Happy birthday Dickens!

There can't be many people out there who still aren't aware that 2012 marks 200 years since Charles Dickens' birth. From a flurry of TV and radio adaptations, to a major new exhibition at the Museum of London, to new books ranging from Claire Tomalin's biography of the man himself through to Oliver Twisted, J.D. Sharpe's anarchic reinterpretation of a Dickens classic for contemporary teens, 'the Great Inimitable' (as he facetiously called himself) has been hard to miss over the past few months.

Today, 7 February, is Dickens' birthday, and this morning I was amongst those lucky enough to go along to a wreath laying ceremony at Westminster Abbey to commemorate the bicentenary. On a crisp, frosty London morning that could have come straight from one of his own novels, we made our way to the Poets' Corner, where Dickens was buried at his death in 1870. Attending the wreath laying ceremony in these magnificent surroundings were HRH The Prince of Wales, HRH The Duchess of Cornwall and The Lord Mayor of Westminster, as well as many of Dickens' descendents. There were plenty of other well-known faces from the world of literature in attendance too - and we spotted Michel Faber, Antonia Fraser and Clare Tomalin amongst them.

After a brief welcome from Dr John Hall, the Dean of Westminster, it was Claire Tomalin who got the ceremony started with a reading from a passage from a letter from Dickens to his sister from 1844. Further readings followed from two of Dickens' Great Great Grandsons - Mark Charles Dickens, President of the International Dickens Fellowship, and the Reverend Michael Dickens Whinney - before an address from Dr Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury. Dr Williams spoke movingly about Dickens' role as a champion for the poor, 'not out of duty, but of outrage that their lives were being made flat and dead' as well as his powerful sense of tragedy and of the 'utterly unreasonable compassion' of human beings. Actor Ralph Fiennes read a moving scene from Bleak House - the death of Jo the crossing-sweeper - before HRH The Prince of Wales laid a wreath on Dickens' grave.

The final reading, by the Dean, was taken from a report of Dickens' burial from the Times in 1870: 'His genius saw through our trappings, whether of want or wealth, and in life, as in death, his happiness was found in teaching us independence of such externals. He left directions that he should be carried to the grave as an ordinary man - nothing more and nothing less'. It is interesting to speculate what Dickens himself might have made of the ceremony, particularly given that he himself had asked to be buried without pomp at Rochester Cathedral, before a public outcry led to him being placed instead in Poets' Corner.

As well as the ceremony at Westminster Abbey, all kinds of other birthday events were taking place across the country today, particularly in London, but also in Portsmouth where Dickens was born - and the bicentenary celebrations will of course be continuing throughout the year. Take a look at the Dickens 2012 website to find out more about the events, exhibitions and festivals coming up - and if you're a London resident, be sure to look out for Cityread London, a campaign to get the whole of London reading Oliver Twist coming up in April.