A day with Charles Dickens in the Museum of London

London was in a festive mood those days. The weather was cheerfully balmy, trees and plants have started blossoming promising that spring was in the air. The year seemed to promise to be one of the most exciting in recent times for London. Just consider the events lined up. Top on the list was associated […]

London was in a festive mood those days. The weather was cheerfully balmy, trees and plants have started blossoming promising that spring was in the air. The year seemed to promise to be one of the most exciting in recent times for London. Just consider the events lined up. Top on the list was associated with their much beloved Queen of England, who was celebrating 60th year on the throne. Also, the Olympics held every four years around the globe, was to take place in London, in July, that year. The other main event was the London mayoralty elections then coming up in May which promised to be a gruesome match between maverick Ken Livingstone, a two-term former mayor belonging to the Labour Party and an abrasive Ben Johnson, a Conservative Party incumbent mayor.
All these events, however, paled into insignificance when compared to the momentous event holding in the Museum of London, then, mounting the Dickens 200th year anniversary exhibition. Arguably one of the greatest urban writers of all times, Charles Dickens had a long association with London since his family moved there in 1822. He lived and worked in London till the end of his life in 1870. Dickens is said to have had an impoverished early life and little formal education. This, however, did not deter him from driving himself to succeed in life. He became a journalist, then a creative writer, marrying the two beautifully. Then, in that period of time, newspapers, journals, and books were intricately related. Writers had to serialise their new books in newspapers and journals before they appeared in whole forms. In their society, which even at that time had high literacy rate, and newspapers were cheaply available, writers could expect to have massive impact on social commentary. Dickens serialised his works in newspapers monthly and made them cheaply and widely available to a large reading public. He also made reading tours that were enthusiastically attended.
Charles Dickens wrote when Britain was the major economic and political power in the world. Despite its riches and enormous powers, Britain exhibited the imbalances that characterise a typical capitalist society; the band of small rich living side by side with a large number of disadvantaged, very poor people. The social reforms of the 20th century were still many years ahead.
 Dickens writings depicted London, Britain’s capital then and now, in all its complexity. He had a way with words, which he used effectively to highlight the life of the impoverished, forgotten citizens within the society. He depicted the exploitation and oppression of the disadvantaged poor and condemned the public officials and institutions that not only allowed such abuses to exist but also to flourish. Perhaps none of the famous writers of the Victorian era has written so much about London than Dickens and none is so remembered today for doing so. Probably that was the main reason why Londoners were spreading the red carpet all over the city to celebrate this literary icon.
My own association with Dickens dates back to my early school days where we had doses of many Dickens books. However it was at Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, in the early 1970s, where my set read ‘A Tale OF Two Cities,’ one of Dickens most successful books, that this association was firmly cemented. I was fascinated and could not stop reading Dickens’ books that were available in abundance in both the main, Kashim Ibrahim Library and the smaller, departmental libraries. Myself, and my room-mate John Balami, in ICSA (later renamed, Ramat) Hall, were so enamoured with the author that we christened our room, 105 North Tower, signifying the prison cell where one of Dickens most enduring characters from ‘A Tale of Two Cities,’ Dr. Manette, was incarcerated. By the time I left Zaria in mid-1970s, I must have read most and probably all his books.
Visiting the Museum of London, therefore, became a sort of pilgrimage for me to meet my favourite author. As soon as the course was over, I made preparations to find the whereabouts of the museum. I had never been there, but fortunately I found all the information I needed to get there at the touch of the surface of my iPad. The London museum is situated in the north of the city, in the vicinity of the famous Liverpool street market, which is really a myriad of alleys, hosting stalls and shops, selling goods particular to the needs of Nigerians. As with all other locations within the London metropolis, the museum is easily accessible using the city’s excellent underground train services. I seized the opportunity to board one of the trains and dropped off at St. Paul’s station. I walked up to the station’s gate, went out, turned right and then strode down into the St. Martin’s Le-Grand street. The street ended into a sort of circular road where begins the long stretch of road that is, interestingly, named, the London Wall. Down the road, the museum occupies a large expense of land at the junction with Alders gate Street.
At the museum, that day, a stream of giggling school children were visiting, and they formed a boisterous queue on the long, winding,  stairs leading up to the entrance. There were many other visitors forming a more manageable queue, and I quickly joined it to pay the required fees. The queue moved briskly and I found myself at the foot of the exhibition. The visitors were of all shades, and ages, and must had come from many nations of the world. We all moved silently, rather reverently, going from one item to the other, for at least two hours.
I bet the exhibition met my expectation by all standards. It was a fascinating and wonderful display, and I was truly mesmerised. We saw a mass of photographs, paintings, costumes and objects in all the rooms that we passed through. You could peruse rarely seen manuscripts of some of his finest books in the author’s own handwriting. I used this rare opportunity to go through the manuscripts of ‘Bleak House’ and ‘David Copperfield,’ some of my favorite Dickens books.
We were then shepherded into a small anteroom, to watch a specially commissioned film on the life and times of Dickens by a British leading documentary film-maker, William Raban. This is considered the highlights of the exhibition, as it is an innovative audio-visual experience, bringing to life among other things, the desk and chair where Dickens wrote some of his masterpieces. The film also explores the similarities between London after dark today and the night time city described by Dickens over 150 years ago. By the time I finished watching this short film I realised that there was a great many similarities between London 150 years ago and now. After all life in cities is the same through the ages. The opulent rich live side by side with the very poor and down-trodden. The difference, in London of this era, is that the poor and the rich alike now enjoy to a large extent access to basic facilities, such as housing, electricity, water, security, education, health, and other services that make living more tolerable. Perhaps, these advances in the British social lives could be attributable to the works of the 19th century writers, notably Charles Dickens, who was a relentless critic of poverty and its effects.
I left the exhibition rooms very much gratified that I had met and interacted with my favorite author, Charles Dickens, at work and at his home. While leaving the museum, I stopped briefly at the foyer shop to buy a few Dickens memorabilia. Then, I got down to the underground station, to begin my journey back to the hotel, as my day was done.
Dori wrote in from Abuja