Sir David Suchet

You might have been right the other day, though.

What you said about giving him more responsibility.

Oh, yeah.

I'm starting to think it was a mistake getting him a job at Barrow.

Maybe what I should have done is shown him I still believe in him.

I mean, after all, he is my own flesh and blood.

Maybe home farm would be the making of him.

Maybe that's what he needs.

It's Friday, the 9th of June, 1865, somewhere in the rolling fields of Kent.

The 230 from Folkestone is speeding northwest at over 50 miles per hour.

In a first-class carriage near the front of the train sits a 53-year-old man, the nation's favourite author, Charles Dickens.

He's dressed in a long, dark frock coat and cravat.

His top hat rests on the seat beside him.

Sitting opposite Dickens is his mistress, Ellen Turnan.

They've just returned from a trip to France together.

Within a couple of hours, they should be back home in London.

But what Dickens doesn't know right now, as he looks out at the Garden of England speeding by, is that he and Ellen are moments from disaster.

There's a jolt as the locomotive skips off the track, a stomach-churning second as it seems to fly free of its guide rails.

Then the carriage begins to jerk violently.

They're grinding along the ground, like the basket of a half-inflated hot air balloon scraping along the earth, as Dickens will later describe it.