Off this evening to a lecture at the National Portrait Gallery on "Heartbreak in the Collection - The Non-Valentine's Day Tour" given by Lucinda Hawkesley, a descendant of Charles Dickens, and a well-known writer herself, with several thick biographies to her credit already. She's a brilliant speaker - clear voice, lots of funny anecdotes and an obvious interest in her subjects - you have only to look at her face as she talks to see she is passionate about everything she lectures on.
We started off with Katherine of Aragon, and went through various people who had unhappy, tragic - and sometimes very complicated - love lives, including Katherine of Aragon and henry VIII, Princess Louise and her sculpter friend, Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, Queen Anne and Sarah Duchess of Marlborough, Lord Nelson and Emma Hamilton, and her ancestor Charles Dickens himself, whose first love he was unable to marry because her family did not consider him a suitable match - she wasn't in love with him either, so she certainly wasn't bothered that her family didn't approve of him. He, however, was smitten and never forgot the way she dismissed him as just "a boy" - she was two years older than him.
After the lecture finished I took advantage of the fact that the gallery is open until nine o'clock on Thursdays to have a look at the painting and photographic exhibtion entitled camden Town and Beyond - interesting, but not nearly so interesting as the lecture.
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