Review - We are Three Sisters

Photo by Nobby Clark

Richard Wilcocks writes:
Blake Morrison’s new play We are Three Sisters has opened at the Viaduct Theatre in Halifax’s Dean Clough, and will soon be touring – see the previous blog post for full details. It starts with a hymn, charmingly sung by the sisters and their brother, before the three young women make their way past gravestones to enter a  space with a dining table, where they sit at their little writing desks. Charlotte talks about the death of her mother (I remember them carrying the coffin out and the organ swirling from church and a handful of mourners, black as crows.) This, the audience might guess, is going to be another tale of woe. It is definitely not just that.

Humour is there in abundance, and funnily enough, it works. From what I remember of the last time I saw a production of Anton Chekhov’s Three Sisters, which was used as the template, there were a few titters and no belly-laughs, but Morrison is far from slavish: he dips into the Chekhovian pot to take what he needs, and manages to find some uncanny connections between the Prozorovs and the Brontës.  This has been done before – it is highly probable that Chekhov read a Brontë biography in Russian, and directors of his play have sometimes made Brontë references, but Morrison has created something which is new and remarkable. We are Three Sisters (title taken from what Charlotte said to publisher George Smith during her trip to London revealing that the surname was not Bell) is partly a work of homage to the great Russian, but also a work of homage to Juliet Barker, who advised the playwright, who must have dipped into The Brontës frequently.

Games are played with the chronology. Although the action is in early 1848, there is a bog-burst, and the curate is a version of William Weightman, who died in 1840. There is some witty interference with historical facts as well, which adds amusing artistic verisimilitude, for example when Mrs Robinson turns up at the Parsonage along with the lovestruck Branwell, and Charlotte and Anne come across them snogging.

All of the sisters are impressively presented to us: our disbelief is truly suspended. The pillar portrait hangs above the fireplace, and the sisters on stage bear a strong physical resemblance to Branwell’s depictions, especially Emily. Sophia di Martino seems to have studied the painting carefully while psyching herself into the part, fixing her mouth to match the one in the painting. She is forthright and challenging, furiously protecting her identity, a parallel for Masha, the quick-tempered one, though Masha is the victim of an early marriage, and this Emily’s husband is all in her imagination, a man who gets so close he could be part of her, she tells us. Di Martino is particularly compelling. Catherine Kinsella’s Charlotte is maternal and caring, just like Olya over there in the Russian backwater, and her reactions to the letters which arrive from London are a joy. Significant decisions are made in London, where there are so many beautiful sights and interesting people! Rebecca Hutchinson conveys the romanticism and fading naivety of Anne with great skill, especially in her encounters with the flirty curate, a general approximation for the lovesick Lieutenant-Colonel Vershinin, a character who is fond of expounding on the way the world is going, or should go, and who was played originally by Constantin Stanislavski himself. Anne is also addressed affectionately as a seagull by the doctor. A knowing wink from Morrison?

William Weightman was obviously a charmer, but his flirtations were within strict boundaries as far as we know, confined to smiles and Valentine cards. The curate here (Marc Parry) is also charming, but rather brash at times, sounding like someone with a social conscience in the twentieth century. He brings in the Chartists, who were, I suppose, well before their time. Morrison’s characterisation is perfectly logical, linking with the Year of Revolutions, and he does not push things too far by, say, mentioning Feargus O’Connor and mass demonstrations.

Patrick is sweet and bumbling, an excellent Ulster-accented performance from ex-comedian Duggie Brown, and Eileen O’Brien is simply brilliant as Tabby, the soul of Yorkshire, with a blunt manner which was very recognisable for this audience, and which raised the biggest laughs of the evening. Branwell (Gareth Cassidy) stamps around wonderfully, a spoilt puppy if ever there was one – like Andrei in the Chekhov, who brings in his love, the lower-class Natasha, to spoil the atmosphere and hound the servants.

Natasha in the Morrison is a startlingly vulgar Lydia Robinson. She is just a step or two away from Mrs Bucket, or even the Widow Twankey, but Becky Hindley pulls it off, stopping short of pantomime, truly hideous in a glaring green outfit (colour of bad luck for Chekhov) and providing a powerful contrast for the grey-clad and unfashionable sisters. She treats poor Tabby with utter contempt (A pot of tea would be nice. (To TABBY) Did you hear, tea? Don’t just stand there when I’m talking to you. Go on. Move.) Appalling!

Morrison has drafted in two characters taken from the historical records – the doctor, John Wheelhouse, and the teacher, Ebenezer Rand, well-known in Haworth in their time. Both give opportunities for memorable vignettes. They are side-characters, not all that much more than two-dimensional beings who bring the focus more strongly on to the three-dimensional principals, though the doctor (John Branwell) is given some depth, an ageing, cynical and materialistic wooer of Anne with a hipflask always at hand. He is, like the teacher, a complete Morrison invention, though he seems to come out of a Dickens novel.

Barrie Rutter is riveting as the even more Dickensian Teacher, who presses his self-published writing on everyone he converses with - true to the facts if you heard Ian Dewhirst speak during the June weekend about the many amateur – and seldom readable -  authors around in Haworth in Brontë times. This teacher is a real, Latin-quoting pedant, and I can say that I have met one just like him, larger than life, the sort of character you steer clear of at parties. The Teacher, or rather Barrie Rutter, shook my hand as I came into the theatre, along with most of the other members of the audience, because he is the director and this is Northern Broadsides, the acclaimed Northern Broadsides which gave us those terrific Wars of the Roses and which has worked with Blake Morrison before. It’s a company which stamps when others just walk, and I love that.

Chances are, this play will be around for a long time...

Book for Bonnie Greer

Afternoon Tea with Bonnie Greer and the Brontës is the title of an event which is part of the Ilkley Literature Festival. Tickets are shifting, I am told, so book yours now online here.


It takes place on Sunday 16 October at 3pm in St Margaret's Church Hall, Ilkley. Tickets are £7 - and are not available from the Parsonage. Try ringing the Ilkley box office at 01943 816714 to check availability.

Jane Eyre (2011) review

Richard Wilcocks writes:

Cary Fukunaga was obviously a tad nervous last Friday evening as he waited in the Parsonage garden, standing with dozens of others waiting for a tour of the house and an exclusive preview of his film, specially organised by the BBC. Presenter Christa Ackroyd soon put him at his ease with professional skill, planting him on a bench amongst the shrubs and asking him questions for BBC Look North. So why make another Jane Eyre movie after all those others? What’s different? This one’s such a contrast with what you’ve done before isn’t it? Your second big one? He explained everything, as he has many times before, mainly on the other side of the Atlantic, with a boyish charm and an endearing directness, but there was something extra in his voice – here he was talking to a woman who knew her stuff, at the celebrated spring, where Charlotte had actually penned the original. “I might not survive the night!” he said at the end of the interview.

He did, no problem: the overwhelming feeling from the audience in the Baptist Chapel in Haworth’s West Lane (the only local building suitable for the screening), judging from the applause and from many comments, was of approval. 

The film takes liberties, as it must, but it is loaded with respect for the original text. The adjective ‘faithful’ tends to be over-employed in these matters, but faithful it is, to the spirit of the novel. Some previous versions for the cinema have been the sort of thing to give headaches to those described as ‘purists’, for example the 1918 silent version entitled Woman and Wife in which Rochester believes that Bertha is dead until he is told the truth by Mason, who tries to blackmail him. She then drowns. Fukunaga’s version could just be considered as a very distant relative of the early versions – with spectral figures emerging from gloom – but the plot is reasonably in line with what Charlotte wrote, with a highly competent screenplay by Moira Buffini. 

Fukunaga says he was unaware of all other adaptations until the research period, but that he knew the Robert Stevenson/Orson Welles version well. There are a few similarities perhaps, for example in the sheer malignity of Mr Brocklehurst, but many differences: the fresh, feisty nineteen year-old Mia Wasikowska of 2011 contrasts drastically with the romantically tremulous Joan Fontaine of 1943.

Viewers who have read the book might be a little disorientated at the beginning, because the film begins with Jane’s distraught flight from Thornfield and her progress across bleak moorland until she finds refuge with St John Rivers and his sisters. The flashbacks follow – with brief but telling film space given to Lowood, though the childhood scenes were, as usual in most adaptations, sacrificed for the romance. It was clever to adopt the non-linear approach because it allows interest to be maintained right up until the end, enhances the suspense, puts St John in a significant position and “allows all the scenes to be peppered over the movie to keep them watching” in Fukunaga’s words. The director was worried about Charlotte’s final chapter, which he thought was “the weakest”. The ending he provides is appropriately brief and cameo-like, Rochester and Jane under a tree at Ferndean. All of which could be compared favourably with the previous BBC version of 2006, the very watchable television series with Ruth Wilson and Toby Stevens. This also began with disorientation – a young girl in a red flowing robe in a desert – and practically dumped the Lowood scenes, making little use of an excellent child actor – Georgie Henley.

Fukunaga’s Lowood (and, of course, Moira Buffini’s) is a convincing nightmare of physical and mental abuse, presided over by a quietly sinister, distinctly sadistic Brocklehurst (Simon McBurney) where the relationship of Helen Burns (Freya Parks) with the young Jane ( spirited performance from Amelia Clarkson) is treated sensitively. Craig Roberts’s John Reed is a credible bullying brat, and Mrs Reed (Sally Hawkins made me shudder) chipped out of a block of ice. Jayne Wisener’s Bessie is much younger and prettier than the one I had in my head, Valentina Cervi’s Bertha Mason likewise – she is no neglected horror, just a little dishevelled. Richard Mason in the form of Harry Lloyd looks way behind Rochester in years. In fact youthful looks are quite a feature, or perhaps that is just me, having formed my mental visualisations quite a few years ago.

Mia Wasikowska was an inspired choice for Jane, and Fukunaga was lucky to find the young Australian, because she catches the character’s sense of independence, quick wit, restraint and passionate intensity better than most of her predecessors. Plain she is not – at times she looks as if she has stepped out of a painting by Millais. She conveys Jane’s capacity for mental fight and her gradually emerging love with considerable subtlety, and the crisp exchanges with Rochester, intelligently selected from the original by Moira Buffini, are a delight. Her Yorkshire accent is well...nearly right, but this should not be noticed by many from outside the area. Michael Fassbender’s Rochester has just the right squire-like air about him, and does not reveal much sensitivity until he unlatches himself later – all very satisfying and... faithful. In fact, he is strikingly curt and unpleasant at first, taunting the new governess about tales of woe, when he still sees her as one of a species. The story of how his coarseness is refined by the girl from the class beneath him is beautifully told, and many hearts will race at their final togetherness. Jamie Bell’s dogmatic  St John is also convincing, and Jane must have been simply polite to have told him she wanted him as a brother rather than as a husband, because this one is only a few steps away from Brocklehurst in his enthusiastic religiosity, a kind of non-violent and less-punitive cousin.

One of the most memorable (superb as usual) performances is from Dame Judi Dench as Mrs Fairfax, who has an undebatably perfect Yorkshire accent. The character here claims not to have known about the locked-up woman being Rochester’s wife, but then who was it that warned Mason? A wide-eyed Romy Settbon Moore plays Adele Varens just as I picture her, although she could have picked up a few more words of English to prove that her teacher was effective at TEFL.

Haddon Hall in Derbyshire makes another appearance as Thornfield, and the desolate Derbyshire moors of the Peak District are crucial for the film’s atmosphere, all those greys, etiolated yellows and apocalyptic skies straight out of John Martin paintings boxed up by cinematographer Adriano Goldman, to go with Dario Marianelli’s terrific musical score. I recognised the stunning view from Stanage Edge, just outside Sheffield, where I once climbed. The darknesses in the film provide a realistic period feel. The result is reminiscent of Kubrick’s classic Barry Lyndon, in which lights and music are also exquisitely matched.  Few households of the early nineteenth century could afford constant lighting. Candles, especially those made from beeswax, were expensive.  The light in Thornfield seems to come from the windows during the day, and from candles or the fireplace at night. The scene where Jane arrives at Thornfield to encounter Mrs Fairfax takes place in deep, authentic gloom, with a floating candle flame as the only guide.

The film is in cinemas nationally in a few days’ time and should be as much of a success in Britain as in the States. Hopefully, it will also bring more visitors to the Parsonage Museum.

Jane Eyre movie - Focus Features

The link to BBC Look North seems to have expired..

This one still works - it's 'everything you might want to know' about the film.


http://focusfeatures.com/jane_eyre/articles

Jane Eyre screening in Haworth

We watched it yesterday evening - and met Cary Fukunaga the director, who travelled to Haworth specially. A full report and review will appear on this blog very soon.

In the meantime, here is the BBC Look North report, which won't be available for long:


http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01407q2/Look_North_(Yorkshire)_02_09_2011/

The Brontës and the Bible - Conference Report

Maddalena De Leo writes:

The Brontë Society Conference was held this year at Homerton College, Cambridge from Friday 26 to Sunday 28 August. Its theme was the Bible and its formative effect on the language and religion of the Brontë family. This was particularly appropriate as 2011 marks the four hundredth anniversary of the promulgation of the King James Bible, the book which above all others the young Brontës would have known by heart.

The talks were opened on Friday afternoon by two famous Brontë scholars  - Tom Winnifrith and Christine Alexander - and concerned Patrick Brontë and his daughters before they began to write their novels. On Saturday morning there was a delightful Jane Eyre panel with no break for questions until the discussion period and then lunchtime talks on The Professor and Villette, finishing with Anne Brontë. The highlight was Dr. Marianne Thormahlen’s talk on Anne and her Bible.

On Sunday Emily Brontë was the subject of Michael O’Neill’s brilliant lecture: he concluded the conference speaking about her ‘visionary religion’. Unfortunately another important Brontë scholar, Dr Brian Wilkes, was not present among us due to serious health problems. In addition to the well-known speakers from all over the world, this year for the first time the Brontë Society included some young PhD students, who lectured on the chosen topic with competence and skill.

The conference venue, carefully chosen by our organizer Sarah Fermi, was the beautiful campus of Homerton College with its amenities and easy access to the centre of Cambridge. Two special treats were also arranged by her for the more than one hundred delegates present. On Friday evening Professor Donald Burrows, the renowed Hándel expert, talked about the Bible and Hándel’s Messiah also playing some short extracts on the piano. The other treat took place after the grand silver-service dinner in the magnificent Great Hall of Homerton College on Saturday when special guest Patrick Wildgust, the Curator of Lawrence Sterne’s Shandy Hall, compared the sermons of Sterne with the two known published ones of Patrick Brontë.

      

During the conference I took many photographs and made many videos, which will appear on Youtube in the near future. I also will compile a DVD of the whole Conference which I’ll donate to the Brontë Society. In conclusion I can say that this great Brontë religious and cultural weekend in Cambridge was for me another important occasion to meet old and new Society friends with whom to share once again a wonderful Brontë-related experience.

Below: Conference Delegates, Maddalena De Leo with Brontë Society Chair Sally McDonald, Christine Alexander:

We are Three Sisters

News release from Northern Broadsides:

We are Three Sisters: a new play by Blake Morrison

Against the backdrop of a dark, remote northern town, three remarkable young women live their lives brightly. Haworth1840’s;  in a gloomy parsonage where there are neither curtains nor comforts, Charlotte, Anne and Emily Brontë light up their world with outspoken wit, aspirations, dreams and ideas. And throughout their confined lives intensely lived…. they write. Anyone who has read a Brontë novel cannot fail to be stirred by their overwhelming humanity, charged emotion and brooding, prescient unease with the status quo. Now come to know the voices behind them. With exquisitely drawn characterizations, a nod to Chekhov and a touch of poetic license, We Are Three Sisters is a pearl of a play which evokes with piercing clarity the life and distinct personalities of these three spirited individuals. (Review is in the post for 15 September) Tour Dates and Venues: 9 – 17 September: The Viaduct Theatre, Dean Clough, Halifax 20 – 24 September: The Lowry, Salford 27 Sept – 1 Oct: The Dukes, Lancaster 4 – 8 Oct: The Tobacco Factory, Bristol 11 – 15 Oct: The Lighthouse, Poole 18 – 22 Oct: Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough 25 – 29 Oct: The Georgian Theatre Royal, Richmond 2 – 5 Nov: Lawrence Batley Theatre, Huddersfield 8 – 12 Nov: New Vic Theatre, Newcastle under Lyme 15 – 19 Nov: The Rose, Kingston 22 – 26 Nov: York Theatre Royal

Summer fun

News release from the Parsonage:

There’s a packed programme of activities for visitors to the Parsonage this summer holiday. Throughout August the museum will be offering a varied programme of free activities for all - whether an avid Brontë fan, casual visitor, or a family on a day out - there will be something of interest for everyone.

My favourite Object!  The Parsonage contains so many wonderful objects and manuscripts it’s hard to pick a favourite, but that’s what the staff and volunteers have had to do for this series of five minute talks. Every weekday at 2.00pm you can come and listen to one of them telling the stories behind some of the most intriguing items we have in our collection, from the huge brass dog collar to a pair of Brontë stockings!

Talks and Walks  Listen to an informal talk about the fascinating lives of the Bronte family and then join a short guided walk around Haworth and explore what Haworth was really like in their day.  Discover why Patrick fired a pistol from his bedroom window every morning, and how the Reverend William Grimshaw forced reluctant parishioners into church on a Sunday. Every Tuesday in August.

Wild Wednesdays!  Discover a different activity every Wednesday throughout August.

Wednesday August 3^rd Join poet Anne Caldwell in creating a writing trail inside and outside the Parsonage on the theme of ‘Wild’ and ‘Tame’.

Wednesday August 10th Make your own wallet inspired by Branwell’s very own,  out of recycled materials with local artist Rachel Lee.

Wednesday August 17th Storyteller Christine McMahon weave magic in the museum as she tells traditional northern folk tales.

Wednesday August 24^th Come along and sit in a special silhouette chair and have your portrait created by artist Simon Warner; better still, have a go yourself and immortalise your  friends and family!

Wednesday 31^st August  Create some beautiful rubbings from a tree planted by Charlotte, carved with intricate illustrations from the Brontë  childhood Tales of the Islanders’.

All events are free with usual admission charge to the museum. Please check the website for full details of events and admission charges – www.bronte.info

Following the busy summer period, the museum will be hosting its second Brontë Festival of Women’s Writing from 16-18 September. The weekend features talks, readings, workshops and family activities all celebrating and showcasing women’s writing. Speakers include novelist Barbara Trapido and Moira Buffini, screenwriter for the new film version of Jane Eyre, which is released in September. The full programme will be released very shortly, and you can sign up to our mailing list to receive the full programme as soon as it is available: jenna.holmes@bronte.org.uk / 01535 640188.

Thanks for the donations

Isobel Stirk writes:

It gave me great pleasure to welcome members of the Brontë Society to St Andrew’s, Kildwick – a church I have been connected with since childhood.

I wish to thank, most sincerely, fellow members of the Society for the many very generous donations which were left in the church or have been forwarded on to me later. Each one is very gratefully received and will be put towards the upkeep of this Grade 1 listed building.

If anyone is in the area again please get in touch.

Behind the scenes at the Parsonage

News release:

The Parsonage will be opening its doors for a series of very special ‘behind the scenes’ tours on Wednesday 22 June and Tuesday 26 July, 7.00pm. Each evening will include a guided tour of the museum, a visit to the museum’s Library and a special opportunity to see some of the treasures of the museum’s collection at close quarters and new acquisitions. Wine and canapés will also be served.

The museum is not able to offer guided tours during normal opening hours due to limited space, and its Library, which was part of a Victorian extension added on to the Brontë house in the 1870s, is usually open only by special appointment for research purposes. The Parsonage Museum, which houses the world’s largest collection of Brontë manuscripts, letters and artefacts, is able to display only around ten percent of its collections and the special tours will provide an opportunity for people to see some of the rarely seen treasures of the collection. There will also be the chance to find out more about the history of the Museum’s collection and how it is cared for and to see some of the most recent acquisitions.

I’m sure these special evenings will be extremely popular. The guided tour will give people a wonderful insight into life at the Parsonage in the Brontës’ time and the chance to see the Museum’s unique Library and some of the wonderful Brontë treasures it contains. It’s a very special experience indeed. Along with wine and canapés, it will all make for a delightful evening.

Andrew McCarthy

Director, Brontë Parsonage Museum

Bookings will be taken on a first come, first served basis and can be made for Wednesday 22 June or Tuesday 26 July, 7.00pm. Tickets are £16 each. 

To book, please contact Sonia Boocock, Brontë Parsonage Museum, 01535 640192/

sonia.boocock@bronte.org.uk

Return to Haworth II

Helen MacEwan writes: 

There are many delights to sample over the annual Brontë Society weekend in Haworth apart from the hearty Yorkshire fare in its pubs.

There is the opportunity to meet other members. They come from all over the world but the Society’s heart is in Haworth and the Parsonage Museum. Members include local people with a stock of anecdotes from their years in one of Britain’s oldest literary society as well as encyclopaedic knowledge of every place in Yorkshire ever visited by a Brontë or used in one of their novels (over the weekend we had a private viewing of Ponden Hall, supposedly the model for Wuthering Heights, and a visit to Gawthorpe Hall whose owner introduced Charlotte Brontë to Mrs Gaskell). Some of these Yorkshire members even have links to families who were associated with the Brontës. Thus they form a living link stretching right back to the Brontës themselves.

There are the local researchers like Keighley archivist Ian Dewhirst who spoke about the grimness of working-class life in Haworth in the 1840s with wit and passion, conveying to us the immediacy with which the period can be experienced through the mis-spelt letters of farmers and mill workers of the time. Again, a local enthusiast acting as a living link between us and the past.

There is traditional entertainment such as that provided by the Haworth light opera group, which included one of the monologues performed in 1930s music halls by the comedian Stanley Holloway, recited in a broad Lancashire accent challenging for members from outside the British Isles!

There are the traditional, time-honoured rites of the Brontë Society, such as the annual service for its members in the church where Patrick Brontë preached for over 40 years and the cream tea always partaken of outdoors unless it’s raining too hard.

But the Society isn’t just about the past and tradition. The Museum runs an arts programme with talks and exhibitions by contemporary writers and artists. This year we listened to novelist Sally Vickers (Miss Garnet’s Angel) talking about her work and how the Brontës have influenced it. At the prize-giving for the Society’s literary competition, the winners included many young writers. The winner of the poetry section has just published her first book of poems.

And from this year the Society has a new President. The writer Bonnie Greer is from Chicago, although she has lived in Britain for decades. This was her first AGM and she was delighted to be invited to lead the Society, mingled affably with members and gave us a stirring speech about the need to work to preserve literary societies and museums for future generations.

(This report also appears on the Brussels Brontë Blog)

Below, Gawthorpe Hall:

Return to Haworth I

Renate Hurtmanns writes:
After the outstanding AGM of 2010 (a first for me), I felt happily excited when the bus dropped me off in Haworth in the afternoon of 3 June.

Less focused on lectures this time, we had nevertheless a highly enjoyable weekend full of variety again and also extremely amusing in different ways: a great evening of light entertainment provided by Haworth’s Gilbert and Sullivan group (among others a funny and very special version of “Cinderella”), but above anything else the Brontë spoof Withering Looks by Britain’s most famous literary lunatics Maggie Fox and Sue Riding – extremely inventive and utterly hilarious!

We also had lots of fun around the usual dinner at the Old White Lion on Sunday evening - pitting our Brontë brains against everyone else while trying to find the correct answers to Judith Bland’s 60 questions out of the Brontë books and lives.

But the real highlight for me was our walk on Sunday morning to Ponden Hall, often cited as the model for the Lintons’ home Thrushcross Grange– although none of the sisters left evidence of making such a link themselves. In part this opinion is due to its location, on the way up to the moors, in part to the fact that there were so few larger houses in this area.

Actually, Ponden Hall corresponds in some measure to the description of Wuthering Heights given by Emily and seems thus far more identifiable with Heathcliff’s home - being less grand and more humble than Thrushcross Grange as described in the novel. The date plaque above the main entrance, by the way, identifies the rebuilt house as dating from 1801 - the date that begins the story in Wuthering Heights.

Emily Brontë’s association with the Heaton family at Ponden is well documented: one of the Heatons served as a churchwarden to Patrick and it is known that she used the library which was reputedly the finest in West Yorkshire. Branwell Brontë was also a frequent visitor to Ponden where he attended pre-hunting gatherings.

As soon as I entered the large hall - realising that this was Wuthering Heights as I had imagined it – I had a kind of vision, i.e. Heathcliff standing by the fireplace when Mr Lockwood came in and asked for shelter from the snow-storm outside … And a second one in the master bedroom overlooking the valley beyond, where a tiny single-paned window in the east gable - underneath which a box bed, as in Wuthering Heights, was once standing but has sadly disappeared - is said to be the one where Cathy’s ghost knocked at the glass. I closed my eyes one second and could nearly hear her voice pleading: “Let me in, let me in”….

I didn’t take photos – unfortunately for those who read these lines, but not for me because for me the best souvenirs are those that you keep in your heart. And this I will – forever !

Now that I am back home again I feel like Emily when she was away from Haworth – nostalgic and missing the Moors already, their stillness, their grandeur and beauty and I can’t wait to go back to them!

(This report also appears on the Brussels Brontë Blog)


Below, Ponden Hall: 

A memorable excursion

Chris Went writes:

Our annual excursion this year focused on places associated with two very different periods in Charlotte’s life.  In the morning we travelled to Lothersdale where, in the summer of 1839, Charlotte was a governess with the Sidgwick family of Stonegappe.  The house is not accessible and almost impossible to see from the road (the photograph below was taken from a public footpath), but we were able to appreciate its exceptionally beautiful setting which is probably little changed since the nineteenth century.  Christ Church,  Lothersdale, built in an attempt to counteract the influence of Methodism,  was consecrated late in 1838.  Although it was funded by the Sidgwicks, they attended Kildwick Church, and Charlotte would have accompanied them there.

In the church at Kildwick, we were welcomed by Isobel Stirk and the ladies of the parish who provided tea, coffee and biscuits. Isobel gave a short talk which dealt comprehensively with the history of the church, which was known as 'Lang Kirk', and she was followed by Angela Crow and Richard Wilcocks.  Angela read extracts from the letters Charlotte wrote during her employment with the Sidgwicks, alternating with a monologue written by Richard and performed by him in role as John Benson Sidgwick.  Drawing on original sources and research into the attitudes of the time, this was a cleverly constructed ‘recollection’ of a rather unsatisfactory governess.  We had plenty of time to explore the church and its surroundings, and were treated to a most sumptuous and memorable buffet lunch by the parish ladies. While we were eating, Michael Murphy, former organist at Kildwick, played music associated with the Brontës which included pieces by the Irish composer John Field, the originator of the piano nocturne.

The second half of the day’s programme consisted of a tour of Gawthorpe Hall near Burnley, the former home of Sir James Kay-Shuttleworth.  Sir James, something of a self-made man, collected celebrities.  Although Charlotte disliked him, and was quite scathing about his wife, Lady Janet, she was manoeuvred into visiting Gawthorpe Hall in the spring of 1850, and again in January, 1855 with her husband.  The house was subjected to major renovations by Sir James but, with a few exceptions, it is much as Charlotte knew it.  We were conducted around the house in three parties, and were also able to have a glimpse of the impressive textile exhibition mounted by Bolton Progressive Threads.

The weather was kinder to us than we might have expected, the day finishing in sunshine.  Charlotte may have disliked her time at Lothersdale, and may have found her visits to Gawthorpe Hall a trial, but we enjoyed ourselves very much and were greatly appreciative of all the people who went to so much trouble to make our day memorable. 

Below, Stonegappe:

   

A feast of music

Isobel Stirk writes about the concert in St Michael and All Angels Church, Haworth on 5 June:

Outside, a rather cold wind and black clouds - in a darkened sky way out towards Top Withins - did not encourage anyone to linger as they made their way to the church. Inside all was bright and cheerful as the audience perused their programmes and looked forward to a veritable feast of music.  

This included the first public performance of a setting by composer Robin Terry, whose music has been performed in many countries, of Ian Emberson’s Brontë-related poems - Mourning Ring. Michael Templeton, a baritone soloist with Steeton Male Voice Choir, accompanied by Robin, sang four songs very movingly. The theme of Jane Eyre was very much to the fore: one song featured the time when Jane realised she could not marry Edward Rochester, another when she wandered lost and alone over the moors, in another there was a reference to the shipwreck in Villette.

Someone who has delighted many a Brontë audience - Society member Alan Graham - showed, once again, what a talented pianist he is. He transported us back to the Warsaw of the early 1800s with the music of Maria Szymanowska. We heard pieces by Clara Schumann who had a galaxy of experience within her long life. Champion of her husband’s work, she outlived many of her children and, although carer of grandchildren and her dying husband, achieved so much. Alan played, with feeling, a Song for the Pianoforte by Fanny Mendelssohn, talented sister of Felix. A contemporary of the Brontës, Fanny shared her sibling’s passion for music. Like the sisters, she died at a young age in 1847.

Having managed to master only Greensleeves on the recorder, and not very well,  I had looked forward with anticipation to hearing solo pieces played on that instrument by Laura Justice and I was certainly not disappointed. It was a bonus to have Robin Walker, the composer of the first piece, explain a little about A Rune for St Mary’s. He asked us to think of a rune as something indescribable, a letter from an unknown alphabet.  Listening to the haunting sounds which Laura produced, it was easy to imagine being on the moors high above Todmorden , the setting for the piece, and it seemed as if the wind which always blows around the lonely place could actually be heard. 

I had been in the church earlier when a group of enthusiastic Japanese tourists were looking around. What a pity their visit was not a couple of hours later, because they may very well have been familiar with Ryohei Hirose, the composer of the modern Japanese piece. The sounds Laura produced in her interpretation were incredible. Closing my eyes at one point it almost seemed as if I was listening to a violin.

This wonderful concert had been meticulously planned by Ian and had, I am sure, been enjoyed by everyone present. It ended with a setting, by John Ireland, of Masefield’s great poem Sea-Fever. This was sung with great gusto by Michael Templeton.

Leaving the church the leaves on the trees lining Church Street were still showing their backs, the wind was still whistling among the gravestones and the black clouds were getting ominously nearer- but it did not matter. We had, for a short time, been taken to an almost magical place- for isn’t that where Ian’s poems and artwork always lead? However don’t take my word for that- go to his website and read his E book The Zig Zag Path. You have a treat in store.

Encyclopedic and entertaining

Richard Wilcocks writes:
The encyclopedic and extraordinarily entertaining Ian Dewhirst MBE gave the Saturday morning talk. He is far from being a romantic, and keen on facts, most of them the product of his own extensive research at a local level. Equipped with a well-thumbed collection of notes and extracts, he put the Brontës in the context of a Haworth which was often malodorous, where many were poverty-stricken in a way which is often nowadays linked to 'the developing world' and where people usually died long before before their three score years and ten arrived. Children were lucky to reach the age of five. The doctor (and what did he know anyway?) was called as a last resort, if at all, so perhaps Emily's refusal to see one as the consumption took a final hold of her on the couch was not that unusual or remarkable.


He covered well-trodden ground to some extent, but introduced a series of interesting anecdotes and snippets which made this talk more than a sociological excursion through dry statistics and cold statements. For example, in his search for original sources he has browsed through the record books and crumbling ledgers of old mills, the ones that remain that is, because many of them were pulped during the Second World War as part of a government plan to produce more paper, and found all those small things which connect us to real, 'ordinary' people.


He read from letters which were often full of misspellings and without any punctuation, and also from poems: apparently Haworth was packed with people writing in their spare time, and the Brontës must have read at least some of their efforts, the quality of which ranged from the extraordinary to the awful. He found one poem by a local man which was no less than three hundred pages long, but not up to Brontë standards: he got as far as page two.

Mingling on Friday

The first evening of the Annual Weekend. Warm and sunny.

After the talk by novelist Sally Vickers, members mingled. "Haven't see you for a while," was the commonest opening line, of course.  Bonnie Greer mingled too: "It's such a great honour to be President of the Brontë Society, something I could never have imagined when I was a child. I hope I can continue to be a part of the great work."

"It's fantastic to have Bonnie," said Society Chair Sally McDonald. "In fact it's quite extraordinary."

"I'm looking forward to presenting the prizes with Bonnie for the Brontë Society Literary Competion. We had over a hundred entries, and the quality was very good," said Sarah Fermi.

"I love just being here in Haworth. I arrived yesterday and was soon walking on the moors. All the tensions in my life disappear when I do that," said Judith Watkins from Toronto.

"I enjoyed the talk by Sally Vickers about her new novel, and now I'm enjoying meeting people with different opinions on the same theme," said Nigel Nicholl from Pontefract.

"Haworth is so beautiful. This is my first visit to the village and to the Parsonage. All the people are very nice," said Jorge de Britto from Brussels.

"I am looking forward to the poetry - my contribution - of course. The company is always good here!" said Ian Emberson.