䐀 漀 氀 瀀 栀 椀 渀 猀 伀 瀀 琀 漀 洀 攀 琀 爀 椀 猀 琀 猀 Ⰰ 䐀 漀 氀 瀀 栀 椀 渀 䠀 漀 甀 猀 攀 Ⰰ アパートアパート 䴀 甀 猀 琀 攀 爀 䜀 爀 攀 攀 渀 Ⰰ 䠀 愀 礀 眀 愀 爀 搀 猀 䠀 攀 愀 琀 栀 Ⰰ 刀 䠀 㘀 㐀 䄀 䰀 㐀 㐀 㐀 㐀 㔀 㐀 㠀 㠀 簀 眀 眀 眀 ⸀ 搀 漀 氀 瀀 栀 椀 渀 猀 漀 瀀 琀 漀 洀 攀 琀 爀 椀 猀 琀 猀 ⸀ 挀 漀 ⸀ 甀 欀 伀 瀀 攀 渀 椀 渀 最 琀 椀 洀 攀 猀 㨀 䴀 漀 渀 ⴀ 䘀 爀 椀 ⠀ 攀 砀 挀 ⸀ 圀 攀 搀 ⤀ 㤀 ⸀ ⴀ 㜀 ⸀アパート 圀 攀 搀 ☀ 匀 愀 琀 㤀 ⸀ ⴀアパート⸀
COLUMN David Jarman 'I've always had a certain regard for Scrooge' On 27 <strong>December</strong> 1835, the tenth in a series of twelve Scenes and Characters appeared in Bell’s Life in London. It was entitled Christmas Festivities, and written under the pen-name of ‘Tibbs’. As the following extract will tell you, ‘Tibbs’ was, of course, Charles Dickens. ‘There seems a magic in the very name of Christmas. Petty jealousies and discords are forgotten. Social feelings are awakened in bosoms to which they have long been strangers; father and son, or brother and sister, who have met and passed with averted gaze, or a look of cold recognition for months before, proffer and return the cordial embrace, and bury their past animosities in their present happiness. Kindly hearts that have yearned towards each other but have been withheld by false notions of pride and self-dignity, are again united, and all is kindness and benevolence! Would that Christmas lasted the whole year through, and that the prejudices and passions which deform our better nature were never called into action among those to whom, at least, they should ever be strangers’. It’s tempting to respond to such sententious attitudinising with a forceful “Bah! Humbug,” and agree, with Scrooge, that “every idiot who goes about with ‘Merry Christmas’, on his lips, should be boiled with his own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly through his heart.” In fact, I rather enjoy Christmas, that precious time ‘for paying bills without money’ and ‘finding yourself a year older, and not an hour richer’. I’ve always had a certain regard for Scrooge, though. He deals with the original apparition of Jacob Marley with admirable sangfroid, not to say humour (“Don’t be flowery, Jacob!”), it seems to me. But in the same way that George Bernard Shaw said of Little Dorrit that it converted him to socialism, I don’t doubt A Christmas Carol’s power to change lives. (GBS, by the way, was asked once whether he liked Christmas, and he replied: “Like it! I am a civilised man.” He kept a Christmas card which ran: ‘Courage friend! We all hate Christmas. But it is soon over’). Sometimes A Christmas Carol changes lives in ways perhaps unintended by Dickens. In his journals, the artist Keith Vaughan tells of a man named Freddie that he met during the Second World War: ‘I asked him the other evening why he had got married so young. He said he had never thought of getting married at all. But one Christmas he was alone in his house, his parents were out, and he was listening to A Christmas Carol on the radio. Suddenly he saw himself as Scrooge. He felt certain that that was what he would grow into. The thought terrified him. He went straight out and round to the girl he was going with at the time and asked her to marry him.’ To round off the year, I wonder if politicians, mindful of recent interesting global developments, could learn from Enver Hoxha’s New Year address to the Albanian people in 1967: “This year will be harder than last year. It will, however, be easier than next year.” 'Marley's Ghost' by Fred Barnard 35