00:00Charles Dickens, you've probably heard of him.
00:03Famous author, Chatham raised, and a bit of a racist?
00:07Well that's what one Medway Council-run museum has told its staff in internal guidance according
00:15to the Telegraph, slamming the Victorian maestro behind Oliver Twist and A Christmas Carol
00:21as having opinions that wouldn't hold water today on racial superiority and the British
00:28empire and that's despite his relatively progressive writings on class and poverty.
00:35There were people with far, far more extreme views than him at the time, you know, at the
00:39time he was seen as, you know, very much a progressive, a liberal, you know, particularly
00:44as you said all his work with championing the poor and so on, he was very much on, you
00:51know, really on the left of politics in the day, but time's moved on, it's 170 years.
00:56Medway Council says the museum is not doing away with Dickens or his importance and that
01:03the new guidance will help staff address historical issues accurately and sensitively.
01:09There's a certain irony in the guidance that staff have received here at the Guildhall Museum,
01:15because Guildhall is actually mentioned in Great Expectations, one of Dickens' most well-known novels.
01:23And it is something that you notice about Rochester, the Dickens' memorabilia, the signs,
01:30their businesses inspired by the author. Can we really judge him by the standards of the modern day?
01:38Well, that's why I've been asking people here on the High Street.
01:41It is a bit silly. I mean, he was writing of his times.
01:45Just doing what they did in those days, wasn't he?
01:48Yeah, no, I don't, I just think it's all gone a bit mad, to be honest.
01:52Things have moved on, but I don't think we should discredit him for that.
01:56You know, Dickens is history, isn't it? And you want to remember history and what happened.
02:00There's no doubt Dickens encapsulates the best of times and the worst of times when it comes to the Victorian
02:07era.
02:08But whether he meets modern society's great expectations in the 21st century is far more questionable.
02:17Olly Leader in Rochester.
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