Scrooge Rage

A grave situation in Shrewsbury

Here's something you may not know about me, I was almost a film star. Before Entertainment Partners Ltd started filming A Christmas Carol in Shrewsbury, they went around local schools recruiting kids to play minor parts (I've played football against the lad who played Tiny Tim) and as a six year old I went through to the very last audition stage to play an infant Scrooge. At the time I had recently returned to school after a long period of recuperation after two operations (nothing too serious, don't worry) and even at that tender age I knew that such a heart tugging tale would see me as a shoo-in for the part. But alas much to the relief of Messrs Pitt and Clooney, my dreams of young stardom were dashed as I was turned down for the part due my eyes being a beautiful summer sky blue rather than the brown that would match those of George C Scott who played Scrooge proper. If you watch the film, you will note that that you don't even see the young Scrooge's eyes, never mind see their colour, which after more than forty years is something I continue to come to terms with.

If you've never been to Shrewsbury (and if not why not?) I'd like to use an anecdote to let you get a feel of the place. During the 2023 annual Shrewsbury Flower Show, the police received a seemingly legitimate bomb threat, leading to the evacuation of hundreds of people. Seeing how this is Shrewsbury, and we do things differently here, the evacuation was not announced over the PA or via security, but by Martin Wood, our 7ft2 town crier, in full regalia and in full 'hear ye' style. Reports are inconclusive to whether he rang a bell as well, but I rather like to think he did.

So for a town that still wears the past very much on it's sleeve, it's easy to imagine what a big deal it was at the time. The production company made full use of the towns medieval main square and it's many Victorian streets and buildings. Many of the towns locations were used, including the 16^th century beer garden of the best pub in the world, The Nags Head, which George C Scott's character describes as a 'dark, foul place'. Steady on big man, that's my local you're talking about. The centre point of the locations, and the money shot of the Shrewsbury Christmas Carol tours, is a prop grave of Ebenezer Scrooge, located in the graveyard of St Chads church.

Imagine the towns horror then, to discover this morning that the grave had been smashed to pieces, the vandalism, quite rightly, invoking anger and shock amongst the town folk. It also led to quite a lengthy debate at work today of how it was actually done, the best guess we could muster was that it was somehow lifted and flipped by either a crew of vandals or one with super human strength. Either way, the wanton destruction has left a sour taste in the towns mouth. But, as always, it's what's not quite so well known that's really sinister, and the tale goes from Dickensian to Hitchcockian.

You see, the prop grave wasn't a prop but an actual grave. Centuries of weather had eroded the original carving and lettering on the tomb stone, but if you looked hard enough you could make out some very, very faded writing, Who the poor sod lying underneath the tomb stone was we will never know, but the production company saw it as such an ideal location they couldn't resist sanding the last of the writing away and starting again.

“They had to go to the Home Office to get permission and the rest of it, but nobody knew [whose grave] it was," explains out town crier, Martin Wood.

"If you look at the bottom of the grave nearest to the path, you can just make out a little bit of writing.”

It's also quite a Shrewsbury thing that the desecration of the grave of a fictional character would invoke more irie than that of someone who had actually lived, a situation so macabre it would give Edgar Allen Poe nightmares. A dark, foul place indeed.