Cedric Charles Dickens the Caribbean by banana boat, Dickens joined the British Tabulating Machine Company in 1937. Dickens joined the RNVR on the outbreak of World War II in 1939, leaving the Royal Navy in 1946 as a First Lieutenant. While serving in Portsmouth he met his wife Elizabeth Mary Blake (1913–2008), who was serving as a WREN, and whom he married in 1948. After leaving the Royal Navy, Dickens returned to his old firm, which eventually became ICL, and where he became Director of Communication. He was a lifelong supporter of the Charles Dickens Museum in Holborn. He was twice President of
Charles Dickens practice at the time. Charles, then 12 years old, boarded with Elizabeth Roylance, a family friend, at 112 College Place, Camden Town. Roylance was "a reduced [impoverished] old lady, long known to our family", whom Dickens later immortalised, "with a few alterations and embellishments", as "Mrs. Pipchin" in "Dombey and Son". Later, he lived in a back-attic in the house of an agent for the Insolvent Court, Archibald Russell, "a fat, good-natured, kind old gentleman... with a quiet old wife" and lame son, in Lant Street in Southwark. They provided the inspiration for the Garlands in "The Old Curiosity Shop".