Charles Dickens Dickens was involved in the Staplehurst rail crash. The train's first seven carriages plunged off a cast iron bridge that was under repair. The only first-class carriage to remain on the track was the one in which Dickens was travelling. Before rescuers arrived, Dickens tended and comforted the wounded and the dying with a flask of brandy and a hat refreshed with water, and saved some lives. Before leaving, he remembered the unfinished manuscript for "Our Mutual Friend", and he returned to his carriage to retrieve it. Dickens later used this experience as material for his short ghost story, "The
Walter Landor Dickens Walter Landor Dickens Walter Savage Landor Dickens (8 February 1841 – 31 December 1863) was the fourth child and second son of English novelist Charles Dickens and his wife Catherine. He became an officer cadet in the East India Company's Presidency armies just before the Indian Mutiny. The mutiny resulted in the British Crown extending direct rule to India, and Dickens continued to serve in what was now becoming the British Indian Army until his death. Named after his godfather Walter Savage Landor, Walter Dickens was christened at St Marylebone parish church on 4 December 1841, after which Charles Dickens