Where fiction and reality meet. And some strange clouds.

 Back in 1984 they made a film of A Christmas Carol. One of the props for the film was the grave of Ebenezer Scrooge, the tombstone of which was erected specially in the grave yard of St Chad’s church in Shrewsbury. Some time in November the vicar walked through the graveyard and noticed that the gravestone had been vandalised, smashed to pieces. 

“When we discovered the vandalism, there was such a sense of shock,” the vicar told the Guardian. “It means so much to Shrewsbury as a town. We get people coming specifically to look at that grave.”

A couple of days later the stone was taken away for repair. A local firm had offered to fix it for free. Do they have an ulterior motive? I cynically ask myself. I suppose it’s one way of drumming up business cor your firm without paying advertising costs. So it’s been repaired in time for Christmas, a speedy repair that apparently was remarkable because normally they would have needed diocese approval, a process which I assume usually takes some time. This time they were granted emergency permission.

We need to remember that no actual family was hurt by this act of destructive vandalism. Nobody’s loved one’s grave was desecrated. Ebenezer Scrooge is a fictional character, and not a terribly nice one at that. His story shows, as someone commented, how some of the rich need to be bullied and frightened into doing the right thing.

It’s very strange how we set such store by fictional characters, how they enter our lives so completely. When I visited Durham Cathedral some years ago they went out of their way to  show me which parts of the cathedral had featured in the Harry Potter films. As I had not seen the films it meant very little to me.

I do confess, however, to looking with interest and enthusiasm, encouraged by a good friend, on a visit to Sicily, at the various places which featured in the Montalbano series. We coveted his house on the beach!

Having spent a good part of today doing some much needed tidying up, we went out for a walk in the late afternoon, just late enough to miss the sun which had been shining nicely earlier in the afternoon. There were some curious cloud formations just beyond the village. 

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!