A Christmas Carol

With Christmas approaching, we are often caught by nostalgia and emotion. Suddenly we think of old friends whom we have not spoken to throughout the year, but who we still regard as friends. We are overwhelmed by a collective good feeling, as if we have to make up for the past year, in which not everything may have been as good as we’d have liked.

Despite ourselves, the  nostalgia reminds us of days long gone. For me, Christmas is inextricably connected to a ghost story written by Charles Dickens in 1843, A Christmas Carol, the story of the miser Ebenezer Scrooge, who is visited by spirits on Christmas night, showing him the way to better his misanthropic life and opening his eyes to the poverty around him.

It appears that little has changed since the 1840s. The world is still full of poverty and refugees and displaced people in squalid camps, who have been deprived of all human rights and have no reason to celebrate. Spare them a thought as you sit at the table.

Albert Finney and Alec Guiness as Scrooge and Marley

Recently I re-read A Christmas Carol in an English edition which is part of my collection of Dickens writings. But I became acquainted with it first in January 1976, in the middle of the North Atlantic Ocean, in heavy weather. I was on my way from Gdansk in Poland to Baltimore on the east coast of the United States, in a bulk carrier named Amstelpark, in which I served as Third Mate.

As usual, the ship had a movie box on board with three 16 mm sound films, which were almost the only entertainment on board such a ship. Those boxes were often exchanged with other ships when in harbour, so we had a new film almost every week. On board the Amstelpark, during that rough crossing, the film box contained the 1970 movie made after the Dickens story, starring Albert Finney and Alec Guinness in the lead roles of Scrooge and Marley. We showed it three times.

Heavy weather in the North Atlantic, mv Amstelpark, 1976

Conditions were so rough that one of us had to hold the projector down as it was running, because it nearly dropped off the table, so badly the ship was rolling about. I still don't know whether he was holding down the projector, or the projector was holding him... I do remember though, that in the following days, whenever we encountered each other in the corridors of the ship’s accommodation, we greeted each other hollering "Scroooooge!" 

Last night I watched the movie again with one of my sons - an old, poor quality DVD. The boys used to hate me for wanting to show that film each Christmas, but now we both enjoyed it. 

Tonight is Christmas Eve, the traditional feast in English-speaking countries. I wish you all a Merry Christmas, and those who are at sea and may read this, a safe journey.