George Stephen, 1st Baron Mount Stephen bare-footed stable boy, he became the richest man in Canada and closely associated with George V, whose wife, Queen Mary, was a lifelong friend and confidante of the second Lady Mount Stephen. In 1829, Stephen was born at Dufftown, Banffshire, in a cottage built by his grandfather. He was the son of William Stephen (b. 1801), a carpenter, and Elspet, daughter of John Smith, a crofter at Knockando, Moray. His mother was a first cousin of the philanthropic Grant brothers of Manchester, immortalised as the "Cheeryble Brothers" in Charles Dickens' book, Nicholas Nickleby. Stephen began life as a boy running
Dickens in America rattles off the Republican platform: tax cuts, more conservative judges, drilling in Alaska. Then we see George W. Bush on the ship's television and we hear an actor reading Dickens's words: "I do believe that the heaviest blow ever dealt at Liberty's head will be dealt by this nation and the ultimate failure of its example to the earth. See what is passing now." Miriam doesn't report she experienced stormy weather, but Dickens brilliantly described a storm he was in shortly before arriving in America. Miriam disembarks the Queen Mary in New York and then drives north to Boston. Dickens