St James' Church, Cooling was restored in the 19th century, when a vestry was added, and the porch was rebuilt. It was declared redundant on 19 November 1976 and vested in the Churches Conservation Trust on 31 May 1978. It is now cared for by a group known as the Friends of St James' Church. The church is open daily to visitors. The churchyard provided the inspiration for the opening chapter of Charles Dickens' book "Great Expectations", in which the hero of the story, Pip, meets the convict, Magwitch. In 2005 the musician Jools Holland married the sculptor Christabel McEwan in the church. St
Racism in the work of Charles Dickens to the degree that Dickens did. In Collins own work "A Sermon for the Sepoys", he preaches to the Indian mutineers from an Indian sacred text, not a Christian one. Collins disassociates himself from Dickens privately expressed desire to exterminate the Indian race, but instead appeals to their capacity for moral goodness. Moreover, Collins' famous novel "The Moonstone" suggests that it is really the Indians who were mainly on the defensive during the mutiny, not the British, contrary to the prevalent impression given by the British press. Grace Moore observes that after a similar uprising in Jamaica, Dickens did not