With Dickens, it was the best of times | Bangkok Post: opinion

POSTSCRIPT

As a nipper in England, I often went for walks with my father. If rain was threatening he would say: ''We'd better take a 'gamp', and would pick up an umbrella in the doorway.''

That was my oblique introduction to the world of Charles Dickens. I was to later discover that 'gamp' came from the Dickens character Sarah Gamp, a nurse who was seldom without a brolly in the novel Martin Chuzzlewit and the word became common usage in Victorian times.

That is a trivial example of the influence of the great writer who would have been 200 years old this past week. There have been numerous celebrations to mark the anniversary of this fellow who had a wondrous way with words, second only to Shakespeare in his influence on English literature.