Great Expectations

If your mother is anything like my mother or, indeed, perhaps you are my mother (in which case: hello mom!) or perhaps somebody else's mother altogether, then you will no doubt be familiar with the illuminatable 1:33:1 scale - or thereabouts  - Charles Dickens' model village series of collectibles: the Olde Curiosity Shoppe, of course; the local tavern; the blacksmith's workshop; the fish and ironmonger's premises; the quaint, olde-worlde parish church; the twee, oven-lit bakery; Mrs Bumblebottom's thatched cottage; and so on.

And if you are my mother (look Ma: no hands!) - and I'm sure your mother or you yourself are exactly the same - then at Christmastime you arrange your massive faux Victorian conurbation of these storybook dwellings and storefronts all over the bookcases and coffee tables so that there is no vacant surface left in the room for anyone to put their egg nogg down on. And then you populate your terra-del-nostalgia with the (available seperately) tiny plastic model choir of carol singers and bell ringers, sleigh riders and coachmen, ice fisherman clustered around the village pond and Lord and Lady Amplebosom out for a stroll before dinner.

But let me tell you this all you moms of the world, this year I am adding a little Dickensian realism to the strawberry shortcake mix. You see - hahahaha! - this year I have built my own addition to that Charles Dickens model village. Yes, this year I'm bringing the scale model prison hulks with me on Christmas Eve, complete with model convict figurines bound by their tiny ball and chains. And I've even created a carpet of stagnant marshy hinterland that you can roll out on the outskirts of your unsuspecting village. And there's a gallows too, crafted out of balsa wood with the rotten remains of Short-Arsed Jake the Pentonville Footpad hanging from it.

And ... oh! Who can that be hiding behind the coal shed door at Mrs Whisker's cottage? Why I do believe it's Mad Jack the Hatchet Man who has escaped from the hulks and stalks the village streets at night in search of his next victim. And who is that dark, hunchbacked figure climbing through the freshly smashed window of the bakery ....?

Yes, Stephenesque's new range of Charles Dickens Village model buildings and figurines, they are so realistic that you can almost smell the gin. Add them to your mother's collection this year.

Comments

[Mrs. Peperium]

I'll take three. Do you have any of those forged iron cages for husbands to put on their wives heads? The kind with the spiked tongue depresser for when wifey uses an irreverent tone? That's the perfect Christmas gift for Mr. P.

[stephenesque]

I'm only doing Victoriana. Nothing medieval!

[Outer Life]

Warms my heart it does, to think of the realistic screams emanating from the lunatic asylum on the fringe of your village, the stench of the foetid pools of raw sewage slowly seeping into the picturesque lanes, the cute little rats scurrying hither and thither, and the steam rising from the tiny little vats of boiling urine over by the tanner's yard.

Do you already have the orphanage?

[stephenesque]

Orphanage, workhouse, blacking factory, tin mine, they're all in the works.

[DarkoV]

Sounds like what is really needed in your scenario is a replication of the Great Fire of London. Unless, of course, my English History memory has failed me and the Great Fire couldn't take place because it pre-dates your Dickensonian house era.
If that's the case, then marauding dinosaurs will do the wrecking havoc trick. My personal choice would be Stegasaurus as it would fit easily in the quaint English alleys.

[stephenesque]

Yes, the Great Fire of London was some considerable number of years prior to the events depicted in my model village. Still, a good fire is always welcome if it burns some poor weavers out of their miserable thatched cottages.

[Cybrludite]

Oooh! Shiny!

[kt]

thank goodness, it's nice to know i'm like all the other mother's.

are you going to start selling your new collection - we mother's also have halloween collections.

kt

[stephenesque]

I think my Christmas and Halloween collections are pretty much the same thing!

[gold ira]

Howdy! This is my first comment here so I just wanted to give a quick shout out and say I really enjoy reading your articles. Can you recommend any other blogs/websites/forums that cover the same subjects? Thank you!