News release from the Parsonage:

A new season of contemporary arts events at the Brontë Parsonage Museum launches in October, which will see six months of readings, workshops and activities taking place in Haworth. 

The new programme launches on Wednesday 6 October with a reading by novelist Michele Roberts. Michele is Emeritus Professor of Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia and will be visiting Haworth to talk about her recent collection of short stories, Mud. The book takes us to nineteenth century Venice, modern-day France and beyond, exploring characters such as the bitter maid taking care of young Adele – both forced out of Rochester’s home to make way for the passions of Jane Eyre. The talk takes place at the Old Schoolroom, Haworth and tickets are £6 and can be purchased from Arts Officer Jenna Holmes on 01535 640188 / jenna.holmes@bronte.org.uk

The season will continue with a range of activities to support the exhibition of paper-cut installations by artist Su Blackwell, on display in the museum until 28 November. Su will visit the museum to talk about her work on Thursday 21 October, 7.30pm. There will also be the chance to try paper-cutting techniques at a creative day at the museum on Saturday 23 October.  On Saturday 30 October, artist Tracey Bush will lead a practical workshop to create your own detailed paper-cut pieces. Local artist Rachel Lee will run a workshop for children during the half term holidays, on Wednesday 27 October, showing them how to create paper landscapes inspired by the exhibition.

Other authors taking part in the programme are Brontë biographer Juliet Barker, whose landmark book The Brontës will be revised and reissued in November, and former West Yorkshire crime-writer Sophie Hannah who will be making the trip to Haworth to discuss her upcoming new book Lasting Damage in the New Year.

There will also be the special opportunity to watch the 1944 Hollywood version of Jane Eyre on the big screen in Haworth on Friday 18 February, 2011, to celebrate the museum’s recent acquisition of the original screenplay by Aldous Huxley. The film stars Orson Welles and Joan Fontaine - pictured below.

The film's opening words are:

My name is Jane Eyre... I was born in 1820, a harsh time of change in England. Money and position seemed all that mattered. Charity was a cold and disagreeable word. Religion too often wore a mask of bigotry and cruelty. There was no proper place for the poor or the unfortunate. I had no father or mother, brother or sister. As a child I lived with my aunt, Mrs. Reed of Gateshead Hall. I do not remember that she ever spoke one kind word to me...

Saturday's reading

Richard Wilcocks writes:


Katrina Naomi, the first Writer in Residence at the Parsonage, read first on Saturday evening (18 September), mainly from The Girl with the Cactus Handshake. She was powerful, in spite of being a touch nervous I think,  performing just before the Poet Laureate, Carol Ann Duffy. I was most impressed by Tunnel of Love, probably because I have my own strong childhood memories of her home town of Margate with its fascinating shell grotto and its now abandoned amusement centre for holidaying East Enders, Dreamland. Her teenage memories of the place and its hypnotic tawdriness were conveyed in a confessional and amusing style, making her an excellent lead-in for the dryly humorous Duffy.

We laughed with her: she was as confident as a stand-up, beginning with Mrs Midas and Mrs Tiresias, explaining how she had been troubled by the ancient stories when she had first read them at an early age and how productive it still was to mine Ovid's Metamorphoses, an endlessly glittering seam. At one point she sneezed, and muttered something about just missing a Bible. She can't read often from behind a lectern in a Baptist church, surely. My hope was that she would read Education for Leisure, which in 2008 was removed from a GCSE English Literature Anthology presumably because some numbskulls thought it might encourage knife crime, but she didn't. I would have preferred that to her bee poems. Unlike so many actors, she can shrug off the personas (queens, babies,  burglars, frustrated teenagers...) and speak from her own core, as she proved with her deeply moving poetry about her mother.

The bow at the end was by both performers, linked.

On display this week

Parsonage news release: 

An important and moving letter written by Charlotte Brontë has returned to Haworth and will go on display for the very first time at the Brontë Parsonage Museum.

The letter is dated 18 October 1848 and was written in the brief interval between the death of her brother Branwell on 24 September, and that of her sister Emily on 19 December. This was one of the darkest periods of Charlotte Brontë’s life, and work on her second novel, Shirley, had faltered. ‘My book – alas! is laid aside’, she writes, adding, ‘…both head and hand seem to have lost their cunning; imagination is pale, stagnant, mute – this incapacity chagrins me; sometimes I have a feeling of cankering care on the subject – but I combat it as well as I can – it does no good.’

The black-bordered letter was written to William Smith Williams, the sympathetic reader at her publishers. It was part of the James L. Copley Library, based in California, and was purchased by the Brontë Society at Sotheby’s in New York earlier this year.

‘The letters written to William Smith Williams are amongst the most significant of all Charlotte’s correspondence. This particular letter has remained in a private collection in America for many years and it is wonderful to be able to make it available for the first time.’ - Ann Dinsdale, Collections Manager

The letter will go on display at the museum this week until the end of the year.

Further information from Ann Dinsdale (Collections Manager) – 01535 640198 – a.dinsdale@bronte.org.uk

Poet Laureate at the Parsonage

News release:

The first Brontë Festival of Women’s Writing will take place in Haworth later this month, with a headline reading by the poet laureate, Carol Ann Duffy. The festival has been organised by the Brontë Parsonage Museumas part of its contemporary arts programme, with support from Arts Council England, and will take place at various venues in Haworth from Friday 17 –  Sunday 19 September 2010.

The festival weekend will be opened with a reading by novelist Kate Mosse, on the evening of Friday 17 September. Kate Mosse is best known for her international bestseller Labyrinth, which has been published in forty countries and won the ‘Richard and Judy’s Best Read’ award in 2006.

On the morning of Saturday 18 September, recent writer in residence at the museum Katrina Naomi will lead a poetry workshop. Participants will accompany Katrina to the museum collections where they will see some of the items not out on public display. They will then be invited to create new poems inspired by their visit.

Carol Ann Duffy, poet laureate, will visit Haworth on Saturday 18 September at 7.30pm to read from her work.

On the afternoon of Sunday 19 September, writer Daisy Hay (pictured) will speak about her book Young Romantics, which explores the lives of the Romantic poets, including Byron and Shelley, and the dazzling circle of women writers and thinkers that they moved in.

The weekend will also include a variety of drop-in events and activities for families, including a poetry trail around Haworth, storytelling and informal readings by local poets.

The Brontës were pioneering writers, at a time when very few women got published. The success of their novels changed the way that women writers were perceived and the festival will celebrate their incredible legacy, by showcasing the work of high profile and emerging contemporary women writers. When Charlotte Brontë wrote to the Poet Laureate Robert Southey for advice in 1837, she was told that ‘writing cannot be the business of a woman’s life, and ought not to be’. 

She would be delighted that Carol Ann Duffy, the first female in the role, will read at the very first Brontë Festival of Women’s Writing. We hope the festival will become an annual showcase of the quality of writing by women in the region and across the UK.

Jenna Holmes, Arts Officer.

Full times and details of all festival events can be found on the Brontë Parsonage Museum website at www.bronte.info and tickets for events can be booked from the Arts Officer:jenna.holmes@bronte.org.uk / 01535 640188

Below, Daisy Hay:

Contribute to the consultation

Stephen Whitehead writes:
As the Brontë Society Council Member with responsibility for heritage and conservation, I am aware of the concerns over Anne's grave and over the parking of cars on St Mary's graveyard that are being expressed on the Brontë Parsonage Blog. They are concerns that have been shared by Council for some time and a condition report on the gravestone, prepared by a professional conservator, was considered at the last meeting of Council in June. Throughout this summer I am consulting with all known interested parties in order to rationalise the options open to us and I am in direct e-mail contact with three of your named bloggers. Those bloggers who have not yet contacted me directly with their views, but would like to contribute to the consultation, can reach me at srwhitehead@live.co.uk
 

Nobody came to the door...

Maddalena De Leo writes:

This July 2010 I went to Penzance in South-East Cornwall looking for any information I might gather about Maria Branwell and her family. It was a journey I had longed for from a lot of time and I expected to find there people or documents related to the Branwell family and consequently to the Brontës. In the end I realized, as in Scarborough in 2001, that in Cornwall the Brontës’ existence in local people’s awareness is very limited or nonexistent.

After arriving at 25 Chapel Street I found a lonely house seemingly with no person living in it and only a plaque on the front wall to speak of the Branwells-Brontës. On the threshold I knocked and knocked at the green door but nobody came to open it. Afterwards I knew from the bookseller nearby that effectively the house is now empty and there are no other Branwell heirs after Miss Frances Branwell who died in 1993 in very old age.

At home in Italy I had often read in the 1975 issue of Brontë Society Transactions the article by the late Charles H. Lemon and looked at the photo of the unveiling ceremony of the plaque in September of that same year. In it some Branwell-connected people can be seen - like Mrs. J.E. Tripp, a niece of Miss Frances Branwell, and her two grown up children. In the article the author underlined that the interior of the house, restored by the then owner-occupants Miss Lilian Oldham and Miss Richards, distinctly reminded people of the Parsonage in Haworth, with the same archway and a grandfather clock standing where the stairs begin. On the right of the front door there was at the time the room known as the Brontë room with portraits on the wall related to the Branwell family. Where are the Tripps now? Are they living somewhere in Cornwall or in the world? It is really a pity to see this famously Brontë-related house so neglected and empty. If sold and bought by a Brontë fan couldn’t it become a sort of Brontë-Branwell museum after the main one at Haworth and a luckier site than the Thornton birthplace? The weather in Cornwall is mild, the landscape beautiful and tourists flock there from all over Europe: according to me it might be a wonderful and rewarding idea to realize and the best way to preserve this far-away Brontë-related treasure!

Below, the plaque, and Maddalena De Leo in the doorway:

 

Best wishes to Gyles

The Society's recently-departed President, Gyles Brandreth, is soon going to appear in Edinburgh as a stand-up comedian. Let's hope it's a big success! Find it in the Pleasance Courtyard 4 - 30 August. His group is Bound and Gagged Comedy.

Gyles Brandreth - The One to One Show

It is feasible...

On the car park in the graveyard issue...
William Callaghan writes:

At last a comment !!!   All I wish to do is find out if there is any information available about what is quite definitely the most serious matter the Society has ever had to consider in its history. 

At the present moment I have no confidence in what is going on.  The minister of St Mary's Church appears to have abandoned the graves in his care. There is no information being imparted to the Membership.  Do we have to wait until September before we can flip the flaps of the Gazette---which may or may not have some information for the readership ?

One solution, I have already mentioned on this blog. Another is to bring Anne to St Michael and All Angels graveyard and re-inter her remains outside there. There are undoubtedly others--but where are they ? 

If it is decided to re-inter Anne's remains inside the vault I do not see why pneumatic drills cannot be used to open up a space for the undertakers to place Anne inside. The importance of the need to sweeps aside any other objection.  I do not know if there is a vault---that is space. Or if it has been filled in completely, covering each individual coffin.

The celestial choir that is our Council continues to sing the great hymn of silence.  Any decision must surely involve the Membership, communication and debate is the thing.

A newsletter from Hon. Sec. of the Council would be a great help and source of information as it was when first sent and then abandoned. 

Not feasible

On the car park in the graveyard issue...
Chris Went writes:
It would be preferable not to have cars parked in such an area, but I take the point that it will allow elderly and disabled people access - the steepness of the path up to the churchyard and castle make it difficult for many people to visit.  It's a situation which does need to be watched, however.
 
Whether Anne wanted to be buried at Scarborough will always be a moot point.  My own impression is that she did but, since her thoughts were turned so resolutely to the afterlife, she might not have cared.  


The suggestion that she should be exhumed and reinterred in the Bronte vault is not feasible, not least because when the new church was built, the burials existing burials were covered in concrete.  The vault is not accessible without the use of a pneumatic drill.
 

Write your own Bodice Ripper!

News release from the Parsonage Director:

The Brontë Parsonage Museum is gearing up for a busy summer of events beginning in the week commencing 26 July. Write your own Bodice Ripper!  on Wednesday 28 July, will invite visitors young and old to join in with a series of fun writing activities.

On Wednesday 4 August artist Rachel Lee will be making Snapdragons in Silk, running silk painting activities for children.

Visitors to the museum on Saturday 7 August will be able to enjoy artist Orly Orbach creating ‘pyrographic’ illustrations on tree stumps which visitors can take rubbings from. There will also be a chance for youngsters to try their hand at book making and cross stitch and other Brontë-period pastimes in Hands on History which will take place on Wednesday 11 August.

There’s interactive storytelling for children with Tall Tales and Riddling Rhymes on  Wednesday 18 August and a Churchyard Challenge trail for families on Wednesday 25 August, exploring what living things lurk in the Churchyard!

As well as new displays around the Parsonage and lots of hands on activities for children and families the museum will also be opening a remarkable new exhibition of paper-cut installations in the historic rooms of the house by artist Su Blackwell on 21  August.

This will be followed in September by Haworth’s first Brontë Festival of Women’s Writing, which brings together an exciting programme of events including readings from and discussion with the poet laureate, Carol Ann Duffy. 

For further details on any of these events contact the museum on 01535 642323/ bronte@bronte.org.uk

And for those looking for a bargain day out, special vouchers have been distributed around the shops and cafes on Haworth Main Street giving two people admission to the museum for the price of one. These will be available from Friday 23 July … but be quick, there are a limited number!

Andrew McCarthy (Director) –  +44 1535 640194  – andrew.mccarthy@bronte.org.uk

Five years ago

To remind people of what was said in the Brontë Society five years ago on the subject of Anne Brontë's grave, here is issue 37 of the Gazette. Turn to page 7.

An English lack of respect?

Heidi Büchner writes:

I observe that in England the graveyards are not respected or looked after as in some other European countries. When I have visited old churches when rambling in the countryside, I see that many graveyards are either neglected, or wild flower gardens. An exception could be the military cemeteries, which are designated to be very well looked after constantly.

Bring the remains to Haworth

William Callaghan writes:

As a member of the Brontë Society, I wish to do my utmost to convince the Brontë Society members that it is time to bring Anne Brontë's remains to the vault in Haworth.    At this moment she has no protection whatsoever. She lies in what is now unconsecrated ground, and this is a disgrace.  

 

The Council of the Society must not be afraid of asking the membership to vote on the exhuming of Anne's remains and the remains of her original coffin to be placed in a new coffin and returned to Haworth, the family vault opened and Anne  placed there.    

 

A regular photocopied newsletter would keep members informed; a direct contact which is necessary. Are the council in contact with Dr Sentamu?  I do not believe that we can ever do anything to guarantee her grave from very serious damage at any time in the future.  Obviously it is a pay-and-display car park, so there is no one there to oversee car placing.

 

160 years later Anne's words from Self Communion still apply and they still hurt:

 

            "And sometimes it was grief to know

                My fondness was but half returned "

 

To move Anne's body is the right thing to do, and we must not be afraid to do it.

Telegraph link

To find the Daily Telegraph article on the graveyard car park, click here. Incidentally, I did not actually say the words attributed to me. Check below...

Another perspective

IMS writes:
Having made my pilgrimage to Anne Brontë’s grave last weekend, I was very interested to read the article on the Brontë Parsonage Blog. The subject of the grave can be guaranteed to be touched upon at the Brontë Society’s annual general meeting next June - and of course Haworth itself is no stranger to controversy regarding car parking.

If the mortal remains of Anne Brontë could not be deposited in Haworth I always think that the spot Charlotte chose is idyllic- just below the dramatic ruins of the castle and overlooking the bay Anne had come to love. Much has been debated through the years about the state of the headstone and surrounding ground but last week it was my opinion that the grave has never looked better.

Of course the stone itself has suffered some understandable damage through the years and this last severe winter has taken its toll on one or two letters of the inscription but compared to other stones in the surrounding area it has stood the test of time surprisingly well. The area in front of the headstone is now grassed over and level -  which will make,  I guess, tidying and mowing much easier. A very tasteful arrangement of flowers had been left in tribute to the youngest member of that remarkable family.

The area where cars are now allowed to park is visible, yet quite some distance, from the grave - being separated by a steep incline.  Car parking in church grounds and on reclaimed churchyards will always be controversial, and I would not wish to comment on the rights and wrongs of the church allowing their land to be used in this way, but would certainly respect that personal opinions will be varied. 

However to show, perhaps, another perspective on the subject, as I was sitting near the grave,  admiring the view and savouring the peace and quiet,  an elderly man and woman came to sit on the same seat. We got chatting and they told me that when they visited Scarborough they always liked to spend a little while at the grave side and they were so pleased that they were able, now, to park on the grass on the church land. 

Parking in the vicinity is allowed only by permit or disc, there were never any spaces and the climb up from the sea front or the town was impossible for them now.

I am sure that you will be receiving more correspondence on this issue regarding the latest use of the land - once an Iron Age settlement - which has survived siege and attack over many centuries.

Richard Wilcocks adds: 
Please let us have your views. Send them to heveliusx1@yahoo.co.uk, or click on 'post a comment' below.

Sloane Hall

Libby Sternberg writes:


To celebrate the fact that my Sloane Hall is finally available for pre-order on amazon and bn.com, I'm running a contest with a chance to win a free copy of the ARC of Sloane Hall. Those who stop by and leave a comment on my post about one of my favorite scenes from Jane Eyre will have their names entered into a lottery. I'll choose one winner at random at the end of next week, and the lucky winner will receive a copy of Sloane Hall's ARC.


Here is the blog address.

Anne's grave

Blog readers' opinions are welcome on the issue of whether the graveyard at St Mary's church in Scarborough which contains the grave of Anne Brontë  should be used for car parking.

Dave Selby writes:

My family and I visited Scarborough on the weekend on 29 May.  Being members of English Heritage, we were attending an event at Scarborough Castle.  While we were there we decided to visit the grave of Anne Brontë as we had recently been to Haworth. 

It was with disbelief and horror to discover that the church graveyard had been turned into a Pay and Display car park. To compound this, the cars were actually parking between the gravestones.  This shows the total disrespect of the church and public alike.

I have already written to the Scarborough MP and also contacted the Scarborough News to run a story of how this ground is now being used.  I have also set up a Facebook Group to support a change of use for this ground.

I am looking to highlight this blight to the Brontë name and  hoping it will change the church's opinion in using the sacred ground in this way.

That letter

The hammer has descended, and the letter from Charlotte Brontë to William Smith Williams, dated October 18, 1848 – is now on its way from the auction room in New York to the Parsonage. Written just after the death of Branwell and at a time when Emily was displaying distressing symptoms of Tuberculosis (she died three months later), the letter is highly significant, even though there are no references to these things.

“It talks about her ill health,” Collections Manager Ann Dinsdale told the Parsonage Blog, “perhaps caused by her deep unhappiness.

I followed the auction online in the Parsonage library with Sarah Laycock. We watched the auction results as they came in, with some excitement, and we knew exactly when we’d got lot number 278. Because of the high estimates, we bid only for this one.

One of the three letters was withdrawn, so I suppose we could always negotiate for it. The hammer price was 55,000$, but that was the hammer price: you’ve got to add twenty five percent buyer’s premium to that."

(Full news release later)

Patrick, Science, Darwin

Richard Wilcocks writes:

The final event of the June weekend was on the morning of Tuesday 8 June in Thornton, on the edge of Bradford, which of course has strong Brontë connections. The organiser was Angela Crow. She introduced the speakers - myself and Andrew Mitchell.

The event took place in the hall next to St James' Parish Church, which the Brontës never saw, because it was built in 1872, though the font in which Charlotte, Branwell, Emily and Anne were baptised is in it, because it was moved from the Old Bell Chapel, where Patrick was the parson.

My theme was Patrick Brontë - Scientist. Using letters taken mainly from Dudley Green's excellent The Letters of the Reverend Patrick Brontë  (Nonsuch  ISBN 1 84588 066 8) the focus was on Patrick's clear, logical and well... scientific mind, or rather his scientific side. Letters were to the Leeds Intelligencer (which evolved into the Yorkshire Post), to its rival the Leeds Mercury and various others. I recalled my own small-time research into the history of the Leeds Festival Chorus which began in 1858, and which involved reading from microfilms of issues of both newspapers, which strained the eyes: print was tiny, pages packed, illustrations few.

My inevitable opener in Thornton was the letter to the Intelligencer about the eruption of Stanbury Bog (1824) followed by On the Muskets (1841) to the Times and Sir G. Murray and Patrick's detailed advice to the Marquis of Angelsey (1848) on how to make more effective naval mortars. These were followed by On Sulphuric Ether (Mercury 1847) and several others, with some historical context.

Andrew Mitchell performed between a series of impressive pop-up banners on which were several of his poems beautifully illustrated by Mary Kuper. These had been commissioned in 2009, when Andrew played his part in celebrations in Bradford for the Darwin Centenery. Most of the poems he read were taken from his Darwin A Voyage of Ideas. Some of the episodes and adventures of the famous voyage of the Beagle were recounted, and we were told about Darwin himself, his ailments and his belief in hydrotherapy, which led him to be treated in Ilkley with what seems to have been a kind of super-shower.

His titles were HMS Beagle's destinations. Each powerful poem was introduced with essential background information - for example about the native inhabitants of the shores of Tierra del Fuego, now split between Chile and Argentina, who have been wiped out by contact with European settlers. Four of them had been transported to Britain by Robert FitzRoy on the first voyage of the Beagle in 1830. Three of them (one died) were returned on the second voyage after a stay during which they had become celebrated curiosities. Andrew filled us in on the famous finches as well, before his poem Galapagos. We were given the backgound on those giant tortoises too: apparently they were/are delicious, and hundreds of them were taken on board ships by the British in the later years of the nineteenth century - to be eaten by hungry sailors.

Below, Angela Crow, Richard Wilcocks, Andrew Mitchell:

Elaine Showalter and Lucasta Miller

Boris Skilet writes:


To end activities on Saturday people assembled in the Baptist church in anticipation of hearing Elaine Showalter, professor emeritus at Princeton University- who is at the forefront of feminist literary criticism- in conversation with Lucasta Miller author of the erudite book The Brontë Myth. They discussed the enormous impact the Brontës have had on women’s writing from the nineteenth century to the present day.

It was interesting to hear- bearing in mind Southey’s advice to Charlotte that literature was not the business of a woman’s life- that Showalter said that in America, even in the nineteenth century American novels. Here dreamy, intelligent girls, verbally abused at home, fantasised about being rich and were sent away to school where they met devout and dutiful ‘Helen Burns’ like characters and orphans followed the trajectory of Jane Eyre. century, it would be inconceivable that anyone would ever think that the ‘Bells’ were men. After describing the battle between selfless femininity and artistic creativity- which resulted in the story of Louisa May Alcott’s own personal Civil War- the United States finally had a novel that rivalled Jane Eyre. The themes of the rebellious girl and the madwoman in the attic- who often was a metaphorical double for the heroine and the author- came together in many mid nineteenth century works.

Lucasta Miller described how, when she was supposed to be working on a thesis about Milton, she had a compulsion to read any books concerning the Brontes and her imagination was gripped by the story of their lives. Indeed she felt that the Brontes of Haworth themselves have become popular characters on a level with Jane Eyre, Rochester, Cathy and Heathcliff.

As usual questions were invited at the end of this interesting evening and the answer to one was that Anne Bronte has never been particularly popular in America and Lucasta Miller explained that her own book concentrates almost exclusively on the two eldest sisters at the expense of Anne.

I think that the majority of the audience there, if asked, would have ended the evening by agreeing with the Irish novelist George Moore who wrote- in the early years of the twentieth century- a glowing report on Anne and her novels. He said that she had all the qualities of Austen and if she had lived ten years longer she would have taken her place, possibly a higher one, with Austen. My opinion is that the jury- those present at the closing event on the second day of the Brontë weekend- would have most certainly delivered the verdict that her legacy was that she should not be judged as just the youngest Brontë but a major literary figure in her own right. 

Below, Elaine Showalter:

 

Lyndall Gordon on Emily Dickinson

Heidi Büchner writes: 

It was with the maximum interest that I was privileged to listen at the West Lane Baptist Church to Lyndall Gordon from St Hilda's College in Oxford on the Saturday of the Brontë Society's annual weekend in June, because she was speaking of her recent work on one of the greatest American poets Emily Dickinson, who can be profitably observed in parallel with the other Emily -  Brontë. In a space which is like a small theatre, she spoke of mystery and secrecy, at a time when the illness epilepsy was 'unmentionable' in families, like so many other items in the nineteenth century, but she was certain that Emily Dickinson was not the helpless creature who rejected the idea of living that popular myth maintains. Epilepsy, in fact, was considered as in the same box as syphilis, and related to insanity and female hysteria. The famous men who were afflicted were considered differently, to give examples Julius Caesar and the Prophet Mohammed.

Her retiring was a pose, and in real life she was energetically opinionated and a little sharp. The pose was so successful that the citizens of Amherst actually referred to her as 'the Myth'. She lived her life according to what she wanted. She was not an ordinary New England puritan. Even as a young student at Holyoke College she stood up to the authoritarian pressures from the principal, Mary Lyon, who wanted a strict and rigid acceptance of her view of Christianity, refusing to be 'saved'.

Emily was attracted to a scientific outlook, and Lyndall Gordon quoted:

"Faith" is a fine invention

When gentlemen can see -

But microscopes are prudent

In an emergency

She wanted to be clear and truthful, and rejected social chatter and formal piety, responding to The Soul's Superior instants.

Sickness appears in many places, especially when she was in her thirties, with mention of convulsions: I dropped down, and down. She might not have had a severe form, just suffering from a mild petit mal, but the epilepsy was in her family, so it could have been a genetic matter. Did cups and plates slip from her hands because of it or for another reason?

Lyndall Gordon knows she does not have final pieces of the evidence, but it was a reasonable gamble to claim the theory. She treated the questioning members of the audience with a friendly spirit, because she is not the sort of academic one is unable to approach.

Follow a Shadow

The glimpses continue, and will not necessarily appear in chronological order - and readers may have to wait for the reportage...



Robert Swindells was in conversation with Sally McDonald, Chair of Membership, on Saturday morning. He has twice won the Children's Book Award, as well as the Carnegie Medal for his novel Stone Cold. He was at the annual weekend to read from and to speak about Follow a Shadow, which was first published in 1989 and which has just been issued again by Five Leaves Publications.


He tried to retire recently, he told us, but it didn't work: he just sloped around the house for a couple of weeks before returning to writing, though he is touchy about 'returning to the circuit'. This means he is not sure whether he could stand the adulation of a myriad secondary school English teachers, who have over the years found that reading from his novels is just the thing "for a class of fourteen year-olds on a Wednesday afternoon" in the words of Sally McDonald, who met classes of fourteen year-olds in need of motivation when she was a secondary school teacher.


Follow a Shadow is about young Tim, who is studying Jane Eyre at school and who is taken to the Parsonage on a group visit. He bears a remarkable resemblance to Branwell, he discovers. In the novel, Swindells speculates on what Branwell did in London in 1835, when he was eighteen, when he was supposed to have sought admittance to the Royal Academy Schools as a student. No record exists in the Royal Academy archives of his ever having shown his specimen drawings there, and according to Juliet Barker, he didn't actually make the trip at all. She hadn't written that when Swindells was writing though, so we should fantasise that he did...


The audience fell about laughing when he read extracts. This stuff still works! It would work for modern secondary school students too, if English teachers were allowed to wander from the officially prescribed path and simply inculcate a love of reading and literature. 


ISBN 9 781905 512867

Annual Weekend - more glimpses

 Richard Wilcocks writes:

It was nearly ten o'clock, a warm dusk, when the turn of my group came for a very special performance. Hushed voices, the usual rooks arguing outside in the tops of graveyard trees, the clock in the church tower striking. We stood inside and outside Mr Brontë's study, taking turns, moving quickly between the piano solos and the songs. There sat Maya Irgalina, looking quite like Emily in the drawing, hair in a bun, and there stood Catherine McDonald, beaming at their guests.

Maya Irgalina had arrived in Haworth in the afternoon, having just completed a final examination - a Rachmaninov piece - at the Royal Northern College of Music where she is studying for a Postgraduate Diploma. Since winning first prize in the Pro-Piano Romania international piano competition (Bucharest 2003), she has performed in Belarus (her country of origin), Russia, Poland, Italy, France and Estonia as both soloist and accompanist. Catherine McDonald was once an Angrian with the Brontë Society, and now has an MA in Playwriting from the University of Birmingham. She is currently studying classical singing.

All the music was taken from the Brontës' music books which are now in the Library. Photocopies were used. The first item was Sonata in E flat op. 7 by Muzio Clementi, at the time of the Brontës often known as 'the father of the pianoforte', and it was just right, but possibly too difficult for Emily. Did she struggle with it? Maya didn't appear to, and we got the same professional sweet smile and bow after that as we did after the other items - Beethoven waltzes in F minor and in E flat major, and his Grand Waltz in A minor, then Handel's Harmonious Blacksmith. Catherine sang with great commitment and a fine sense of the dramatic - Ye Banks and Braes o' Bonnie Doon (which had great significance for Charlotte, Ann and Branwell, Charlotte using it as a narrative device in Shirley),  The Old Oak Tree and  My Mother Bids Me Bind My Hair.

Mahogany, ebony, iron, silk, ivory, skill, charm, beautiful sonority in combination... a wonderful and unforgettable experience.

Annual Weekend - more glimpses

Friday evening, the musical evening - later:

Parsonage Director Andrew Macarthy gave praise where it was due, to the people without whom the restoration of the piano would not have happened, and the first was American member Virginia Esson, "who had the dream of hearing it played and then did something about it". It was largely because of her great generosity that the work took place. Then there was the brilliant and remarkably modest Ken Forrest, who had devoted three years to the instrument, both in the Parsonage and in his workshop. Virginia Esson stepped forward to stand beside a slideshow, receive flowers and speak about how she was moved by the experience of hearing the instrument played, and then Council member Virginia Rushton spoke.

She took the audience briefly through the musical context, drawing on her extensive knowledge of the period. Branwell had begun taking music seriously in 1831, painstakingly writing out tunes, and the following year Charlotte had effectively given up playing. Patrick Brontë was passionately fond of oratorio, which in 1834 had led him into conflict with some of the members of the choir, but excerpts from Handel's Messiah played by the celebrated organist John Greenwood at the inauguration concert for the new organ at St Michael's Church, Haworth had made a big impact on the whole family - especially Branwell. Charlotte had written about this in My Angria and the Angrians. Sheet music had been bought, and you didn't do that lightly, with no intention of using it, because it was very expensive. Several chorus pieces and solos from Messiah are in the Parsonage library. Lessons with increasing levels of difficulty had taken place, conducted by the organist at Keighley Parish Church, Mr A S Sunderland.

On the screen was   John Green   Music Agent  33 Soho Square  London. "We don't know much about him," Ken Forrest said. "We are not sure if he made it or not, because it is likely that cabinet pianos were bought in, possibly from a firm called Black. We're not sure whether it was bought new or whether it was second-hand. There was quite a market in used pianos at the time.

Rapid advances in piano technology caused people to want to keep up to date, to get hold of the latest models. A typical price for a piano at the time was ninety guineas, but they were often sold at a discount. How did Patrick afford it when he never earned more than two hundred pounds a year? This one is top of the range as well, with brass mouldings. Had there been some kind of trade-in?"

He had searched for clues in many places, because when he had first examined it, he had seen "a kind of grey blanket", with many items missing (for example the dampers and the damper levers) or "disposed of". The adjective he used for the inside was "manky", and it was the right one, because the pictures on the screen showed what appeared to be an irreparable ornament, an artefact grossly neglected for many years and subjected to sporadic and insensitive attempts by unknown and cack-handed persons to get it to do something apart from just sit there against a wall.

Ken Forrest is very far from cack-handed: he had visited the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York in his search for clues, information on how things should be, but had found very little. "The rail which held the bottom levers was still there, along with some strips of felt, but we were hampered by the soot from a century of coal fires, and I had to wash my hands every time something was cleaned. The more I looked at it, the more I took things to bits. Few if any people know how cabinet pianos worked. Because of the lack of clues, I had to rebuild the action from scratch. I replaced the leather over the hammers, using chamois. Felt was used only in later years, so would not have been right."

We saw the before and after pictures, and gasped appropriately. Ken Forrest should be world famous for this! Now we wanted to hear it!

He was presented with a beautiful box, which he opened. Inside was this scale model.

References to Emily and Anne's abilities on the piano:

'...later on there was the addition of a Piano. Emily played with precision and brilliancy when she did play - which was not often if others than the family circle were within hearing. Anne played also but she preferred sweet harmonies - she sang a little - her voice was weak but very sweet in tone.'   (From Ellen Nussey's Reminiscences of Charlotte Brontë)

'The ability with which [Emily] took up music was amazing, the style, the touch and the expression was that of a Professor absorbed heart and soul in his theme.'  (Ellen Nussey, quoted in Clement Shorter's Charlotte Brontë and her Circle.]

'Miss Emily was learning the piano, receiving lessons from the best professor in Belgium, and she herself already had little pupils.' (M. Heger in a letter to Patrick Brontë, November 1842)

To be continued...