals, would disappear. 277 00:21:14,760 --> 00:21:19,800 Christmas had been having a rocky time since it was banned by Oliver Cromwell. 278 00:21:21,080 --> 00:21:26,120 The Puritans felt that a "Christ mass" sounded a bit too Catholic. 279 00:21:26,920 --> 00:21:31,840 Christmas pudding was actually made illegal in 1647. 280 00:21:31,840 --> 00:21:36,880 The festival was restored with the monarchy in 1660. 281 00:21:37,600 --> 00:21:40,680 But it was never quite as popular. 282 00:21:40,680 --> 00:21:45,640 Then at the beginning of the 1800s, the Antiquarians got involved. 283 00:21:47,840 --> 00:21:51,920 They said, "Well, let's get back to old Christmas". 284 00:21:51,920 --> 00:21:55,080 With an "e"? Of course! 285 00:21:55,080 --> 00:21:57,320 Olde Christmas! That's right. 286 00:21:57,320 --> 00:21:59,920 That's when it started... 287 00:21:59,920 --> 00:22:04,920 The movement started not only to bring back Christmas, but to bring back the spirit of "olde" Christmas. 288 00:22:06,240 --> 00:22:10,080 The way Christmas used to be done in my grandfather's day. 289 00:22:10,080 --> 00:22:13,520 Even before that, in Merrie England. 290 00:22:15,200 --> 00:22:18,720 Mostly it's set in Elizabeth I's time. 291 00:22:18,720 --> 00:22:21,720 That's when England was strong, 292 00:22:21,720 --> 00:22:25,440 England was happy, England was merry. 293 00:22:25,440 --> 00:22:28,720 But Steve believes some of the more ancient customs 294 00:22:28,720 --> 00:22:33,160 that the Antiquarians wrote about are simply myths. 295 00:22:33,160 --> 00:22:37,640 And what about the idea that holly and ivy are 296 00:22:37,640 --> 00:22:42,640 part of a pagan ritual for bringing in things alive into the dead season? 297 00:22:44,320 --> 00:22:46,520 Well... No. 298 00:22:46,520 --> 00:22:48,120 It wasn't. 299 00:22:48,120 --> 00:22:50,880 The answer is, we don't really know. 300 00:22:50,880 --> 00:22:55,280 There's so little information from pre-Christian times 301 00:22:55,280 --> 00:22:59,520 about what happened at midwinter that it's assumption. 302 00:22:59,520 --> 00:23:01,480 And the mistletoe? 303 00:23:01,480 --> 00:23:06,520 I understand mistletoe is some sort of druidic sexual fertility ritual. 304 00:23:06,800 --> 00:23:09,440 Is that true? No, again. 305 00:23:09,440 --> 00:23:12,560 There's not the slightest shred of evidence there! 306 00:23:15,040 --> 00:23:19,040 In fact, quite a lot of slightly dodgy different Christmas traditions 307 00:23:19,040 --> 00:23:21,480 were gathered together around this time. 308 00:23:21,480 --> 00:23:24,040 Some were used, some were not. 309 00:23:27,040 --> 00:23:31,520 We all put up mistletoe but we don't dress up as barnyard animals 310 00:23:31,520 --> 00:23:34,040 or shoot pistols at trees on Boxing Day - 311 00:23:34,040 --> 00:23:37,800 some of the other customs that the Antiquarians gathered in. 312 00:23:37,800 --> 00:23:41,960 The Victorians took what they wanted. 313 00:23:41,960 --> 00:23:46,160 And what these new city people wanted was whatever reminded them 314 00:23:46,160 --> 00:23:49,760 of a joyful, old, village Christmas in a manorial hall - 315 00:23:49,760 --> 00:23:52,320 the world they'd left behind, in fact. 316 00:23:52,320 --> 00:23:57,320 Dickens first wrote about exactly this seven years before A Christmas Carol. 317 00:23:58,280 --> 00:24:02,600 There's a great Christmas chapter in his first novel, the Pickwick Papers, 318 00:24:02,600 --> 00:24:07,600 where Mr Pickwick visits Squire Wardle at his country seat. 319 00:24:07,720 --> 00:24:12,280 "This", said Mr Pickwick, "This is indeed comfort." 320 00:24:12,280 --> 00:24:16,360 "Our invariable custom", replied Mr Wardle. 321 00:24:16,360 --> 00:24:21,400 "Everybody sits down with us on Christmas Eve as you see them now, servants and all... 322 00:24:21,840 --> 00:24:25,080 "and here we wait until the clock strikes 12 to usher 323 00:24:25,080 --> 00:24:30,040 "Christmas in and beguile the time with forfeits and old stories". 324 00:24:30,560 --> 00:24:34,000 But Squire Wardle's Country Christmas 325 00:24:34,000 --> 00:24:37,480 was a big, rowdy, rather adult affair. 326 00:24:37,480 --> 00:24:41,320 So how were those polite, city, Victorian folk 327 00:24:41,320 --> 00:24:46,400 of the middling classes supposed to celebrate "ye olde worlde" 328 00:24:46,720 --> 00:24:51,760 boisterous Christmas in their parlours without ruining the rugs? 329 00:24:53,080 --> 00:24:57,160 Dickens's own Christmas parties are a pretty good example of how 330 00:24:57,160 --> 00:25:00,400 they adapted the old traditions to the new cities. 331 00:25:00,400 --> 00:25:04,080 They would definitely play a game of blind man's bluff. 332 00:25:04,080 --> 00:25:06,280 It was one of Dickens's favourite. 333 00:25:06,280 --> 00:25:11,280 But this was a tidied up parlour version of a much more boisterous game from the village past, 334 00:25:11,800 --> 00:25:15,840 which had given servants the opportunity to wrestle with the master, 335 00:25:15,840 --> 00:25:17,320 or fondle the mistress. 336 00:25:21,960 --> 00:25:25,040 Oh! This one's Mary! 337 00:25:25,040 --> 00:25:26,800 Yes! 338 00:25:32,120 --> 00:25:35,800 And when the adults kissed under the mistletoe, 339 00:25:35,800 --> 00:25:40,840 it was the custom right up until the end of the century to take a kiss for every berry on the sprig. 340 00:25:43,480 --> 00:25:46,600 And there's a wonderful description in the Pickwick Papers of the girls 341 00:25:46,600 --> 00:25:50,920 running off to hide behind the sofas in case they get caught 342 00:25:50,920 --> 00:25:54,920 because this was a way of getting up close and personal 343 00:25:54,920 --> 00:25:59,240 when up close and personal generally was pretty difficult. 344 00:26:00,920 --> 00:26:05,960 So games, mistletoe, what about the other things we do at Christmas? 345 00:26:08,440 --> 00:26:13,440 I asked historian Daru Rooke, and it seems that when it comes 346 00:26:13,680 --> 00:26:18,480 to traditions, the Victorians went shopping around all over the place. 347 00:26:20,160 --> 00:26:24,600 If I'm decorating a Christmas tree today, I can go mad, can't I? 348 00:26:24,600 --> 00:26:29,640 I can put up almost anything I want! You can go crazy. All these colours and shapes. 349 00:26:30,600 --> 00:26:35,600 And with the Victorians... When Dickens went to decorate his house 350 00:26:36,080 --> 00:26:41,120 on Christmas Eve, would he have used baubles, bangles, beads? 351 00:26:41,400 --> 00:26:44,680 Glass beads really take off in the 1850s and '60s 352 00:26:44,680 --> 00:26:46,840 and they come in from Germany, 353 00:26:46,840 --> 00:26:50,320 and at first they were chaste things that looked like fruit or flowers 354 00:26:50,320 --> 00:26:55,320 but by the end of the century, you can get model airships, famous actresses, the lot, it takes off. 355 00:26:56,400 --> 00:27:01,400 That early?! It's extraordinary because you don't get in Christmas decorations, 356 00:27:01,560 --> 00:27:04,240 you don't get minimalist decorations. 357 00:27:04,240 --> 00:27:09,000 Well, you can in shops and things like that, and I've been into architects' houses 358 00:27:09,000 --> 00:27:11,400 and there's one-coloured thing, 359 00:27:11,400 --> 00:27:16,320 but generally when we go for it for Christmas, however decorous we are, 360 00:27:16,320 --> 00:27:19,320 we go completely wild, don't we? 361 00:27:19,320 --> 00:27:22,440 I think that's in the spirit of the 19th century house, 362 00:27:22,440 --> 00:27:26,680 with its reflective pier glasses, gas lighting, its gilded surfaces. 363 00:27:26,680 --> 00:27:28,920 This is the middle-class home, I'm adding. 364 00:27:28,920 --> 00:27:30,840 It's all about this excess. 365 00:27:30,840 --> 00:27:34,200 Christmas is still very much Victorian excess. 366 00:27:34,200 --> 00:27:36,960 Would they have had Christmas stockings? 367 00:27:36,960 --> 00:27:41,480 Not in Dickens's early years, they come in via France and America in the 1870s, 368 00:27:41,480 --> 00:27:44,680 though I think they intended you to hang up your own stocking, 369 00:27:44,680 --> 00:27:47,040 not something embroidered and glamorous. 370 00:27:47,040 --> 00:27:52,080 We like to think that many of these things are of olde English origin 371 00:27:53,720 --> 00:27:56,240 but are they all of "olde" English origin? 372 00:27:56,240 --> 00:27:58,200 Very few are when you think about it. 373 00:27:58,200 --> 00:28:02,840 Look at the cracker, for example. That comes in in the 1840s, invented by a confectioner. 374 00:28:02,840 --> 00:28:07,920 It's based on a French idea but it's a modern English invention to go bang and give you an interesting message. 375 00:28:08,520 --> 00:28:13,160 What about the piece de resistance, the Christmas tree? 376 00:28:13,160 --> 00:28:17,280 Would the Dickens family have spent a lot of time putting up a Christmas tree? 377 00:28:17,280 --> 00:28:21,960 They might have done, although they would've been very advanced if they did. 378 00:28:21,960 --> 00:28:24,800 When did Christmas trees come in then? 379 00:28:24,800 --> 00:28:29,840 We know the Royal Family were using Christmas trees in the 1790s. 1790s? 380 00:28:31,000 --> 00:28:34,520 We think it was Prince Albert who brought it in but this was earlier. 381 00:28:34,520 --> 00:28:37,760 We do. As a young woman in the 1830s, Queen Victoria talks about 382 00:28:37,760 --> 00:28:40,600 the lighting up of the Christmas tree in the family home. 383 00:28:40,600 --> 00:28:43,280 The Royals did it well in advance of everyone else 384 00:28:43,280 --> 00:28:46,680 and possibly German merchants in Manchester and Bradford too. 385 00:28:46,680 --> 00:28:50,360 And it was a German idea. It didn't look like this, did it? 386 00:28:50,360 --> 00:28:52,600 No, it was a real Christmas tree brought in 387 00:28:52,600 --> 00:28:55,840 and people were quite creative about how they used them. 388 00:28:55,840 --> 00:28:59,920 Queen Victoria replaced chandeliers with Christmas trees hung with lights. 389 00:28:59,920 --> 00:29:03,640 Some people put presents on the tree but periodically they caught fire. 390 00:29:03,640 --> 00:29:06,440 Ultimately, the presents were put around the bottom. 391 00:29:06,440 --> 00:29:09,600 It was constantly evolving through the Victorian period. 392 00:29:09,600 --> 00:29:13,840 Isn't that fascinating, that the Royal Family were at forefront of ideas, 393 00:29:13,840 --> 00:29:17,080 because we associate them with old tweed jackets and things 394 00:29:17,080 --> 00:29:19,720 which are a little bit old-fashioned these days? 395 00:29:19,720 --> 00:29:23,000 Victoria and Albert really do set the tone of the idea couple 396 00:29:23,000 --> 00:29:26,120 and what they do in the home, setting up the Christmas tree, 397 00:29:26,120 --> 00:29:31,160 is published in magazines and periodicals and the rising middle classes want to do just as they do. 398 00:29:33,920 --> 00:29:37,800 We know Charles Dickens soon caught on to the idea of a Christmas tree. 399 00:29:37,800 --> 00:29:42,840 He wrote about that "pretty German toy", as he called it, in a short story in 1850. 400 00:29:43,360 --> 00:29:48,400 And he was amongst the first to give Christmas presents. 401 00:29:48,400 --> 00:29:51,880 The tradition at that time was to exchange gifts at the New Year. 402 00:29:53,520 --> 00:29:58,320 But the Dickens children wouldn't have expected anything to be delivered down the chimney. 403 00:29:58,320 --> 00:30:03,360 In the 1840s, the bearded old man of Christmas was a green sprite with slightly lewd association. 404 00:30:05,880 --> 00:30:08,200 Father Christmas, where did he emerge from? 405 00:30:08,200 --> 00:30:10,960 Father Christmas as we know him now is a real hybrid. 406 00:30:10,960 --> 00:30:14,440 He comes in England out of quite a long tradition of Sir Christmas, 407 00:30:14,440 --> 00:30:18,920 who was almost a pagan character that encouraged you to eat, drink and be merry, 408 00:30:18,920 --> 00:30:21,280 and used to have an open cut robe in green. 409 00:30:21,280 --> 00:30:26,320 But by the 1860s, he's married with the American concept of Christmas 410 00:30:27,080 --> 00:30:31,960 which itself comes from Holland and it's an idea of a genial sort 411 00:30:31,960 --> 00:30:35,640 who brings presents down the chimney, and that comes out of literature. 412 00:30:35,640 --> 00:30:39,440 It's a mish-mash, a proper patchwork without any real tradition at all. 413 00:30:39,440 --> 00:30:43,080 So again, poor old Father Christmas, he's sort of comes, like we all do, 414 00:30:43,080 --> 00:30:45,760 from a number of different ancestors. 415 00:30:45,760 --> 00:30:48,840 That's right, mixed ancestry but how beautiful he is today. 416 00:30:48,840 --> 00:30:50,800 CHURCH BELLS CHIME 417 00:30:57,840 --> 00:31:02,920 Like any respectable Victorian family, on Christmas morning, the Dickenses went to church. 418 00:31:03,440 --> 00:31:06,480 They'd have been very, very peculiar if they hadn't 419 00:31:06,480 --> 00:31:11,520 because the church, in all its denominations, was at the heart of Victorian society. 420 00:31:11,920 --> 00:31:16,320 MUSIC: "The Holy And The Ivy" 421 00:31:21,000 --> 00:31:25,360 Actually, there's another part of the story of a revival of Christmas 422 00:31:25,360 --> 00:31:29,600 that I haven't looked at yet and it's staring me in the face, 423 00:31:29,600 --> 00:31:32,480 it's the title of the book, for goodness sake. 424 00:31:54,560 --> 00:31:56,440 Griff. 425 00:31:56,440 --> 00:32:01,480 Howard. I don't want you to stop because you see, for me, 426 00:32:01,640 --> 00:32:05,040 that's instant Christmas, there's almost nothing like it. 427 00:32:05,040 --> 00:32:08,680 That's why shops play it presumably from November, don't they? 428 00:32:08,680 --> 00:32:11,760 I think it's instant Christmas and instant childhood. Yes. 429 00:32:11,760 --> 00:32:13,680 Does it take you back? Yes, it does. 430 00:32:13,680 --> 00:32:17,200 But the question I want to know is what is specifically 431 00:32:17,200 --> 00:32:20,560 a Christmas carol then, as opposed to a hymn or.,.? 432 00:32:20,560 --> 00:32:25,080 A Christmas carol is a country folk song with a Christmas theme. 433 00:32:25,080 --> 00:32:29,840 As opposed to a straightforward hymn like Hark The Herald Angels Sing, 434 00:32:29,840 --> 00:32:34,360 which Charles Wesley, a great hymn writer, wrote specifically to be sung in a church. 435 00:32:34,360 --> 00:32:37,360 I thought Hark The Herald Angels Sing was a carol. 436 00:32:37,360 --> 00:32:39,920 They've all merged into one great tradition now 437 00:32:39,920 --> 00:32:43,680 but the country tradition of singing Christmas carols is really old 438 00:32:43,680 --> 00:32:47,240 and goes back to the Middle Ages where people were just as likely 439 00:32:47,240 --> 00:32:50,840 to hear a Christmas carol in a pub as you would in a church. 440 00:32:50,840 --> 00:32:54,880 A lot of old carols, I Saw Three Ships Come Sailing In, 441 00:32:54,880 --> 00:32:57,000 or Tomorrow Shall Be My Dancing Day, 442 00:32:57,000 --> 00:33:02,000 these are very dancey, jolly, jaunty songs that got attached to the Christmas season. 443 00:33:03,520 --> 00:33:08,520 If I were an ordinary man in London in about 1830, 444 00:33:11,080 --> 00:33:15,880 would I have recognised all the carols in the same way we do now? 445 00:33:15,880 --> 00:33:19,720 They're so instant for us now, we know them all. 446 00:33:19,720 --> 00:33:24,160 I think what happened was, at the beginning of the 19th century, in about 1820s, 1830s, 447 00:33:24,160 --> 00:33:27,400 they started to collect into books these songs which were sung 448 00:33:27,400 --> 00:33:31,920 and handed on from person-to-person out in the countryside, in little villages. 449 00:33:31,920 --> 00:33:36,920 Presumably, they brought them to the towns and into the churches in the towns. 450 00:33:37,320 --> 00:33:41,160 It sounds as if carols weren't specifically associated with churches. 451 00:33:41,160 --> 00:33:45,680 They were associated with plays and carol-singing going round the town doing good. 452 00:33:45,680 --> 00:33:48,800 They used to call it gooding and they brought it into church 453 00:33:48,800 --> 00:33:51,960 because the church was a big thing in 19th-century Britain. 454 00:33:51,960 --> 00:33:55,840 Lots of people went to church of various kinds, not just Anglican Church. 455 00:33:55,840 --> 00:34:00,760 Why not bring the tunes people loved and associated with Christmas into a Christmas setting? 456 00:34:00,760 --> 00:34:04,200 God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen... # God rest Ye Merry Gentlemen... 457 00:34:04,200 --> 00:34:09,280 That's an old tune but people got new words for it and fitted it to it so it would work at Christmas. 458 00:34:09,480 --> 00:34:12,880 There was a whole craze for these songs from all over the place. 459 00:34:12,880 --> 00:34:15,160 In fact, quite a few come from Germany. 460 00:34:15,160 --> 00:34:19,600 # In Dulci Jubilo. # That's an old German tune. 461 00:34:19,600 --> 00:34:22,720 They were brought in and wrapped up into this new form. 462 00:34:22,720 --> 00:34:26,080 When you think about it, A Christmas Carol as a title 463 00:34:26,080 --> 00:34:29,280 is referring to something which is newly fashionable. 464 00:34:29,280 --> 00:34:33,080 it's like a sort of craze for carols and he's writing a book 465 00:34:33,080 --> 00:34:36,560 which actually directly has that sort of craze. 466 00:34:36,560 --> 00:34:39,880 It's like calling something the iPod as a book. 467 00:34:39,880 --> 00:34:43,080 It's all around him but new. 468 00:34:43,080 --> 00:34:47,760 And probably he managed to make the word carol and Christmas stick forever together. 469 00:34:47,760 --> 00:34:50,920 In the Middle Ages you could have a carol any time of year. 470 00:34:50,920 --> 00:34:53,000 There were carol from all round the year 471 00:34:53,000 --> 00:34:56,080 but they started to attract themselves just to Christmas. 472 00:34:56,080 --> 00:35:00,240 We don't think of carols at any other time now and Dickens has a lot to do with it. 473 00:35:00,240 --> 00:35:03,080 He wrote one himself which is in Pickwick 474 00:35:03,080 --> 00:35:08,080 and it's supposed go to the tune of Old King Cole. 475 00:35:08,240 --> 00:35:10,920 I wondered whether we could have a look at it 476 00:35:10,920 --> 00:35:13,000 and see if we could make it fit. Here we go. 477 00:35:14,080 --> 00:35:18,120 # But my song I troll out for Christmas stout 478 00:35:18,120 --> 00:35:21,560 # The heart and the true and the bold 479 00:35:21,560 --> 00:35:24,680 # A bumper I drain and with might and main 480 00:35:24,680 --> 00:35:27,480 # Give three cheers for this Christmas song... # 481 00:35:27,480 --> 00:35:32,440 Though here we are in church and singing a carol, 482 00:35:32,600 --> 00:35:37,640 we all have to ask, where exactly is the baby Jesus in Charles Dickens's vision of Christmas? 483 00:35:38,000 --> 00:35:41,280 There are plenty of bumpers of ale in his song, 484 00:35:41,280 --> 00:35:44,520 but no mention of a little star over Bethlehem. 485 00:35:44,520 --> 00:35:47,360 # ..echoes from wall to wall... 486 00:35:47,360 --> 00:35:51,040 # To the stout old wight Fair welcome tonight 487 00:35:51,040 --> 00:35:56,120 # As the king of the seasons all. # 488 00:35:58,840 --> 00:36:03,880 In A Christmas Carol itself, only a few sentences are given over to the worship of God. 489 00:36:04,040 --> 00:36:08,920 Whereas whole pages are devoted to the worship of food. 490 00:36:08,920 --> 00:36:13,960 This is because full bellies had a rather greater meaning for Dickens than rituals and prayers. 491 00:36:16,560 --> 00:36:19,280 The grocers. Oh, the grocers. 492 00:36:19,280 --> 00:36:22,520 The raisins were so plentiful and rare. 493 00:36:22,520 --> 00:36:24,800 The almonds so extremely white. 494 00:36:24,800 --> 00:36:29,040 The candied fruits so caked and spotted with molten sugar. 495 00:36:29,040 --> 00:36:32,640 More was it that the figs were moist and pulpy, 496 00:36:32,640 --> 00:36:37,160 or that everything was good to eat, and in its Christmas dress. 497 00:36:39,200 --> 00:36:41,800 Downstairs in the kitchen of the Dickens' home, 498 00:36:41,800 --> 00:36:44,880 the cook and the maid are preparing a Christmas dinner. 499 00:36:44,880 --> 00:36:47,960 They're going to serve it at 5.30 in the afternoon, 500 00:36:47,960 --> 00:36:51,160 and it'll include mince pies and plum pudding. 501 00:36:51,160 --> 00:36:53,280 These date to medieval times, 502 00:36:53,280 --> 00:36:56,240 when they contained actual shredded meat. 503 00:36:56,240 --> 00:36:59,080 This idea of traditional food, though, 504 00:36:59,080 --> 00:37:03,280 was very important to Charles Dickens' vision of Christmas. 505 00:37:04,640 --> 00:37:08,240 There's a wonderful scene in A Christmas Carol, 506 00:37:08,240 --> 00:37:11,280 where Scrooge wakes up on Christmas Day. 507 00:37:11,280 --> 00:37:14,360 He throws open the window, he spots a little boy, 508 00:37:14,360 --> 00:37:18,800 and he orders him to go off and get the biggest turkey he can get hold of. 509 00:37:18,800 --> 00:37:23,760 Because Charles Dickens loved Christmas, but in 1843, 510 00:37:24,160 --> 00:37:27,640 he still expected the shops to be open on Christmas Day. 511 00:37:28,960 --> 00:37:30,240 In our own century, 512 00:37:30,240 --> 00:37:34,800 we have to start thinking about ordering provisions a little earlier, 513 00:37:34,800 --> 00:37:38,960 perhaps from a gloriously well-stocked food hall like this one. 514 00:37:38,960 --> 00:37:43,960 But even so, we stick to the traditions, don't we? 515 00:37:44,160 --> 00:37:45,960 Good morning. Good morning to you. 516 00:37:45,960 --> 00:37:47,880 Can I help you? Yes, now, 517 00:37:47,880 --> 00:37:52,880 if I wanted to buy something for my Christmas dinner... 518 00:37:54,840 --> 00:37:58,600 Yes? ..what would you recommend? 519 00:37:58,600 --> 00:38:01,200 A rib of beef to start with. Certainly. Right. 520 00:38:01,200 --> 00:38:04,400 Oh, well, you can't win 'em all. 521 00:38:04,400 --> 00:38:07,200 What about a turkey? What, as well? 522 00:38:07,200 --> 00:38:11,720 As well? Yes. What will you actually have, yourself, for Christmas? 523 00:38:11,720 --> 00:38:13,840 I normally have a capon. A capon? Yes. 524 00:38:13,840 --> 00:38:17,280 That's completely different. What's a capon when it's at home? 525 00:38:17,280 --> 00:38:19,960 It's a chicken that has been caponised. 526 00:38:19,960 --> 00:38:22,600 Been what? Caponised. 527 00:38:22,600 --> 00:38:25,400 Caperised? Caponised. Caponised, right. 528 00:38:25,400 --> 00:38:27,400 Yes. What does that mean? 529 00:38:27,400 --> 00:38:30,960 It means it's had its private parts taken away. Has it? Exactly. 530 00:38:30,960 --> 00:38:33,040 That's putting it politely. Yes. 531 00:38:33,040 --> 00:38:37,200 And in your opinion, a chicken which has had its private parts removed 532 00:38:37,200 --> 00:38:40,480 is the most tasty thing you can have at Christmas. Yes. 533 00:38:40,480 --> 00:38:43,320 What about you, Sylvie, what do you have at Christmas? 534 00:38:43,320 --> 00:38:46,880 I have a traditional turkey. Do you? Is that what your family expect? 535 00:38:46,880 --> 00:38:50,080 Yeah. Grandchildren, brought up with it. 536 00:38:50,080 --> 00:38:53,240 And then we have beef, maybe, for Boxing Day. 537 00:38:53,240 --> 00:38:55,520 But if you turned up and said to your family, 538 00:38:55,520 --> 00:38:57,440 "I tell you what we're going to do, 539 00:38:57,440 --> 00:38:59,560 "we're going to have a nice bit of salmon, 540 00:38:59,560 --> 00:39:01,240 "some fish for our Christmas." 541 00:39:01,240 --> 00:39:03,920 Yeah. Would they protest about that? 542 00:39:03,920 --> 00:39:08,240 I think so, I think Grandad would get the sack. He's the cook. 543 00:39:10,040 --> 00:39:14,280 No, traditional turkey, ever since my dad did it. 544 00:39:14,280 --> 00:39:16,240 And what about goose? 545 00:39:16,240 --> 00:39:19,000 Is there much demand for goose? 546 00:39:19,000 --> 00:39:21,520 It's nice, enjoyable, but it's not a big bird. 547 00:39:21,520 --> 00:39:24,200 There's not a lot on it, like you'd get on a turkey. 548 00:39:25,760 --> 00:39:30,200 So, what's the history behind the custom of eating turkey or goose? 549 00:39:30,200 --> 00:39:34,080 Historically, especially around Christmas time, 550 00:39:34,080 --> 00:39:37,320 goose was very much the traditional thing, 551 00:39:37,320 --> 00:39:40,200 and in fact it goes as far back as Elizabethan times, 552 00:39:40,200 --> 00:39:43,680 when Queen Elizabeth the First defeated the Spanish Armada, 553 00:39:43,680 --> 00:39:46,200 and to celebrate for that Christmas, 554 00:39:46,200 --> 00:39:50,480 she ordered that everybody in the land should have a roast goose. 555 00:39:50,480 --> 00:39:53,280 Turkey is a relatively recent introduction, 556 00:39:53,280 --> 00:39:55,880 because turkey originated from America, 557 00:39:55,880 --> 00:39:59,640 and in fact, the first person to eat turkey was King Henry VIII. 558 00:39:59,640 --> 00:40:00,680 When we say recent, 559 00:40:00,680 --> 00:40:03,640 not like just something we borrowed from the Americans 560 00:40:03,640 --> 00:40:05,120 for Thanksgiving dinner, 561 00:40:05,120 --> 00:40:08,560 it really stretches back to as soon as they discovered America, 562 00:40:08,560 --> 00:40:11,240 the first thing they did was bring back a turkey. 563 00:40:11,240 --> 00:40:14,200 It was actually imported by a Scotsman, 564 00:40:14,200 --> 00:40:16,600 and they brought back six birds, 565 00:40:16,600 --> 00:40:21,480 and most of the birds that are in the UK now are from those six birds. 566 00:40:21,480 --> 00:40:25,120 Traditionally, people ate geese for Christmas, 567 00:40:25,120 --> 00:40:29,080 and once turkey became a little bit more commonplace, 568 00:40:29,080 --> 00:40:33,640 only people with a medium to high income could afford it, 569 00:40:33,640 --> 00:40:36,440 and the very rich would eat beef. 570 00:40:36,440 --> 00:40:39,840 It feels oddly, doesn't it, a little bit sort of... 571 00:40:39,840 --> 00:40:42,960 well, to me, anyway, a little bit sacrilegious, 572 00:40:42,960 --> 00:40:45,360 or as if you're breaking the rules to eat beef, 573 00:40:45,360 --> 00:40:46,640 but that's not the case. 574 00:40:46,640 --> 00:40:50,240 No. In medieval times, they ate all sorts of things, 575 00:40:50,240 --> 00:40:53,000 like larks, the whole variety of game, 576 00:40:53,000 --> 00:40:56,960 wild boar, which is why they would have a wild boar's head on the table. 577 00:40:56,960 --> 00:41:00,040 The thing is, it wasn't until, really, Victorian times 578 00:41:00,040 --> 00:41:03,240 that Christmas as what we think of now really took off. 579 00:41:03,240 --> 00:41:06,200 That was really with the advent of Charles Dickens 580 00:41:06,200 --> 00:41:07,600 and A Christmas Carol. 581 00:41:07,600 --> 00:41:12,360 In that, Bob Cratchit is actually eating a goose. 582 00:41:12,360 --> 00:41:16,480 He's eating the poorest celebration, a thin goose, as it were, 583 00:41:16,480 --> 00:41:21,280 because there's not an enormous amount of meat on the goose. Exactly. 584 00:41:21,280 --> 00:41:26,280 Dickens actually describes them eating every morsel of the goose. 585 00:41:27,440 --> 00:41:30,040 They're so hungry that they basically... 586 00:41:30,040 --> 00:41:34,280 There's barely left on the plate by the time they've finished with it, 587 00:41:34,280 --> 00:41:37,280 and then Scrooge goes out and gets them a turkey, 588 00:41:37,280 --> 00:41:40,320 because that's one level up from eating a goose. 589 00:41:41,840 --> 00:41:44,080 Interestingly enough, 590 00:41:44,080 --> 00:41:49,160 we know that Charles Dickens himself settled down to a turkey on Christmas Day in 1843. 591 00:41:50,640 --> 00:41:52,520 That I didn't know. 592 00:41:52,520 --> 00:41:56,440 Perhaps he didn't feel he had enough money to stretch to beef himself. 593 00:41:58,480 --> 00:42:02,560 Or perhaps he just liked turkey. He certainly popularised it, 594 00:42:02,560 --> 00:42:05,880 but he also knew for poor people like the Cratchits, 595 00:42:05,880 --> 00:42:10,880 a skinny Christmas goose was the most important meal of their year, 596 00:42:11,360 --> 00:42:13,960 because it might be the only day 597 00:42:13,960 --> 00:42:17,160 when they actually had full stomachs. 598 00:42:17,160 --> 00:42:23,680 God bless us, every one. 599 00:42:23,680 --> 00:42:28,520 Bob said he didn't believe there ever was such a goose cooked. 600 00:42:28,520 --> 00:42:30,280 Its tenderness and flavour, 601 00:42:30,280 --> 00:42:34,240 size and cheapness were the themes of universal admiration. 602 00:42:34,240 --> 00:42:37,680 Eked out by apple sauce and mashed potatoes, 603 00:42:37,680 --> 00:42:39,920 it was a sufficient dinner for the whole family. 604 00:42:39,920 --> 00:42:43,800 Indeed, as Mrs Cratchit said with great delight, 605 00:42:43,800 --> 00:42:47,360 surveying one small atom of a bone upon the dish, 606 00:42:47,360 --> 00:42:49,760 they hadn't ate it all at last. 607 00:42:49,760 --> 00:42:53,080 Yet everyone had had enough. 608 00:42:55,760 --> 00:42:58,360 When they first start to eat the goose, 609 00:42:58,360 --> 00:43:01,960 Bob Cratchit said it was the greatest success achieved 610 00:43:01,960 --> 00:43:04,480 by Mrs Cratchit since their marriage. 611 00:43:04,480 --> 00:43:07,040 Now, in the 21st century, of course, 612 00:43:07,040 --> 00:43:10,360 that's an appalling, horrifyingly sexist thing to say. 613 00:43:10,360 --> 00:43:13,520 The best thing she ever achieved was cooking this goose! 614 00:43:13,520 --> 00:43:16,320 But when they sit around the hearth, 615 00:43:16,320 --> 00:43:20,800 and they throw the chestnuts on the fire and Bob pours out... 616 00:43:20,800 --> 00:43:23,520 He says, "the family display of glass" - 617 00:43:23,520 --> 00:43:27,240 two tumblers and a custard cup without a handle - 618 00:43:27,240 --> 00:43:31,760 "but they held the hot liquid in the jug as well as golden goblets would have done, 619 00:43:31,760 --> 00:43:34,160 "and Bob poured it out with beaming looks." 620 00:43:34,160 --> 00:43:39,200 It's... a sense of warmth just floods through that scene, 621 00:43:40,920 --> 00:43:44,440 and it's very infectious. 622 00:43:46,120 --> 00:43:51,120 A feeling of shared happiness was vital to Dickens. 623 00:43:57,120 --> 00:44:02,160 But for Dickens, charity wasn't some quaint custom from the past, 624 00:44:02,400 --> 00:44:05,320 it was very much the essence of Christmas present. 625 00:44:05,320 --> 00:44:09,320 He knew that it was possible, in the streets outside his house, 626 00:44:09,320 --> 00:44:11,320 for people to starve to death. 627 00:44:13,960 --> 00:44:16,600 While Dickens was writing A Christmas Carol, 628 00:44:16,600 --> 00:44:19,440 he got into the habit of taking extremely long walks 629 00:44:19,440 --> 00:44:21,440 through the streets of London, 630 00:44:21,440 --> 00:44:26,440 sometimes covering 15 to 20 miles in a single night. 631 00:44:26,760 --> 00:44:30,640 We have no idea of the depths of poverty 632 00:44:30,640 --> 00:44:35,320 that he actually made a point of searching out, 633 00:44:35,320 --> 00:44:37,240 but we get a clue in the book, 634 00:44:37,240 --> 00:44:42,240 when A Christmas Carol suddenly takes on a much darker and stronger purpose. 635 00:44:45,160 --> 00:44:50,160 It's at the end of the chapter with the ghost of Christmas Present, 636 00:44:50,160 --> 00:44:55,200 and Scrooge suddenly notices something protruding 637 00:44:55,480 --> 00:44:59,680 from the long coat that the spirit wears. 638 00:44:59,680 --> 00:45:04,720 At first he thinks it's a claw or a foot, 639 00:45:08,600 --> 00:45:11,920 and the ghost shows him. 640 00:45:16,000 --> 00:45:18,640 They were a boy and a girl, 641 00:45:18,640 --> 00:45:23,640 yellow, meagre, ragged, scowling, wolfish, 642 00:45:24,960 --> 00:45:27,920 but prostrate, too, in their humility. 643 00:45:29,680 --> 00:45:34,000 "Spirit, are they yours?" Scrooge could say no more. 644 00:45:34,000 --> 00:45:36,920 "They are man's", said the spirit. 645 00:45:36,920 --> 00:45:41,480 "This boy is Ignorance, this girl is Want. 646 00:45:41,480 --> 00:45:46,080 "Beware them both, but most of all, beware this boy, 647 00:45:46,080 --> 00:45:50,560 "for on his brow, I see that written which is doom." 648 00:45:52,600 --> 00:45:57,280 London in the 1840s was dotted with what were called rookeries - 649 00:45:57,280 --> 00:45:58,960 slums, we would say - 650 00:45:58,960 --> 00:46:04,040 where as many as 20,000 people would be crammed into an area of a few small streets. 651 00:46:04,800 --> 00:46:08,760 The filthy and miserable appearance of this part of London 652 00:46:08,760 --> 00:46:13,560 can hardly be imagined by those who have not witnessed it. 653 00:46:13,560 --> 00:46:18,560 Wretched houses with broken windows patched with rags and paper, 654 00:46:19,320 --> 00:46:21,080 filth everywhere. 655 00:46:21,080 --> 00:46:24,800 Clothes drying and slops emptying from the windows. 656 00:46:24,800 --> 00:46:29,520 Men and women in every variety of scanty and dirty apparel, 657 00:46:29,520 --> 00:46:34,400 lounging, drinking, smoking, squabbling and swearing. 658 00:46:36,960 --> 00:46:42,000 Dickens had never been afraid of delivering a strong social message in his novels. 659 00:46:42,480 --> 00:46:47,560 Oliver Twist was his protest against the institutional cruelty of the new Poor Law. 660 00:46:48,080 --> 00:46:53,160 Nicholas Nickleby highlighted the abuses at Yorkshire boarding schools. 661 00:46:53,920 --> 00:46:56,600 And A Christmas Carol, right from the beginning, 662 00:46:56,600 --> 00:46:59,920 was conceived as another campaigning story. 663 00:47:02,400 --> 00:47:06,200 In October 1842, 664 00:47:06,200 --> 00:47:08,880 Dickens had been filled with indignation 665 00:47:08,880 --> 00:47:12,720 at a parliamentary report into the employment and conditions 666 00:47:12,720 --> 00:47:15,560 of children in the mines and manufacturers, 667 00:47:15,560 --> 00:47:18,400 so much so that he decided, with a few friends, 668 00:47:18,400 --> 00:47:20,440 to go and actually visit a mine. 669 00:47:20,440 --> 00:47:25,320 What he saw there incensed him, and he decided to write a pamphlet, 670 00:47:25,320 --> 00:47:30,160 An Appeal To The People Of England On Behalf Of The Poor Man's Children, 671 00:47:30,160 --> 00:47:32,440 and while he was preparing this, 672 00:47:32,440 --> 00:47:35,520 he was making a speech in Manchester in 1843, 673 00:47:35,520 --> 00:47:39,800 when he suddenly conceived of writing his short novel instead. 674 00:47:40,840 --> 00:47:44,160 He wrote what he hoped would be, as he put it, 675 00:47:44,160 --> 00:47:49,160 a hammer blow to draw attention to child poverty. 676 00:47:49,400 --> 00:47:51,280 I think he wanted to show people 677 00:47:51,280 --> 00:47:54,440 that it was everyone's responsibility to help the poor, 678 00:47:54,440 --> 00:47:57,960 that somebody like Scrooge could have this great conversion, 679 00:47:57,960 --> 00:48:00,720 and that's what Christmas should be about. 680 00:48:00,720 --> 00:48:04,760 It should be kept in people's hearts and lived throughout the whole year. 681 00:48:04,760 --> 00:48:08,320 In creating those two children, Ignorance and Want, and saying, 682 00:48:08,320 --> 00:48:13,240 "Unless you solve the problems that these two young people represent, 683 00:48:13,240 --> 00:48:16,600 "disaster awaits you. It awaits all of society. 684 00:48:16,600 --> 00:48:21,560 "It will just collapse and crumble, unless you solve these problems." 685 00:48:22,920 --> 00:48:27,600 Dickens told the Victorians that charity was the essential tradition of Christmas. 686 00:48:27,600 --> 00:48:31,440 There were feastings and parties, games, turkeys, plum puddings 687 00:48:31,440 --> 00:48:34,800 and Christmas cheer aplenty in A Christmas Carol, 688 00:48:34,800 --> 00:48:37,440 but all these things were meaningless 689 00:48:37,440 --> 00:48:40,320 unless they could be shared and enjoyed by all, 690 00:48:40,320 --> 00:48:42,560 with their family, in their home. 691 00:48:42,560 --> 00:48:47,600 But could Charles Dickens' own family Christmas live up to this demanding ideal? 692 00:48:49,200 --> 00:48:54,280 To find out, we're going to enlist the help of the spirit of Christmas Future. 693 00:48:56,080 --> 00:48:58,560 We're going forward to 1867, 694 00:48:58,560 --> 00:49:02,840 24 years after A Christmas Carol was first published. 695 00:49:02,840 --> 00:49:04,200 It's Christmas Day, 696 00:49:04,200 --> 00:49:09,200 but Charles Dickens is on a train, travelling from Boston to New York. 697 00:49:09,560 --> 00:49:12,360 He's distracted by a painful foot. 698 00:49:12,360 --> 00:49:17,400 He's still only 55, but worn out by hard work, he looks 20 years older. 699 00:49:17,960 --> 00:49:21,320 Dickens is in America to make money. 700 00:49:21,320 --> 00:49:23,760 £20,000, by all accounts, 701 00:49:23,760 --> 00:49:26,600 and he sacrificed Christmas to do so. 702 00:49:29,800 --> 00:49:33,280 He's embarked on one of his now famous reading tours, 703 00:49:33,280 --> 00:49:35,760 appearing on stage to deliver extracts 704 00:49:35,760 --> 00:49:37,760 from his most popular novels. 705 00:49:39,400 --> 00:49:44,400 Charles Dickens first started reading his works aloud to the public for charity in 1853, 706 00:49:45,960 --> 00:49:47,880 but, as is often the way, 707 00:49:47,880 --> 00:49:52,920 he got asked so much, he wondered whether he should do it for money, 708 00:49:53,000 --> 00:49:55,440 and in 1858, he started charging, 709 00:49:55,440 --> 00:49:59,040 and it soon turned into a hugely lucrative business. 710 00:49:59,040 --> 00:50:02,760 He toured all over England, and by the time he got to America, 711 00:50:02,760 --> 00:50:05,600 he was filling 2,000-seaters at $2 per ticket. 712 00:50:05,600 --> 00:50:09,120 Well, I'm sure you can do the mathematics. 713 00:50:09,120 --> 00:50:13,880 Could he be accused of commercialising Christmas as much as championing it? 714 00:50:13,880 --> 00:50:17,240 Dickens was wildly successful wherever he appeared, 715 00:50:17,240 --> 00:50:20,160 and the most popular reading in his repertoire 716 00:50:20,160 --> 00:50:22,040 was always A Christmas Carol. 717 00:50:22,040 --> 00:50:27,120 Scrooge was better than his word, and to Tiny Tim, who did not die, 718 00:50:28,720 --> 00:50:31,120 he was a second father, 719 00:50:31,120 --> 00:50:35,360 and it was always said of him, ever afterwards, 720 00:50:35,360 --> 00:50:39,000 that he knew how to keep Christmas well. 721 00:50:39,000 --> 00:50:42,920 If any man alive possessed the knowledge, 722 00:50:42,920 --> 00:50:46,480 may that be truly said of all of us. 723 00:50:46,480 --> 00:50:50,920 And so, as Tiny Tim observed, 724 00:50:50,920 --> 00:50:55,000 God bless us, every one. 725 00:50:55,000 --> 00:50:56,680 Over the last 24 years, 726 00:50:56,680 --> 00:51:01,720 Christmas had certainly become a big part of Dickens' financial planning. 727 00:51:02,320 --> 00:51:05,160 Following the success of A Christmas Carol, 728 00:51:05,160 --> 00:51:08,520 Dickens produced a whole series of Christmas books. 729 00:51:08,520 --> 00:51:13,560 There was The Chimes, The Cricket On The Hearth, 730 00:51:13,560 --> 00:51:16,760 The Battle Of Life and The Haunted Man. 731 00:51:16,760 --> 00:51:21,800 None of them were actually as good as the original story of Bob Cratchit and Scrooge, 732 00:51:22,480 --> 00:51:25,920 but they were as popular, if not more so, 733 00:51:25,920 --> 00:51:29,960 and then he presented special Christmas editions of the magazines he edited, 734 00:51:29,960 --> 00:51:32,120 All the Year Round and Household Words, 735 00:51:32,120 --> 00:51:36,160 culminating in the 1867 Christmas edition, 736 00:51:36,160 --> 00:51:39,040 which sold over 300,000 copies. 737 00:51:40,640 --> 00:51:44,720 If anybody was turning Christmas into a business opportunity, 738 00:51:44,720 --> 00:51:46,800 it was Charles Dickens himself, 739 00:51:46,800 --> 00:51:49,760 but he was increasingly disillusioned by it. 740 00:51:49,760 --> 00:51:54,800 The extra Christmas number has now been so extensively and regularly 741 00:51:55,280 --> 00:52:00,360 and often imitated that it is in very great danger of becoming tiresome. 742 00:52:01,040 --> 00:52:05,240 I have therefore resolved, though I cannot add willingly, 743 00:52:05,240 --> 00:52:08,560 to abolish it at the highest tide of its success. 744 00:52:09,200 --> 00:52:14,240 But there might have been other deeper regrets at work on that train too. 745 00:52:14,640 --> 00:52:19,000 What about that other essential element of his vision of Christmas, the family? 746 00:52:19,000 --> 00:52:24,000 Dickens had by now forced a separation on his wife, Catherine. 747 00:52:24,800 --> 00:52:29,320 First by building a wall down the middle of their bedroom, 748 00:52:29,320 --> 00:52:32,480 before finally turning her out of the house. 749 00:52:32,480 --> 00:52:37,200 His wife had a great number of pregnancies, and she had ten children 750 00:52:37,200 --> 00:52:40,000 and at least two miscarriages in a 15 year period, 751 00:52:40,000 --> 00:52:44,160 and she suffered from what we now know as post natal depression after each one, 752 00:52:44,160 --> 00:52:46,480 and the more that their marriage developed, 753 00:52:46,480 --> 00:52:49,760 and she became less attractive to him, she put on a lot of weight, 754 00:52:49,760 --> 00:52:53,480 and she wasn't so interested in all the things that he was interested in. 755 00:52:53,480 --> 00:52:55,760 He retained this very buzzy, outward going, 756 00:52:55,760 --> 00:52:57,640 wanting to go out and meet people, 757 00:52:57,640 --> 00:53:02,040 sociable exterior, whereas Catherine just became slightly more depressed. 758 00:53:02,040 --> 00:53:04,520 They separated in 1858, 759 00:53:04,520 --> 00:53:07,680 and this really wasn't Dickens's finest hour. 760 00:53:07,680 --> 00:53:09,840 He was quite terrible towards her. 761 00:53:09,840 --> 00:53:12,520 He'd fallen in love with an 18-year-old actress. 762 00:53:12,520 --> 00:53:13,840 A very familiar story, 763 00:53:13,840 --> 00:53:17,080 middle-aged man falling in love with a very young girl, 764 00:53:17,080 --> 00:53:19,640 and he decided that he couldn't be with his wife 765 00:53:19,640 --> 00:53:22,120 and be with Ellen Ternan, the young actress, 766 00:53:22,120 --> 00:53:24,040 so he kicked his wife out of the home. 767 00:53:24,040 --> 00:53:26,080 One of the saddest things, I felt, 768 00:53:26,080 --> 00:53:29,520 when I was researching the book about their daughter Katie, 769 00:53:29,520 --> 00:53:32,760 was that Catherine would have parties for local children 770 00:53:32,760 --> 00:53:35,240 in the area that she lived, in Regent's Park, 771 00:53:35,240 --> 00:53:39,040 but none of her own children were ever able to come. It was very sad. 772 00:53:40,120 --> 00:53:44,960 Charles Dickens' relationships with his children were also marked with regret. 773 00:53:44,960 --> 00:53:50,040 His eldest son, Fluster Flobby, had grown up and was now a bankrupt. 774 00:53:50,640 --> 00:53:54,760 He was estranged from his daughter, Lucifer Box. 775 00:53:56,760 --> 00:54:01,640 And young Skull had left for India in 1857, aged 16. 776 00:54:01,640 --> 00:54:04,040 Dickens never saw him alive again. 777 00:54:04,040 --> 00:54:06,920 He died, six years later. 778 00:54:06,920 --> 00:54:10,840 Perhaps most tragic of all was his third daughter, Dora, 779 00:54:10,840 --> 00:54:13,400 who died before her first birthday. 780 00:54:14,440 --> 00:54:19,480 So all in all, 1867 is hardly a very happy Christmas for Charles Dickens. 781 00:54:20,400 --> 00:54:23,240 He's even had to leave his mistress behind. 782 00:54:23,240 --> 00:54:26,960 He couldn't risk the public scandal of bringing her to America, 783 00:54:26,960 --> 00:54:29,880 and instead he writes weekly letters, 784 00:54:29,880 --> 00:54:32,720 sent secretly via a friend in London. 785 00:54:34,280 --> 00:54:39,320 So as he sat on the train trundling through the American countryside, 786 00:54:40,520 --> 00:54:45,480 he was a very, very long way from that vision of family forgiveness 787 00:54:46,080 --> 00:54:49,680 and family togetherness and family warmth by the fireside 788 00:54:49,680 --> 00:54:54,360 which had seemed such an essential part of the vision of A Christmas Carol, 789 00:54:54,360 --> 00:54:59,400 and in fact, even the spirit of giving had become slightly tawdry to him, 790 00:55:00,320 --> 00:55:05,280 because he thought that people used Christmas as an excuse 791 00:55:05,400 --> 00:55:10,400 to give too little and then demand too much from the recipients. 792 00:55:10,880 --> 00:55:14,920 But however jaded Dickens personally might have been, 793 00:55:14,920 --> 00:55:20,000 there's absolutely no doubt that his magic was still extraordinarily potent. 794 00:55:20,640 --> 00:55:25,160 The evening before he got on the train, he had appeared in Boston, 795 00:55:25,160 --> 00:55:30,160 and he'd given a reading, as he usually did, of A Christmas Carol. 796 00:55:31,320 --> 00:55:35,280 A couple had been in the audience from Vermont, 797 00:55:35,280 --> 00:55:39,320 and they left the theatre, went straight home, 798 00:55:39,320 --> 00:55:43,840 and gave their entire workforce in their factory a day off for Christmas, 799 00:55:43,840 --> 00:55:47,040 something they'd never done before. 800 00:55:48,520 --> 00:55:53,560 It would seem that Christmas and A Christmas Carol now had a momentum 801 00:55:54,360 --> 00:55:56,800 over which Charles Dickens had little control. 802 00:55:57,800 --> 00:56:01,720 But Dickens himself was running out of time. 803 00:56:01,720 --> 00:56:05,960 Two years after returning from America, aged only 58, 804 00:56:05,960 --> 00:56:10,760 Charles Dickens died of a stroke. 805 00:56:10,760 --> 00:56:15,800 His son Charlie was sure that the trip to America had shortened his father's life. 806 00:56:21,800 --> 00:56:24,320 It's said that when Charles Dickens died, 807 00:56:24,320 --> 00:56:27,560 a costermonger's daughter turned to her father and said, 808 00:56:27,560 --> 00:56:30,960 "Daddy, does that mean there won't be Christmas any more?" 809 00:56:30,960 --> 00:56:35,960 What I like about that story is not that it reflects on the feelings of sentimental little girls, 810 00:56:36,960 --> 00:56:41,640 but it shows that, somehow, Charles Dickens' idea of Christmas 811 00:56:41,640 --> 00:56:45,760 so cleverly corresponds to our own idea of Christmas. 812 00:56:45,760 --> 00:56:50,840 Christmas is, after all, a huge imaginative fantasy, 813 00:56:52,320 --> 00:56:54,160 and he got it. 814 00:56:54,160 --> 00:56:55,600 It may be a fantasy, 815 00:56:55,600 --> 00:56:59,640 but it's something that I think is really worth pursuing, 816 00:56:59,640 --> 00:57:01,560 and there's something else. 817 00:57:01,560 --> 00:57:05,080 The being together is important, but it's giving, as well, 818 00:57:05,080 --> 00:57:08,120 and that's the big change for Scrooge. 819 00:57:08,120 --> 00:57:11,200 He is selfish and mean with his money, 820 00:57:11,200 --> 00:57:14,800 and he's selfish and mean with himself. 821 00:57:14,800 --> 00:57:19,040 He doesn't love, because loving means giving, it means sharing, 822 00:57:19,040 --> 00:57:22,040 it means risking yourself, it means opening your heart. 823 00:57:28,080 --> 00:57:33,080 Reflect upon your present blessings, of which every man has many, 824 00:57:37,560 --> 00:57:41,760 Fill your glass again with a merry face and contented heart. 825 00:57:41,760 --> 00:57:43,440 Our life on it, 826 00:57:43,440 --> 00:57:48,040 that your Christmas shall be merry, and your new year a happy one. 827 00:58:02,440 --> 00:58:04,440 God bless us, every one.