Ah, you're working without the power of Google at your fingertips..! Just three keywords got me there - bbc606 dickens pompey Happy reminiscing. http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/606/A62565177
For Old times sake I thought I would repost my contribution to that thread but with an apology to Pompeymeowth about whom I was very rude and most uneccessarily so: Charles Dickens clearly knew PompeyMeowth for he describes him very well in The Pickwick Papers "Dumb as a drum with a hole in it, sir." Then he fully understood how PFC fans would be feeling at this moment when he wrote in Hard Times “NOW, what I want is, Facts.” I have really grown to appreciate Dickens ability to get inside the minds and emotions of PFC fans and how they would view the people who manage their club for he wrote in Nicholas Nickleby: “Some of the craftiest scoundrels that ever walked this earth.” He also understood what Peter Story would be saying to your latest owner when he wrote in our Mutual Friend: "Yes! you are the ruin--the ruin--the ruin--of me. I have no resources in myself, I have no confidence in myself, I have no government of myself when you are near me or in my thoughts. And you are always in my thoughts now. I have never been quit of you since I first saw you. Oh, that was a wretched day for me! That was a wretched, miserable day!" Then of course he would know how the demolition people would feel when as they entered Fratton Park to set about pulling it down for as he wrote in Master Humphrey’s Clock: It is a silent, shady place, with a paved courtyard so full of echoes, that sometimes I am tempted to believe that faint responses to the noises of old times linger there yet, and that these ghosts of sound haunt my footsteps as I pace it up and down. Dickens ability to forecast the future also amazes me for he knows how your fans will respond when Saints score the winning goal and you are out of the cup when he wrote again in Our Mutual Friend. “They were all silent for a long while.” Then he also understood how I feel at them moment when he summed up my feelings in Our Mutual Friend: " . . . Give me a moment, because I like to cry for joy. It's so delicious.” And now I wait as some of your fans have no sense of humour and this will taken off by the moderators. But just remember that not one of my moderated postings contained an untrue word and certainly no swear words or any insulting terms. | complain about this comment
St Godders, I think you should write a book entitled "How Dickens can change your life". Providing answers to every day conundrums and challenges on life, love, money, avarice, greed I have a simliar book based on Proust - cracking read.
Just had a quick browse through that old BBC 606 article. Some of the quotes from Dickens posted there show what a prophet (not to be confused with profit, a word seldom heard in Pompey these days) he was. The years he spent in Pompey were obviously inspirational for his later works. From Great Expectations "We spent as much money as we could, and got as little for it as people could make up their minds to give us. We were always more or less miserable, and most of our acquaintance were in the same condition. There was a gay fiction*among us that we were constantly enjoying ourselves, and a skeleton truth that we never did. To the best of my belief, our case was in the last aspect a rather common one." *Always had my suspicions And from A Tale of Two Cities "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way" That Dickens bloke, he new what he was talking about didn't he? The season of darkness, the winter of despair....When it's put like that I almost feel pity..almost.
