Charles Dickens great great grandson visitors Bowes Museum (From The Northern Echo)

Charles Dickens great great grandson visitors Bowes Museum

5:23pm Thursday 16th February 2012 in Barnard Castle News

A DICKENS of a surprise greeted Bowes Museum visitors as the great-great-grandson of Charles Dickens helped mark the author’s 200th birthday.

There were Great Expectations as Gerald Dickens retraced his famous ancestors steps on a visit to County Durham on February 15.

He was invited to County Durham by the Dickens in Teesdale group to help mark the bi-centenary of the famous writer’s birth.

He was joined on the trip by Valerie Browne Lester the great, great granddaughter of Hablot Browne who illustrated Dickens books.

The two are giving talks nationally separately but they met up to give a lecture at the Bowes Museum.

Mr Dickens, 48, said: "I’m very excited to be part of the celebrations and it’s been really incredible to see the enthusiasm for Dickens even now.

"I think he’s popular as he created great stories and some larger than life characters with ridiculous names.

"Some of those characters like Scrooge have entered the English language and he was also writing about issues still relevant today."

Mr Dickens, an actor from Oxford, has read all of his ancestor’s works also gave his one man performance of Nicholas Nickleby at the museum.

Charles Dickens was born in Portsmouth on February 7 1812 and the family moved to London.

He began to pen his world famous novels with The Pickwick Papers the first to appear in 1836.

He visited County Durham in 1838 as he researched the local schools to gather details to use in his third novel Nicholas Nickleby.

A further 13 novels followed before his death in 1870 while he was in the process of writing The Mystery of Edwin Drood.

Gerald Dickens attended a reception at Buckingham Palace with the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh to mark the anniversary on Tuesday. (feb 14) He was also at a service held at Westminster Abbey on February 7 where the Prince of Wales laid a wreath on the writers grave.

Michael and Val Fryer, who set up Dickens in Teesdale, were at the Buckingham Place and Westminster Abbey services too.

Mr Fryer said: "It was fantastic and a great experience to attend and it’s something we never dreamed would happen to us."

Further information on the Dickens in Teesdale group can be found on-line by visiting www.dickensinteesdale.org.uk.