2012 will mark the bicentenary of the birth of Charles Dickens. The year will bring many special events and activities to commemorate the 200th anniversary of one of Britain's greatest novelist and story teller.

Charles Dickens' long association with Rochester and the Medway area began when the Dickens family moved to a small house in Chatham.  Charles' father, John, was originally a clerk in the Navy Pay Office in Portsmouth Dockyard.  He transferred first to London in 1816 and then to Chatham in 1817.

Some of Charles' vivid memories must have been of the dockyard area where his father worked and it was on one of the long country walks with his father that Charles first saw Gad's Hill Place, just outside Rochester, which was to become his home in the final years of his life.

So profound was the effect on his young imagination that Dickens used the people and places he had seen as a boy, on long walks with his father, as characters and settings for his novels. Some of the places in Rochester are instantly recognisable in his  novels as real places, while others are the product of his own imagination or are composites of several places familiar to him.

Many of the buildings found in the High Street carry plaques giving details how Dickens incorporated the site in his novels.  A gentle stroll around local sites and graveyards will reveal where he found the names of many of his characters.

The author's life, times and work can be explored at the Dickens' Discovery Rooms in the Guildhall Museum, Rochester.  Here you can find authentic Dickens' related objects, view the sites of Dickens interest in and around Medway using touch-screen technology and watch a short film on the author's connections with the area in the audio-visual theatre. 

Visitors can follow in the footsteps of Dickens on a self-guided walking trail (leaflet available from Medway Visitor Information Centre).  Costumed guided tours are also available for pre-booked parties with Footsteps in Time. The "Dickens Country", the rural area just outside of Rochester can be explored by coach with a local guide from the City of Rochester Society.

Only three miles from Rochester is the enchanting, indoor visitor complex themed around the life of Charles Dickens.  Dickens World in Chatham Maritime, takes visitors on a journey of the author's lifetime as they step back in time to Dickensian England to experience the highs and lows of urban life, complete with sounds and smells.

For more information on special events and activities taking place in the bicentenary year visit  www.dickens2012.com.