Cash appeal to make Malton's Charles Dickens bid a reality (From Gazette & Herald)

Cash appeal to make Malton's Charles Dickens bid a reality

12:06pm Wednesday 13th October 2010 in The Dickens Link By David Jeffels

AN AMBITIOUS venture to capitalise on Malton’s historic links with Charles Dickens urgently needs support if it is to become a reality.

Malcolm Chalk, chairman of the Dickens’ Society in Malton, is urging businesses and the public to get behind the plan to recreate the rooms in Chancery Lane where it is believed Dickens famous story A Christmas Carol was set.

Some work has already been done on renovating the rooms, but so far only £1,000 has been raised towards the £20,000 needed to return the one-time offices back to the days of Dickens.

“It is one of the most famous books ever, yet Malton is not cashing-in on its potential to attract tourists which could make an enormous difference to the town’s economy,” said Mr Chalk.

Fifty letters were sent to local businesses inviting them to look round the listed building, but no-one turned up.

“The venture has enormous potential if we can generate significant local interest, but at present we are struggling,” said Mr Chalk, who has helped to raise the profile of the book by opening The Counting House café in Yorkersgate, and having scenes from the book painted on the walls by Jo Clayer.

He said: “It would be a real shame if we are not able to complete the Counting House Project and restore the rooms to just as they were when Dickens visited them.

“We have so much documentation about Dickens because he regularly visited Malton.”

A weekend of events has been arranged for October 22-24 which will include opening of the Counting House to give the public one of their first glimpses of the offices used by Bob Cratchit and Ebenezer Scrooge, and to see the staircase where the ghost of Jacob Marley was, according to the book, seen by Scrooge.

Local historians John Stone and Sid Woodhams will be telling the public about the house’s history and staging an exhibition of photographs of Victorian Malton, while retired York police officer Brian Oxberry will be in Dickensian costume giving at abridged version of A Christmas Carol at the café at a literary lunch on Sunday, October 24.

Video snippets of seasonal films will be screened as part of the celebration of the society obtaining a lease from the Fitzwilliam Estate on the offices which for decades had been used as storage accommodation for an accountancy practice.

“We need help from Malton people to enable our dream to become a reality,” said Mr Chalk.

Schools are being encouraged to visit the offices.

“It provides them with an opportunity to study Dickensian life as well as the book itself,” said Mr Chalk.

“The offices are unspoiled and just as they would have been in Dickens’ day.

“We aim to relive that period using modern technology, both visual and sound to create the atmosphere of the day.”

When the Chancery Lane offices are established, the Dickens Society has plans to create a Dickens Centre in a former warehouse behind York House.

The aim is to have the Chancery Lane building opened as a tourist attraction in time for the 200th anniversary of Dickens’ birth in February 2012.

Anyone who can help is asked to phone Mr Chalk on 07587 361897.