Ottery St Mary Library gave a Christmas offering of a Dickens evening on 15 December.

Doctor Marigold, was played by Ian Pearce, an Ottery actor and writer with the Edinburgh Fringe among his many credits. Doctor Marigold is one of Dickens’ short stories, printed in his magazine All the Year Round in 1865 and the last of his live performances. 

The story of Doctor Marigold is involving Cheap Jack selling from his cart: an abusive mother, a dying child, a suicide, and the acquisition of an unwanted orphan girl who is 'Deaf and Dumb. Doctor Marigold teaches her to communicate. She blossoms at a London school, falls in love and travels to China with her husband who is also deaf, has a daughter (this is Dickens), who, returning to her adoptive grandfather on Christmas Eve, Speaks.

Ian was terrific, holding the crowd with his voice, Cockney vowels and no props unless you count his hat and coat.

The event was sponsored by the Friends of the Ottery Library 

Kerry Carr, the library Supervisor, pointed out that the transition was so smooth that most people don’t realise that libraries are now ran by a charity. Hence fundraising by Friends.