bah humbug
In the run-up to the Christmas period I always seem to bang-on about the sincere sentiments found in my two favourite festive flicks, Frank Capra’s ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ where James Stewart’s George Bailey is saved by trainee angel, Clarence, and ‘Scrooge’, the 1951 adaptation of Charles Dickens’ ‘A Christmas Carol’, in which we see the superbly frozen-hearted Alastair Sim thawed by the passing of Christmas ghosts past, present and future. I’ve watched both this December and can assure you there wasn’t a dry eye in the house.
As it turns out, the character of ol’ Ebenezer Scrooge wasn’t dreamt up in an episode of Kirstie’s Home Made Christmas, but is thought to have been inspired by Eton and Cambridge educated lawyer and property magnate, John Camden Neild (1780-1852). His huge house in Cheyne Walk, Chelsea, would be illuminated by a solitary candle that he carried with him from room to room, whilst his threadbare clothes fell about him as rags. A well-known figure in Dickensian London, he became nationally (in)famous upon his death by leaving his half-a-million pound fortune (now worth the equivalent of £66 million) to Queen Victoria. WTF, now there’s a royalist for you! She then did what he should’ve done in the first place and used the legacy to give pensions to his servants (to whom he’d left nothing) and paid for a memorial window in the North Marston church, where Neild was buried. All heart was our Mrs Melbourne.
Mind, it wasn’t all good news for his penniless benefactors, as the vast amount remaining has since been recognised by royal historians as the principal source of private wealth that transformed the relatively penniless Hanoverians into the Windsor plutocrats they are today. I wonder if this bequest turned out to be the germinated seeds of the inheritance tax system we now live with? A helluva Christmas present to us all, and thanks for nothing, John!
So, in these austerity riven times, give generously to the charities and good causes that pull on your heart strings. Be loving to those you care about and keep them close. Eat, drink, make merry and as Ebenezer’s new-found BFF, Tiny Tim, observes “God bless us, every one”. Merry Christmas.
