FURRIEST

THINGS  

FIRST

You may have gathered that I am a fan of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson a.k.a. Lewis Carrol. Yes indeedy! ‘Alice in Wonderland’ is, in my opinion, unique… and that is a very rare quality.

Celebrated authors and philosophers ranging from James Joyce to Ludwig Wittgenstein have praised Carroll’s stories. I once played James Joyce in Tom Stoppard’s play ‘Travesties’… begorrah!.

Lewis Carroll (Charles Lutwidge Dodgson) was born in Daresbury, Cheshire in 1832. His father (the Reverend Charles Dodgson) became vicar at Croft-on-Tees in Yorkshire in 1843 before becoming a canon of Ripon Cathedral in 1852 and later Archdeacon of Richmond, so Carroll spent a few impressionable years in Yorkshire before entering Rugby School in Warwickshire in 1846, undoubtedly returning home at times.

One biographer of Carroll claims that the author discovered his gift for storytelling in his youth when he served as the unofficial family entertainer for his five younger sisters and three younger brothers. He staged performances and wrote the bulk of the fiction in a family magazine. 

Several images in Yorkshire churches are cited as having been inspirations for some of the characters and incidents in the Alice books. One is the famous misericord in Ripon Cathedral that Carroll could easily have seen while his father was a canon there. It depicts a gryphon attacking a rabbit while a second rabbit disappears down a hole (as did the White Rabbit and Alice herself). 

At St Peter’s Church at Croft-on-Tees there is an elaborately carved 14th Century set of three stone seats for clergymen, which may have been Carroll’s inspiration for the Cheshire Cat. The grin of the cat carved into the sedilia appears to move as the worshipper kneels down at the altar, and as well as the Cheshire Cat, the church is said to be the inspiration for characters including Tweedledum and Tweedledee, the White Rabbit and... the Jabberwocky!

In the folklore of Northumbria, the Sockburn Worm was a ferocious bipedal winged dragon that laid waste to the village of Sockburn in Durham. It was said that the beast was finally slain by one John Conyers. The tale is said by many to be the inspiration for Lewis Carroll’s poem ‘Jabberwocky’, which he wrote while in nearby Croft on Tees. 

Whenever a new Bishop of Durham enters the Diocese for the first time by crossing the River Tees at Croft on Tees, a welcoming ceremony is conducted on the bridge.

So you there you are you see... but then we Tykes will grab anything... as long as it's free!