Charles Dickens was an inveterate walker, going for hours every day at a brisk pace, usually alone. “He did so because walking time was thinking time, or perhaps more accurately dreaming time.,” writes Luke McKernan.

Dickens walked in the day and in the night. He once got up at two in the morning and walked 30 miles to breakfast.

Today, McKernan lives in “the heart of Dickens territory,” Rochester and the Medway towns in England.

The high street businesses alone bear witness to the Dickensian connection: they include Tiny Tim’s Tearooms, Fezziwig’s, Mr Tope’s, Ebenezer’s, Pips of Rochester, Sweet Expectations, and the inspired A Taste of Two Cities. In days past we have had Hard Times the antique shop, and – believe it or not – the Havisham Wedding Centre, which perhaps not surprisingly went out of business.