Tag: Dickens

MEDITATION 67

It has been some time since I have sat here beside my candle to write my meditation. Winter is now definitely on its way. The trees are losing their leaves, while swaying in the chill winds. 

There has been a break in the blog because my friend Henry Riley, who helped me set it up  and who posts each meditation for me, has taken a well-earned holiday. He works for LBC radio and has recently been promoted to producer of Nick Ferrari’s early morning show. This means he arrives at the studio in the middle of the night. He also still hosts a weekend programme on our local radio station – Radio Jackie – as well. So, he is a busy boy.

Henry was one of my Drama students and a good character actor. He studied Politics at Warwick University and now, in his early twenties, he is making his way in a career in broadcasting. I hope that eventually he will have his own chat show and that I will be one of his first guests, engaging in cut and thrust discussion with politicians or chewing the cud with the stars! 

Meeting with Henry several weeks ago and discussing his work at LBC, had led me to think about where other ex-students are working now – at least those that I know about.

To my knowledge, two other ex- Drama students work behind the scenes in broadcasting: one for the BBC and subsidiary companies and the other for Sky TV. I also know of one, quite a while ago now, who worked behind the camera on trailers for the James Bond films. 

I have often been asked whether any of my students have been successful as an actor or performer. I suppose behind that question is another one: have I taught anyone who went on to be a star?

Well quite a few went on to study Drama or Performance at university and several are currently making their first steps in the theatre profession. Several others are making their way as musicians. It is a struggle and even more so now with so many actors and performers out of work during the pandemic. The entertainment industry is struggling to get back on its feet at the moment.  

One, Tommy Rodger, who was a professional child actor while at school and appeared several plays in the West End and The Alienist’ for Netflix, is filming a BBC drama series as I write. Another, Archie Renaux, had a prominent role in the BBC series “Gold Digger’ in 2019 and now has a major role in the Netflix series “Shadow and Bone’. In fact he was filming the series in Budapest in the week of my final Drama tour with the school in February 2020 and came to see our students’ performances.

I know of several who went on to work in lighting or sound or set construction in the Theatre and one, Bryony Relf, is a successful stage manager in the UK and Europe. Another, Chris Kendall, is a voice actor, working for audio books (very profitable during the pandemic)  and another Chris – Chris Cunningham – is a successful drag artist.  My friend Steven went from acting to a career in HR and management and quite recently went back to work at his old drama school advising graduating students on making a start in the profession.

 I am sure there have been others over the years who I do not know about, not to mention those who became professional singers, musicians or dancers rather than actors, like Ben Lake who was in ‘Phantom of the Opera’ and ‘Jerry Springer the Opera’ in the West End quite a while ago and my friend Simon who teaches dance. 

Equally gratifying to me are those who went on to become members of the teaching profession at whatever level, and especially those who went on to teach Drama or English or both, including Leigh Norton who has taken over from me as Director of Drama at my school. Quite a few of my ex-students found their way back to the school as teachers or teaching assistants. I used to quip that I could take a register of them all in the staff room and that one or two still owe me homework!

However, I know nothing of the futures of the vast majority of students whom I taught. There were so many over my three decades and more at Richard Challoner School that it would be impossible to keep track of them all. This is true of any teacher with a long career I suppose. It is very pleasing that some have kept in touch.

I hope they have all been successful in their own way. I also hope that, at the very least, studying Drama gave them personal confidence to pursue their chosen career and to make their way in life. Several I know have gone into the legal profession or management and one or two in Whitehall in the Civil Service working for politicians or in administration for political parties. Several have gone into the Police or retail management not to mention some who became doctors and nurses.

I also feel gratified when I discover that ex-students, having participated in the Drama tours to Hungary have returned to Budapest on holiday after they left school. Or those who have developed a theatre-going habit as a result of school theatre visits.   

In a way the question I was frequently asked, understandable and well-meaning though it was, is redundant. Studying Drama means more than preparing students for a possible career in theatre, films or TV, though some may progress into the entertainment industry. Arts Education in schools is currently under threat because of this utilitarian attitude. The concept of a broad and balanced curriculum in schools, which incidentally enabled the students mentioned above to flourish, is also under threat. 

The word ‘education’ derives from the Latin word educare’ – to lead out. Education, therefore is intended to lead out or bring out the talents, skills and above all potential in the student. This ‘leading out’ necessarily involves nurturing and developing these talents and skills too along with personal qualities such as confidence to successfully use them.

Therefore, it means more than filling students with knowledge. Education at present seems to be veering in the direction of Mr Gradgrind. Gradgrind runs the school in Dickens’ ‘Hard Times’: ‘Now what I want is Facts,’ he says in the opening paragraph of the novel. ‘Teach these boys and girls nothing but facts. Facts alone are wanted in life.’

Now I am not crowing about my former students’ successes and certainly not living through them because I didn’t become a professional actor or director myself. I have little if anything to do with it, though naturally I am proud of them. A school, after all, is a springboard and where students land afterwards is their own business. 

However I do hope I have to some small extent, nurtured and developed, and have led out my students’ potential.

I once read somewhere that all we can ask to be in life is a link in a chain. Not the whole chain. Only a link. Therefore not the whole show either!

I hope I have been a link in the chain of their lives.  

Ave atque Vale – Hail and Farewell – until the next blog!

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Many thanks

Neilus Aurelius    

Meditation 46

As I write this meditation, I am not gazing at the candle in front of me. I am writing on my kitchen table and looking at the array of magnets on the fridge in the corner. The surfaces of the fridge door, the freezer door under it and the side of the fridge opposite me are almost completely filled with magnets.

I have been collecting them on my travels for over fifteen years I think. Some are from museums or art galleries or historical buildings as I can’t resist gift shops in those places. I have a penchant for cultural souvenirs, you see.

Many of them are small oblong pieces of tin with a photo or art reproduction printed on them and some are encased in plastic squares or oblongs. There are those of places I have visited around the world. As might be expected not a few are from Hungary and my numerous visits there and from Vancouver Island where I usually visit every year too.

 Others are from the exhibitions I mentioned. Indeed my fridge boasts its own miniature art gallery: there are a Van Gogh,  a Vermeer, 2 Caravaggio’s, 3 Michelangelo’s (including the statue of David), a Toulouse Lautrec, part of the stained glass at the Church of Sainte Chapelle in Paris, a portrait of Anne Boleyn, 2 pictures by Emily Carr (from Vancouver Island -one of my favourite artists), an Atkinson Grimshaw (the 19th Century Yorkshire artist) and a view of Lake Keitele in Finland by Aksell Gellen-Kallela (one of my favourite pictures in London’s National Gallery) among others. You might argue that in the early days of lockdown, when movement was severely restricted, there was no need for me to visit a gallery anyway. All I had to do was look at my fridge!

There is also a photo of the head of a Greek Philosopher, (from Budapest’s National Gallery), a magnet which Marcus Aurelius would no doubt appreciate. Needless to say, he also graces the side of my fridge: in a photo of the impressive statue of him in Rome’s Capitoline Museum, arm uplifted and hailing his empire on his horse. I do not know how he would react to being reduced to an image of 2 inches by 3 inches on a fridge wall. It is so unlike the large statues of him around the empire or the huge column with its spiralling frescoes of his triumphs in the Piazza Colonna in Rome. Perhaps he would accept the reduction of his grandeur to a small picture with stoic humility.

Some of the magnets are ceramic or metal figures. There’s a mini Shakespeare memorial from Stratford’s Holy Trinity Church where he is buried; a gargoyle from Notre Dame in Paris, a bejewelled masked gentleman from the Venice carnival and a miniature plaque of the Renaissance King Mattyas of Hungary. Reflecting my love of movies, there’s an Oscar statuette, a mini movie clapperboard and an tiny enamel ruby slipper from ‘The Wizard of Oz’ as well as long oblong posters of ‘Metropolis’ and ‘King Kong.’ There are several theatre posters too including one from Broadway.

One of my favourites is from Vancouver: a small wooden scene in dark and light brown and ivory wood showing a bear and a cub in the snow. The largest magnet is a mini upright piano with a lid which opens to reveal a tiny keyboard. I got this in Budapest when the Liszt 200th anniversary celebrations were on.     

My literary interests are reflected in magnets of several quotes from Shakespeare and from Oscar Wilde and Dickens (as well as an illustration from ‘A Christmas Carol’) and my love of John Steinbeck’s ‘Cannery Row’ by a 1930’s advert for canned anchovies from Monterey in California. There’s also a mini library of books from the Bodleian Library at Oxford.

However, I have frequently found that a museum or gallery gift shop doesn’t stock a card or magnet of the picture I would most like a copy of. Some of the ones on my fridge are therefore second best!

I have almost forgotten to mention that several friends have brought me magnets from their own travels. Isn’t it lovely to be remembered by friends when they are on holiday?

As you may have already gathered, this plethora of magnets not only  reflects my travels but also my interests. Like photographs, there are memories encased in them. I can remember where and when I bought most of them. With some of them, I have distinct memories of the complete day or afternoon when I purchased them: who I was with; where else I visited that day and other pictures or artefacts I looked at in the same place.

There are two magnets with 19th century American portraits on them, from a small exhibition in the tiny art gallery in the Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas. I had dived in there as I wanted to escape the relentless crowds and overpowering noise of the main strip. It was blissfully quiet in the gallery I remember. There was an impressive exhibition of landscape photography there too (but no magnets!).  I have rarely spent such a long time in such a small gallery – I was there for over an hour, partly just to get some peace and quiet. I told the assistant as I was leaving that it was the best $15 I had spent. She beamed at my compliment till I told her it was the only place where I could find peace and quiet in Las Vegas!  Then she laughed and agreed with me and I sweetened my potentially acid comment with some genuine appreciation of the exhibits, especially the photographs. Although, I desisted from purchasing the glossy book of the photos at $150 a copy! I bought the magnets of the 19th Century portraits instead. I remember treating myself to a blueberry ice cream and coffee in the gelateria next door afterwards before braving the crowds again.

I am afraid Las Vegas and I didn’t get on. It is endlessly brash and loud; yes the word is ‘endless.’ It is like a loud uncontrollable class except in school the class will disappear when the bell goes. In Las Vegas, the class goes on 24/7!  However, if asked, I would be delighted to headline there with my cabaret!

I found the fridge magnets were a comfort early in lockdown when I couldn’t go far, let alone travel to another country and when all the galleries and museums in London were closed. They reminded me that I have been very fortunate to travel abroad and so regularly and through my travels to make international friendships. I have also been fortunate to have seen so many wonderful works of art and historical buildings first hand and to share them with my friends who accompanied me and sometimes with yourself, dear reader, in this blog.

My life so far has been so rich, most of all in friendships. If I never travel again abroad or never enter another gallery, I haven’t done so badly out of life! I learnt in those early months of lockdown that it is important to be thankful for what we have and for what we have had. It is a way of being positive in these difficult times, which sadly continue.

It appears that the lockdown is tightening again, especially if people aren’t sensible and do not adhere to the new restrictions. Once again our horizons are potentially becoming narrower and in some areas of the U.K., this is already the case. We are being asked to accept and endure the situation again. Marcus, as a Stoic philosopher, would encourage us to do this.  But ‘endure’ is a harsh word  it is a difficult thing to do, as we have all learnt in the last six months or so. At least we have had some practice if another major lockdown comes.

Despite the ominous signs, nevertheless, I am hoping that next month I will be able to finally take my luxury trip to Puglia, in Southern Italy, which is my retirement present to myself. So by the end of October, hopefully another magnet (or two) will grace my fridge doors.

In these last months, I have learnt that ‘hope’ is a difficult thing too, even though the word is only one syllable and sounds lighter than ‘endure.’ It is difficult because it involves the future, which we have no control over. The more our plans for the future are scuppered, the less we feel like hoping. But hope we must, for it is a positive virtue and the best way to endure is to be positive.

Ave atque Vale – Hail and Farewell – until the next blog!

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A selection of previous meditations is also available in audio form as ‘Meditations of Neiulus Aurelius’ ASMR on YouTube.

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Many thanks

Neilus Aurelius

Meditation 44

As I sit here beside my candle, watching the steady flame, I am thinking of Marcus Aurelius, the inspiration for this blog. It is wonderful that we are able to read his own ‘Meditations’, which he wrote over 1,800 years ago and in a paperback edition too which is readily available in bookstores or even as a kindle book!

Though they were written in Latin and I have therefore been dependent upon a translator, yet he seems to be very present to me as I read them, as if he is really speaking to me despite the centuries between us. How far the real Marcus is reflected in these pages or how far it is the Marcus he would like the reader to see, I, of course, will never know. But there is an honesty and a genuine humility in his writing that makes me think he is truly present in his words. For one thing, he never mentions his military successes, whereas, for instance, his imperial ancestor, Julius Caesar, wrote extensively and interminably about his in his ‘Gallic Wars’!

I dare to hope that something of my own self is reflected in my own meditations in this blog, that I am present to you the reader through my writing.

During the months of lockdown since March, we have been present to each other in many different ways, thanks to digital technology, and in ways that Marcus could not have dreamt of. I say ‘being present’ because in these dark days, it hasn’t just been a case of contacting friends and family and acquaintances, but it has also involved being present to them as a support and encouragement and to share anxieties which may have meant spending a little more time than usual with them on a call.

There have been so many ways through which we have been present to others, not just the phone or e mail but through texts and group chats, and visually through FaceTime, WhatsApp, Skype and of course the new medium of Zoom.

Video calls on whatever platform have enabled us to see who we are speaking to, which has been so important and a great comfort, as for several long months we weren’t allowed to meet friends or possibly even family because of movement restrictions. Looking at my emails, I think that texts and video calls are replacing the personal e mail to friends and acquaintances. I might be wrong about this – it may be that people just don’t want to write to me anymore!
FaceTime, WhatsApp and Zoom were new to me at the start of lockdown, but as someone who lives alone, they have been another lifeline for me (as well as calls, mails and texts) once I got used to them. In the early months, it was wonderful to be able to have a video call with my family, to see them as well as talk to them and of course my close friends too across the country and across the world.

However I must admit that I found triple conversations and a three way split screen difficult to handle on the small screen of an I phone! The smaller screen made me feel constricted. I am much more comfortable and relaxed with a Zoom call on the wider screen of a laptop. Maybe my big personality is more suited to a wider format! I would certainly have been at home in one of those wide screen epics of years gone by. Perhaps I could have played Marcus Aurelius (as Alec Guinness did in ‘The Fall of the Roman Empire’ and, less successfully, Richard Harris, in ‘Gladiator’).

I have had such a variety of Zoom calls in these recent months, a committee meeting or two, two lectures with the Dickens’ Fellowship (of which I am a member), a series of group meditations and one memorable evening when I spend two hours chatting with my dear friends David and Peter, while we drank our bottles of wine on our respective sofas in our homes across London from eachother. It was digital decadence! However, it does seem rather silly at times: talking to a laptop screen which then talks back to you! It’s like being in an old sci-fi movie without the dramatic and earnest conversations from screen to screen!

In a video call our friends or family are there but not there. They are present to us but not physically present. I must confess to being saddened sometimes when the video call was over, and in a way that I wouldn’t have been if it was an ordinary audio phone call. It is the fact that you can see family or friends (which is wonderful) but they are not really present with you in the room. So when the call is over and you wave and end the call, there can be a sense of loss, an emptiness. A video call can never replace being with that person or persons. Nevertheless, it has been a comfort, indeed a marvel, in these dark months we have been going through.

Another comfort to me has been the streaming of theatre productions online. These have been from the archive of the National Theatre, the Royal Opera and Royal Shakespeare Company. Over the last decade, these companies (and others under the National Theatre umbrella) have streamed live performances to cinemas and a selection of these performances have been streamed in lockdown on BBC I player and YouTube and are therefore quite recent. They have filled quite a few evenings for me and I have been able to catch up on productions I have missed. One advantage of these filmed performances is that the cameras enable you to see the actors close up, which may not be possible from where you are sitting in the theatre.

One of these productions was Shakespeare’s ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ in a performance from 2019 at the new Bridge Theatre, by Tower Bridge on the Thames. I must admit that having directed the play five times and seen as many if not more productions of this play, I felt a little jaded about it as it started. It turned out to be an exciting, very funny and spectacular immersive theatre experience. The Bridge Theatre is able to change its seating for whatever production and had taken out the stalls seats so audience could stand while the play took place on a series of platforms and also above their heads as there were actors on trapezes above them at times. (‘Oh to do something like this in my school drama studio,’ I thought to myself!) The rest of the audience were seated in the circle on three sides. As is customary at present, there was some gender swapping of roles: Oberon and Titania, King and Queen of the Fairies, swapped lines for instance which created some hilarious situations. But the production was highly detailed and the text was very clear so Shakespeare was well served by this energetic company. Most important of all, it had warmth and was life-affirming and was magical (as all successful productions of this play should be).

I have mentioned in a previous blog (when I discussed seeing Wagner’s Ring Cycle of 4 operas at the Opera House) that a successful theatre performance creates an invisible ring binding the performers and the audience. This production of Shakespeare’s ‘Dream’ created that invisible ring from its first moment until the riotous final curtain call. There were many moments when I too, sitting in my armchair at home, felt part of that ring too. The experience was all embracing. What an achievement for the director Nicholas Hytner and his actors.
But they were only moments. Because I was not physically present in the audience. I certainly wish I had been last summer. As the play was nearing its final act, I began to feel saddened in the midst of the joyous atmosphere of the show. For our theatres are closed and I am missing them. We do not know when they will re-opened or when an immersive production like ‘The Dream’ with actors moving, running and dancing through the audience will happen again.

Much has been touted about Zoom and other platforms being the way forward while coronavirus and the threat of it remains with us and beyond, when we are back to a kind of normal. There has been talk of digital lessons in schools, webinars and digital lectures in university and other educational institutions, digital conferencing etc. In certain situations this may be a way forward. But we must remember that nothing can replace the physical presence of a person. And we cannot let digital communication distance us from eachother and break the bond of our common humanity (which the production I have discussed so potently celebrated). We are social beings which means being physically present to eachother.

There are times on summer days when dark clouds appear and stay there in the sky. It seems as if the sun will never come out again. But it will and does. I am sure we have had those moments in these recent months, when we thought the dark clouds wouldn’t go. Well lockdown is beginning to ease and the sun is peeping through the clouds. We are able to move around more and see more of eachother. I have been able to visit my family in Leeds and friends in the London area too. I have been able to visit an ‘old friend’ the National Gallery (as another friend of mine puts it). But more about these in my next blog.

Ave atque Vale – Hail and Farewell – until the next blog!

If you are enjoying my blog, and have not already done so, please sign up below to receive notification of each new blog by e mail. Just add your e mail to ‘Follow’ as it pops up!
And please do pass on the blog address to others who may be interested.
A selection of previous meditations is also available in audio form as ‘Meditations of Neiulus Aurelius’ ASMR on YouTube.
I would also value any feedback on nzolad53@gmail.com or my Facebook page or Twitter.

Many thanks
Neilus Aurelius

As I sit here by my solitary candle I am looking at the corner opposite me in my lounge. It is now empty. Today I took down the Christmas decorations and so the tree in the opposite corner is no longer there. My candle seems very solitary indeed now that the lights on the tree are packed away upstairs. Now that the garlands and cards are gone from my bookshelves too, the room seems empty indeed and cold as if a chill winter breeze has crept in though the window or under the door.

I am reminded once again of Dickens’ ‘A Christmas Carol’, when the Spirit of Christmas Future returns Scrooge to the Cratchits’ parlour and the corner where Tiny Tim used to sit is sadly empty. Of course, Scrooge changes heart when he wakes up in the present on Christmas morning. He helps Tiny Tim as much as he can and presumably Tim recovers from his illness and lives so the corner will not be empty at all. And of course I will be putting up the decorations and tree once again in December and, like Tiny Tim’s corner, my lounge corner will not be empty once more either. And it will once again glow with the lights on the tree.

At the end of ‘A Christmas Carol’ we are told that ‘it was always said of Mr Scrooge that he knew how to keep Christmas well’. We are also reminded: ‘May that be truly said of all of us.’ What does this mean? Scrooge’s sudden change of heart, indeed the opening of his heart in generosity to others, including those less fortunate than himself, did not end with that first Christmas season when he became truly alive. The spirit of Christmas remained alive in him throughout the year. Moreover, his heart had been opened for the rest of his days.

You may remember the phrase ‘A dog isn’t just for Christmas’, warning people not to buy a puppy for Christmas without being aware of the responsibilities of looking after it afterwards. Well perhaps Dickens is saying ‘Christmas isn’t just for Christmas’. We should keep the generous spirit of Christmas alight in our hearts even though the Christmas lights have been extinguished in our home. Just as, if we buy or receive a dog or puppy at Christmas, we have the responsibility to look after it, so we also have the responsibility to be generous and kind to others, especially those less fortunate than ourselves, all the year round. If we are looking for a New Year’s resolution perhaps this should be it. Or perhaps we should be thinking more in terms of a New Year’s attitude.

A few days ago, I mentioned to a friend that my lounge looked gloomy now that the decorations had been taken down and packed away. He suggested that we should put up different decorations for each month of the year, in line with the seasons I suppose. I do know that in Hungary (and I imagine other parts of Eastern Europe) people put up an Easter tree in their homes. This is very often a large bunch of bare branches decorated with ribbons and imitation eggs made from wood or papier-mache. The eggs are painted with traditional designs and are very colourful. I have a few on my Christmas tree! When I bought them in Budapest several years ago, I thought they were Christmas decorations!

My Christmas lights may be put away now but my solitary candle is still burning brightly. Perhaps in the year ahead, we should burn a candle to remind ourselves of the spirit of Christmas in season and out of season and to remind ourselves to live by that spirit. And

to encourage us, in the dark and uncertain opening days of this New Year and new decade.

Happy New Year.

Ave atque vale – Hail and Farewell! Till the next blog.

If you are enjoying my blog, and have not already done so, please sign up below to receive notification of each new blog by e mail. Just add your e mail to ‘Follow’ as it pops up!

And please do pass on the blog address to others who may be interested.

A selection of previous meditations is also available in audio form as ‘Meditations of Neiulus Aurelius’ ASMR on YouTube. I would also value any feedback on nzolad53@gmail.com or my Facebook page or Twitter.

Many thanks

Neilus Aurelius

As I sit here by my solitary candle, I am not gazing at its steady flame but at the lights on my Christmas tree, which is standing in the corner of the lounge opposite me.

Christmas is my season. I suppose now that I have white hair and a beard of sorts and have begun to look ‘Santa-esque’, it should be my favourite season. I have certainly always preferred it to the forced festivities of New Year.

Even though I live alone and spend most of Christmas week with my family up North, I still decorate my lounge and make a lot of fuss over the tree. On my travels in recent years I have collected trinkets and baubles to adorn its branches. Every year I try to put the decorations up around the first Sunday of Advent (generally the first Sunday in December) and leave them up until the official end of Christmastide (the feast of Epiphany on January 6). They are a cheering sight in these bleak and dark days of winter, especially when I arrive home from my family after my Christmas visit, to my solitary residence again.

Last week I took a friend to the Charles Dickens Museum in London. It is a tall townhouse in Doughty Street, in Bloomsbury, not far from Russell Square. The house was the first marital home of Charles and Catherine Dickens. They lived there from 1837 – 1840 and during that short space of time, raised the first three of their ten children there (Charley, Mary and Kate). There Dickens finished ‘The Pickwick Papers’, wrote ‘Oliver Twist’ and ‘Nicholas Nickleby’. And it was there, in his late-twenties, that he very quickly rose like a comet to international fame.

Though now a museum, there is a homely atmosphere as you walk through its rooms. There are also mini exhibitions on display and, as might be expected, at present, there is one on ‘A Christmas Carol’ which Dickens wrote only a few years after he moved (in 1843). This is the best time of year to visit the museum as every room is festooned with Christmas decorations in early Victorian style, including, in the corner of the parlour, a Christmas tree. I am honoured to think that my own tree is likewise in the corner of my own parlour! The tree’s branches have colourful ribbons on them and small thin candles (tapers) . There were no flashing electric lights in those days or electric light at all and in the gloom of the parlour, lit only by candles or oil lamps and the fire in the grate, the tree’s candle lights must have been as warm and spectacular as our own electric ones are now.

Charles Dickens virtually invented Christmas, through ‘A Christmas Carol’ and his other annual Christmas stories.

However he was only bringing together traditions that had existed for years before, even if some may have declined by then. Just as Shakespeare created our image of Ancient Rome in his play ‘Julius Caesar’, so Dickens, in his novel, creates the heartwarming image of Christmas that is now indelibly etched in our national (indeed international) consciousness.

However, we must remember that he wrote ‘A Christmas Carol’ spurred on by his own acute social conscience. Ever the champion of the poor, as he was only a few steps from abject poverty himself in his childhood, it was the plight of children born into poverty that abhorred him most. At the centre of the book is the scene where the Spirit of Christmas Present, as he is about to leave Scrooge, opens his cloak to reveal the children of Ignorance and Want, who beset Scrooge with outstretched hands.

The book was written in Dickens’ despair at the conditions of children living on the London streets and on the streets of other major cities, heightened by the current economic depression known as the ‘Hungry Forties’, where the failure of two successive harvests left many walking the streets in starvation. He was also sickened by the use of child labour in the mines and rather than petition Parliament, he decided to write a short work of fiction instead, exposing the ignorance of the wealthy and powerful classes to the ‘want’ of the poor.

What would Dickens have to say about our own Christmas in 2019 with its own child poverty, a growing homeless population, food banks, ineffective universal credit scheme, and children slipping into drug abuse and knife crime? And successive governments that are not ignorant but refuse to see and act. What indeed?

And what would he make of the last three years of political machinations and parliamentary drama around Brexit? He would have seen huge opportunities for comedy I am sure. And what of our new Prime Minister? Dickens loved creating eye-catching names for his characters and took his time over inventing them. I fancy he might have dubbed him ‘Mr Boris Brexit Bombast’. And yet, having seen our new leader so often in the news recently, despite his attempts to be Churchillian, he does not appear to be a 19th Century Dickensian figure either, as his voice and manner are more those of a licentious 18th Century Tory. Indeed a periwig would sort out his uncontrollable hair.

Dickens wrote a story about a Christmas Tree, which he calls the ‘new German toy’ as the practice of a tree at Christmas had been introduced into our country by the German Prince Albert, the young Queen Victoria’s consort, a few years before. His tree has ‘glittering tapers’ (like the one in the museum), miniature doll’s furniture and musical instruments, imitation fruits and sweets and a host of other trinkets, including rosy-cheeked dolls hiding behind the green leaves.
What of my own tree? Yes there is a string of lights like glowing icicles and a host of different baubles and trinkets, some purchased here and many from my travels. I must admit to an aversion to Christmas trees in stores, bars or hotels that have identical baubles: all gold or blue or red or whatever and often with fake gift boxes at their base. They look so unimaginative and half-hearted. But better a tree than no tree at all I suppose.

In the Dickens story, as he looks at the tree he is gradually reminded of ghosts from the past. What am I reminded of? Well places that I have visited and the dear friends who were with me. I have decorations from Paris, Rome, Florence, Assisi, Venice several from Budapest of course, San Francisco and other places in California like Monterey, San Simeon and L.A. and Vancouver. There are even several from the Vatican – but I didn’t steal them! And there are those that were given to me by family and friends. And, like Dickens, one or two trinkets remind me of one or two friends who are no more.
The Christmas Tree is a light bearing tree. To those of us who are of the Christian Faith, it symbolised the coming of Christ into the world, the light that lightens all people. For Dickens it is a ‘commemoration of the law of love and kindness, mercy and compassion’ reminding us to think of others and help them at this time.

The evergreen fir tree has links with the winter solstice and so to the tree of life which is common to so many faiths and cultures. So the Christmas tree is also the Tree of Life. It is a perennial symbol of light in the darkness. And of hope too.
As I look at my own tree I see all those things. Yes my tree is a tree of life. My life.

As Tiny Tim says in ‘A Christmas Carol’:
‘Merry Christmas and God bless us everyone.’


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A selection of previous meditations is also available in audio form as ‘Meditations of Neiulus Aurelius’ ASMR on YouTube.

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Neilus Aurelius

As I sit here besides my flickering candle and begin to write, I am thinking of someone else who wrote by candlelight. Someone who has been in my thoughts recently. This is Vincent Van Gogh, the Dutch artist. When he was in his early twenties, he lived in South London for three years between 1873 and 1876. I have just been to an exhibition called ‘Van Gogh and Britain’ at the Tate Britain gallery. It is about those years when he lived here. It is ironic that the gallery is on Millbank as Vauxhall is opposite it on the other side of the river and Van Gough lived near the Oval and in Stockwell not far from Vauxhall. As my friend Teresa and I stepped out onto Millbank after seeing the exhibition, I could not help thinking that Van Gogh no doubt strolled along this street himself on his frequent walks by the Thames. But he would not have passed the Gallery as the site was a prison then, apparently.

There are numerous facsimiles of his letters home in the exhibition. They are written in his neat handwriting with letters unjoined. I have never seen his handwriting before except his signature ‘Vincent’ at the bottom of his paintings. He would write in Dutch and in English as he was fluent in both. Sometimes there would be little pencil sketches of views of places he had seen on his walks at the top or bottom corner of the letter. The river and the embankment seemed to hold a fascination for him. He wasn’t a professional artist then, but worked in the art trade for a man called Goupil, who was a relative.
In one letter he has copied a poem – ‘To Autumn’ by John Keats – which influenced him. The exhibition is about influences: how those three years in London influenced him (and nurtured him as an artist) and how he influenced other artists (up to the 1950’s). From the paintings and sketches of his own on display there are very definite connections between them and paintings and sketches of British artists that he saw while he was here: notably Constable and Millais.

I was very interested to discover that Van Gogh also greatly admired Dickens. He read ‘A Christmas Carol’ every year and also admired ‘Hard Times’, Dickens’ satire on a Northern Industrial town. He related to Dickens’ portrayals of the lower classes and championing of the poor and his pictures are directly influenced by this in his depictions of labourers and farmers.

He was similarly influenced by prints of the engravings of Gustave Dore, who was famous for his epic pictures of the Bible but also for his scenes of the life of the London Poor. I used several of them for my production of ‘Oliver Twist’ as digital projections for backdrops. One picture by Dore, of the exercise yard at Newgate prison shows prisoners walking in circles in a dismal cramped yard with high walls. It was the direct inspiration for Van Gogh’s own picture of the yard in the asylum at San Remy, where he was an inmate for a while and where he continued to paint. Like the prisoners, the inmates walk around the yard in a repetitive circle.

The prints, known as ‘black and whites’ were sold in his uncle’s art shop and he bought several, which he kept and took back to the Netherlands with him and eventually to Paris and Arles. ‘I often felt low in England but the Black and White and Dickens made up for it all,’ he wrote later.
As I walked around the exhibition, I was reminded of a play I saw in 2003 called ‘Vincent In Brixton’ by Nicholas Wright. It is a fictional account of when he was living in a boarding house in Hackford Road (there is a blue plaque there now). He falls in love with the landlady’s daughter Eugenie (which was apparently true) and later with her mother, a grieving widowed teacher (which is fictional). I remember vividly a long scene where the mother (wonderfully played by Clare Higgins) and Vincent (played by the equally wonderful Dutch actor Jochum Ten Haaf) slowly fall in love. It was one of the most beautifully paced and tender scenes I have ever seen in the theatre as they both realise their feelings for each other and as slowly Ursula comes out of her depression. She encourages him in his art and he leads her out of her grief. Of course he eventually moves on, leaving her more devastated than before. It is the ache of teaching: they always move on.

Vincent’s famous painting of the harbour at Arles, ‘Starry Night’ could be linked to a sketch from his days in London. He frequently made sketches on his walks around the capital and particularly liked walking along the embankment by the river. He also liked prints of views of the Embankment and collected them. There is one in the exhibition by Giuseppe De Nittis depicting Victoria Embankment in 1875. Unlike ‘Starry Night’ it is a morning or afternoon scene. A well dressed man and woman, genteelly perambulate along the riverside away from the artist. They are placed in the centre of the scene.

By contrast, the two figures in Van Gogh’s ‘Starry Night’ are in the bottom right hand corner of the frame, hardly noticeable and dwarfed by the night sky and the curved river bend and the bright lights of the town. They are an artisan couple, huddled together as they trudge along, weary and middle-aged or perhaps older as their faces are indistinct as is their class. They are not elegantly dressed like the two respectable figures in De Nittis’ print: the man wears an ill-fitting jacket and the woman is enveloped in a woollen shawl. Significantly they are on the other side of the water from the town and trudging through a field or waste land in the gloom. Not for them the well-lit streets. Not for Van Gogh either as his perspective is from the wasteland too. Perhaps his perspective always was.

The stars in the night sky explode like miniature fireworks. The lights of the town are streaks of yellow, golden banners reflected in the deep blue, almost black gloom of the river. The bridge across the river is a shadow and barely visible.

What impressed me was the various shades of deep blue to almost black and the thick brush strokes on the canvas. Just by looking at them I could almost touch them. The uneven surface of the oil painting gleamed in the light of the exhibition room. No reproduction could match this bold texture or the various hues of blue or the dazzling gold of the exploding stars, as was obvious to me when I visited the gift shop at the end of the exhibition and looked at the reproductions there. So why did people take photos of the picture with their phones as I stood absorbing it? How could they capture the painting’s vibrant textures in a flat digital image?

There were several self portraits in the show. Van Gogh’s eyes were characteristically intense and pained with an inner vision. If you didn’t already possess a superficial knowledge of his life, his times of severe depression and mental illness are clear from his uncomfortable stare. There was a kind of arrogance about his suffering saying ‘You cannot understand what I feel.’

In his ‘Self Portrait With a Felt Hat’, his pale drawn face is emphasised by his auburn beard under a black hat. His eyes are brooding and intense, angry almost at our effrontery for snapping with a phone; for trying to capture his essence in a digital image;for looking but not looking at his work; for moving on from picture to picture quickly instead of lingering and absorbing his vision. Vincent said ‘One must find beautiful that which is beautiful.’ How could anyone find beauty in his work by quickly moving from one picture to another or by being more interested in snapping it that spending a little time to look at it, to find the beauty in it for oneself?

Nowhere was this more evident than in one of the last rooms, where the famous ‘Sunflowers’ picture was displayed. Everyone was snapping away: it seemed to me to be almost aggressive, as if everyone was grasping and clutching at the picture: ‘It is famous, I must have it on my phone.’ Instead of being passive for a few minutes and absorbing the glorious exuberance of the yellows. The flowers seem to embrace you in their intense warmth. For the first time I noticed tinges of Vincent’s own auburn hair in the petals. In his depression is this what he longed to be: glorious warm sunshine? Or is that what he was deep down? Are the sunflowers a depiction of his true spirit?

We have become so used to swiping and skimming and scrolling that we cannot be still or rather our eyes cannot be still. How can we appreciate art or beauty unless our eyes can be still? Unless our minds and our spirit can be still?

As I close I am thinking of Vincent’s letters again. Of his neat handwriting with unjoined letters. My handwriting has become virtually undecipherable. I must learn to be still again.

Ave atque vale until the next blog.

If you are enjoying my blog, and have not already done so, please sign up below to receive notification of each new blog by e mail. Just add your e mail to ‘Follow’ as it pops up!
And please do pass on the blog address to others who may be interested.
I would also value any feedback on nzolad53@gmail.com or my Facebook page or Twitter.
Many thanks
Neilus Aurelius