When I was a boy we sometimes went to dinner at Annetta Turner's house. She was my father's cousin on his mother's side, and she had introduced my parents to each other. She was married to Ralph Turner, a lawyer with a handlebar mustache who restored old automobiles in his spare time. I later found out that he was close friends of one of my beloved English teachers Helen Fawcett and her husband Ron who was a master at restoring old cars and had a vast garage full of them!
Once, Ralph Turner had just finished restoring an old fire engine with long running boards for the firemen. We all jumped on the running boards and he took us for a drive around the neighborhood. Unforgettable!
Ralph Turner was also a fan of Charles Dickens and being a lawyer once read to us the hilarious climactic court scene of Pickwick Papers. I was intrigued. I knew we had an old copy of Pickwick Papers at home, and I was soon avidly reading it. My first Dickens novel was also the first he had written, and written with such energy and exuberance that it became a publishing phenomenon unlike any other.
Dickens had originally been contracted to write monthly numbers to accompany some sporting illustrations, and it soon became the reverse: the illustrator was providing illustrations for his marvelous adventures of Mr Pickwick and his eccentric companions!
