GAD'S HILL SCHOOL - STRAIGHT OUT OF DICKENS

This blog needs to lighten up a little so I'll tell you a little story. Gad's Hill is the house in Kent where Charles Dickens lived in the latter part of his life. The story goes that when very young he passed by this delightful building and said to his parents that one day he would live there. And so he did.

Several years ago, when I was a member of the Charles Dickens Society in London, I joined a group of members and visited Gad's Hill which was by then, as it still is, a school. The place is largely as it was in Dickens' time and the Headmaster's study is the very room where Dickens died. The tunnel under the main road that Dickens had made so that he and his family could reach the chalet presented to them by Hans Christian Anderson is still there although one is not permitted to go through it now (but this did not stop me from doing it.)

Visiting the toilet I saw this notice and I thought how much the Great Man would have loved it and how he would inevitably have given one of his characters such a name. Isn't it delightful?