Great Expectations a reference to a "knowing man", a possible sketch of Bentley Drummle. Another evokes a house full of "Toadies and Humbugs", foreshadowing the visitors to Satis House in chapter 11. Margaret Cardwell discovered the "premonition" of "Great Expectations" from a 25 September 1855 letter from Dickens to W. H. Wills, in which Dickens speaks of recycling an "odd idea" from the Christmas special "A House to Let" and "the pivot round which my next book shall revolve." The "odd idea" concerns an individual who "retires to an old lonely house…resolved to shut out the world and hold no communion with
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