1: The young factory boy

Charles Dickens' concern for the plight of the Victorian working class is well recorded but did you know it stemmed from his own childhood, when he spent a long gruelling period working in a boot-blackening factory?

Aged only 12, he had to work over 10 hours a day, pasting labels on jars of polish. He had to do this because his father had been imprisoned for debt, but the terrible memory of that harsh environment stayed with him forever, and inspired books like Oliver Twist.