December 2008 Archives

"Mercy! Dreadful apparition, why do you trouble me? Why do spirits walk the earth, and why do they come to me?"

On a wintry evening in 1852 a rather special event took place at Birmingham Town Hall. Charles Dickens gave the first ever public performance of "A Christmas Carol".

Dickens imagined a series of ghosts haunting a selfish old miser, Ebenezer Scrooge, one Christmas Eve. The ghosts showed Scrooge the error of his ways, that his wealth meant very little unless used for the benefit of others.

By the end of the story Scrooge had heeded the warnings and changed his ways. From now on he would endeavour to help his fellow man - starting, of course, on Christmas Day.

Since Dickens gave the first public reading, his "ghostly little book" has become an integral part of Christmas. In fact the book played a major part in helping to revive the Christmas tradition in Victorian times.

It seems strange to us now but after the English Civil War the celebration of Christmas nearly died out. (Cromwell and his Puritans didn't like Christmas at all, he really was the Grinch).

The publication (to great popular acclaim) of "A Christmas Carol" seemed to awaken some distant folk memory in Europe and America. Like all great Christian festivals there are strong elements of Paganism in the Christmas tradition. Dickens gave us a good example of this in the Ghost of Christmas Present - an early version of the modern Santa Claus.

On the 15 September 1830, an English politician by the name of William Huskisson had the dubious distinction of being the first man in history to be killed by a train.

George Stephenson was demonstrating his famous "Rocket" locomotive along a specially built track between Liverpool and Manchester.

Crowds followed the slow moving engine, fascinated by this noisy new invention.

Huskisson, however, was much more interested in speaking to the Duke of Wellington, inconveniently standing on the other side of the track.

So intent was he on getting the Duke's attention that he failed to notice the great belching, steaming contraption rolling towards him.

"Stephenson's Rocket" hit poor Mr Huskisson and crushed his legs. The stricken man was taken to the nearby village of Eccles where he died shortly afterwards.