Robin Ellis

The Dickens Museum has recently acquired some fascinating Dickens memorabilia; reading about it reminded me of my TV debut in 1967.

Mr. Dickens of London was a part-dramatised tour of the great writer’s big city haunts.

The conceit would have appealed to Dickens’s instinct for self-promotion .

It starred Sir Michael Redgrave as Charles Dickens and Juliet Mills as a tour guide whom Dickens befriends and offers to show her his London.

The first stop on the tour was 48 Doughty Street–the family’s home for two years from 1837–when he was 25 and where he wrote The Pickwick Papers, Oliver Twist and Nickolas Nickleby .

“And this is Boz, young me, hard at work writing,” says Sir Michael/Charles Dickens, pointing at me! 

And there I was–sitting at Dickens’ real desk, twiddling a quill and spilling the ink, no doubt. It was directed by actor Barry Morse–who was big presence at the time on ITV as the detective pursuing David Jannsen as The Fugitive in weekly episodes. The Daily Mirror had opened a book, taking daily bets, on when Morse would track him down.

We were filming in Covent Garden–still operating as a fruit and vegetable market and an authentic Dickens location (he’d had an office in Wellington Street nearby). The porters were about to knock off work after a hard day’s night and were standing round watching the action. One of them spotted Barry giving me directions and quick as a flash shouted at him:

“You won’t find ‘im ‘ere mate–long gone!!”

The job was well timed for me. I’d been out of work for some weeks after sharing the stage for six months with another star-studded cast in a production of Sheridan’s The Rivals at the Haymarket Theatre.

A baptism of fire–straight from playing Idle Jack in Cheltenham Theatre’s Christmas pantomime.

I took over the leading part, Captain Jack Absolute, from Dan Massey.

Ralph Richardson played my father, Sir Anthony and Margaret Rutherford, Mrs Malaprop.

I was paid £35 a week and by the end I was hard up!
So this Dickens job was a gift and then more….

U.S. President Lyndon Johnson chose the night of transmission to give a major TV address to the nation. Our show went out–but the ratings persuaded the network to show it a second time.

Thus I got paid a repeat fee–which paid the rent for a few more weeks!

There was a fine gentle wind, and Mr. Pickwick’s hat rolled sportively before it. The wind puffed, and Mr. Pickwick puffed, and the hat rolled over and over as merrily as a lively porpoise in a strong tide.

from The Pickwick Papers by Boz (young Charles Dickens)

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It informs me that because I am longer a European citizen, I am not entitled to vote in either the Municipal (local) elections in March or the European elections.

First fall-out from the Brexit vote.

You must be a citizen of La France to vote in the national elections–but at least these other elections offered foreign residents an opportunity to show solidarity and involvement with their community.

It’s also fun to be part of a small town elections–the visit to the Mairie to cast our votes, joining the steady stream of familiar faces.

The relief when you show your registration card and it’s confirmed you are indeed on the register–yes, you belong here (and we have been here full-time for 20 years–30 in all).

A sense of pride when you are given an envelope and the ballot papers of all the lists–and pointed towards the voting booths.

Doing your best to remember for whom you’ve decided to vote!

Placing chosen ballot paper in the envelope, signing the register of voters, putting the envelope in the transparent ballot box–glowing with a sense of duty done.

No longer!

It is doubly sad for Meredith, who had been invited to join one of the lists and had already attended a couple of meetings.

It’s apparently hard to find people willing to stand in the countryside–here’s someone who is by nature public-spirited and willing to do the work–and is now excluded.

Seems crazy.

But we are trusting that by the next set of elections 2026 (My! Seems a lifetime!) we will add French citizenship to our tally—thus qualifying to vote in the national, local and European elections.

Allons enfants de la Patrie!

Allez les Bleus!

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Europe becomes ELSEWHERE–“over there” again, at midnight, as the UK ups anchor and sails away (or free falls from a ship in the sky!)

I was born in January 1942, so for two and half years I lived in a Europe torn apart by war,  blissfully unaware of the horrors that were happening.

I was lucky. “Elsewhere” featured strongly in my life in the 1950s. My parents were outward-looking and liked to travel, using Dad’s concessionary travel permits (a perk as an employee of British Rail). I took it in my stride; never felt scared of the idea.

My first trip in 1951 was to Paris with a school party.

We traipsed through the streets in crocodile file–two abreast.

Blissfully ignorant of what being occupied had meant for people we were passing on the pavements.

My recall is minimal but I do remember the hot chocolate in cafés and the scary view from the top of the Eiffel Tower.

Two years later (summer of 1953), on our way to a beach holiday in Lloret del Mar on the Costa Brava, I remember feeling shocked seeing young boys begging on the street in Barcelona, just fourteen years after the end of the Spanish Civil War,

I remember Franco’s sinister police with their winged black helmets and machine guns keeping the beach “decent”.

I discovered the taste of an egg fried in olive oil, too.

I remember my first trip to Germany–1957–twelve years after the end of the war. I took the train to Flensburg near the Danish border and had my wallet stolen.

I remember the generosity of my German host family, who replaced the precious money I’d lost.

I remember in Spring 1961, on a nine-week tour of Europe before University, bashing steel for a week in a factory in Dusseldorf to make connecting rings for pipes and being astonished how quickly the city had risen from the ashes–just sixteen years after the end of the war.

I remember in 1961--(twelve years after the end of the Greek Civil War)–picking mulberries from the tree at a corner of the road leading into Delphi and feeling guilty, trying to wipe the purple stain of mulberry juice from my arms.

That same year, The National Youth Theatre toured Genoa, Florence, Perugia and Rome with a modern-dress production of Julius Caesar (I played a shouty First Citizen). In Rome,  Caesar dressed in a garish uniform may have been an uncomfortable sight for some in the audience. One performance finished at 2am. The producer had run out of money and refused to pay the electricians, who went on strike in the interval. None of the audience left. This was definitely “elsewhere,” we learned that night.

I remember my mother beside herself with worry that brother Jack (six-years-old) was drowning on the beach at Marina di Campo on Elba in summer 1961–146 years after the end of the Napoleonic Wars!!

“There is a world elsewhere”, I pronounced as a defiant Coriolanus–banished from Rome. A college production this time on a tour of Norway, Denmark and Germany.

By now I knew there was and I thrived on exploring it.

I was lucky.

All these early remembrances of times past and many more in the years that followed –experienced in the war-free zone of newly uniting/united Western Europe.

Increasingly and quickly, war became inconceivable within the EU–and has remained so.

Unlike the twenty years after the end of the Great War, a stabilising and unifying  organisation had emerged from the rubble.

And let’s not forget what erupted on the doorstep of the European Union in former Yugoslavia in the mid-nineties.

It was brutal, it was tribal. Neighbour killing neighbour.

A genocide in Srebrenica–8000 men and boys, massacred.

Observer columnist Andrew Rawnsley last Sunday:

Now Foolish Albion is sailing away, jumping out.

That is why I’m sad or if I’m honest–mad as hell.

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This elegant creature arrived last Monday on the dot of 10am, as promised by the delivery company.

Pianos are heavy and I expected at least four sturdy removers.

Two sufficed–with barely a puff or red face.

They installed it in ten minutes and even fingered a little tune–taught to the removal man by his granddaughter, he said.

It’s a demi-grand Erard, made in 1914.

The church–constructed fifty years before the piano–exulted in the vibrations.

Sebastien Erard (1752-1831} built his first piano in Paris in 1777. He went on to build them for Kings and Queens and a impressive list of famous composers: Beethoven, Chopin, Fauré, Haydn, Liszt, Mendelssohn, Wagner, Verdi, Ravel, among them.

His invention of the “double escapement” action–allowing notes to be repeated more easily–enabled these ambitious composers to challenge performers to astonishing heights of virtuosity.

Here is an (overlong) explanation of how this works on a piano made for a Queen and her Consort…

Ours is a considerably less ornate version–in beautiful light brown walnut wood.

We are its guardians, not its owners.

Brother Jack’s partner, Claire Béjanin, is the proud owner, inheriting the piano from her grandmother, who used to play duets with her husband on cello.

We must wait for the moment when Claire, a talented performer, teases the ivories and baptises it with a sweet air.

Until then, it will be covered in cotton sheets and wool blankets–no plastic–against the damp.

We need violins, violas and cellos; flutes and clarinets, and my favourites–oboes and bassoons, to make up a chamber orchestra.

Sopranos and contraltos, tenors and basses–baritones too.

Hold, hold, my heart–’twill come–all in good time.

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